In the Role of Recruiter/Fund-raiser:

Years ago, I read about pastors, that they are like generals leading their troops into battle, while at the same time caring for the wounded. In a lifetime of pastoring I definitely found that to be true. Now that I find myself in this temporary missionary role of leadership in a small university, I find this image to be even more true. The people I work with, work hard. No one is going to get rich doing this, and since missionary-types tend to be strong-willed folk (they wouldn't come or stay if they weren't) sometimes personnel are wounded by "friendly-fire" as well as the arrows of the enemy. And, make no mistake, we have not lacked the "firey darts of the wicked-one."
In bigger institutions the roles are divided among various people. I don't want to give you the impression that I'm in this alone. I'm not. I have fine colleages. I just spent half-an-hour talking with one. But I definitely can't afford myself the luxury of just doing one thing. To go back to the image with which I started, I'm not only leader and medic, I also need to serve as recruiter. (Thankfully, a capable volunteer is helping a great
deal in this task.)
It is in that third role that I write today. Actually, to be more accurate, I write as fund-raiser--yet another role. In this case the fund-raiser and recruiter are closely related. You'll see what I mean.

The young people we work with at PIU tend to come to us with a great many problems. Many come from families that don't really work the way God intends families to function. Most come from poor educational backgrounds. Some bring problems that I shouldn't and won't talk about here. Our Student Development Department is absolutely key in our goal of offering a transformative
educational experience. We don't want to only turn out smart capable graduates, we want them to be emotionally and spiritually healthy. We want to infect Micronesia, and whereever our students go, with vital, flourishing Christian lives and families. We are refining salt, to make it saltier.

Stay with me, I'm going to loop back around.
Let me introduce you to Meleah Faith Tavarez. As I write from this side of the world, little Meleah is in a hospital Columbia South Carolina. The short explanation is that she was born with cysts in one of her lungs. The surgeon just removed one lobe of one lung to deal with that. We have good reason to believe that little Meleah will soon be playing with her siblings and that she will live a healthy and long life. Obviously, we appreciate you praying for her.

Meleah's mom and dad, Danielle and Alex, want to be our new Student Development team leaders. I'll share a website in a moment where you can find out more about them, but let me simply say, right now, that we need the Tavarezes on our campus at PIU, as soon as possible. More than that, if you care about pushing back the barriers of darkness in this world, You want Alex and Dani, and their kids here, working with the students at PIU. Because of our size, PIU cannot afford to simply pay all of the personnel we need to accomplish our task. A number of our personnel, like Kathy and me, serve here with a team of supporters behind us. THANK YOU! I'm writing this to encourage you to become a part of the Tavarez's team. While we need and want the Tavarez family to be here until little Faith graduates and beyond, right now my focus is on the 2017-18 school year.
We want to get Alex and Dani here as soon the medical team gives them the go ahead. In order to do that we need to get their support package completed.  The Tavarez family is receiving part of their compensation as a salary/housing package from PIU. The rest will come from mission support through Liebenzell Mission, USA (the mission with which Kathy and I serve).
To complete their support package the Tavarezes need an additional $1000/month. That's 10 units of $100/each for 12 months, or 120 units for 2017-18 (Dani and Alex need to be here this summer).

If  Dani and Alex had all their support provided today, they still couldn't buy tickets for Guam. We have told them that their main focus needs to be Meleah's health. They can't leave until the Medical team gives them a thumbs up. What I want to do is to make sure that when they do get that go-ahead that they can go ahead.
Would you do this, go to the archive of the Tavarez's newsletters, and get to know them better? You will see a link at the bottom of their newsletters that will take you to a page where you can give to their account electronically. You will also find that information on the LMUSA "Give" page. You will also find informationt there about giving by check or automatic withdrawal from your bank account. The Tavarezes also have Facebook pages with lots of pictures, here & here.

If you feel so led, go ahead and send your support to the Tavarez's fund, but what I'm asking you to do is a modification of Paul's instructions to the saints in Corinth: "On whatever day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that the collection will already be made when the go ahead comes. When I give the word, send your gift through those already approved, LMUSA. We'll send them with letters of rejoicing accompanying  your gift to the ministry in Micronesia" (from 1 Cor. 16:2-3, with apologies to the Apostle Paul).

If you have a question, or just want to talk, you can reach me at hmerrell@piu.edu, or via Skype at howard.merrell.

Announcing the February 17 Edition of The Tide's Currents:

One of the bigger tasks that came to me during my first weeks here at PIU was the publication of PIU's biggest regular communication, The Tide's Currents. I think this is only the third time we have published this 8-page magazine-like letter. We didn't want it to die. We are currently functioning without a person to lead our Advancement Department (part of advancement is what we used to call "public relations"), so the flow of the Tide's Currents was pretty well in my hands.
This most recent publication is definitely a team effort. Thanks to Billy Edwin for most of the pictures, and to Hartmut Scherer for taking on the task of trying to take a good picture of me. Joshua Combs, did some of the writing, and the bulk of the layout. Dot Houde assisted with editing. Scott Refilong helped with compiling information and gave valuable input all along the process. Finally (well not really, because I'm sure I have forgotten someone) Mary Lou Caruthers, our campus Computer Psychologist, digitized the thing so I could put it in this link.