Pictures from last days, not The Last Days. :)

A few pictures for our last days here.  I may comment later.

Finishing up:

The last few days have been a switch in focus for Kathy and me.
Billy Edwin, the staff member, here, who is holding things together as far as maintenance decided to take me up on my offer to help.  A bathroom vanity in one of the units used by staff had basically disintegrated--chipboard doesn't fare well in this climate.  We salvaged the front of the unit, oak, and I was able to make the sides bottom, etc. out of some material that was on hand.  When we were getting ready to install the vanity we checked out a plumbing problem.  The cold water hadn't been working in the bathroom sink.  A bit of backtracking & I found that a pipe had been broken off in the past & just capped off.  Why?  I have no idea.  Anyhow, we got that fixed.
After getting the bathroom operational, I looked into a four tube fluorescent fixture that worked intermittently, and never worked right.  With some help via the internet and a couple trips to Home Depot we were able to get it converted from using T12 tubes to T8--more efficient.  It works great now.  The lady of the house was pleased.
We also tracked down an issue with an outlet.  Mostly looking, figuring, checking, isolating.  We tracked down the issue and got it operational.

We have three units on campus that are converted cargo containers.  That is pretty common here, since they are typhoon rated.  The oldest is used for housing for ladies.  Kathy has been up to her eyeballs in swamping out, cleaning and painting there.  Tonight we head to the baccalaureate service.  Tomorrow we help set up for graduation and attend that ceremony.

I gave my class their final today, and attended a faculty meeting.

We fly on Monday.    

Theo 200 class.  The smiles are probably because they are done.  I hope they all passed.

Front,:Robert Choi, Yumiko Linny, Mary Jane Edwin, Back:  Lian Stae, Jordan Charley, Jordan Darrow--at first I called them Jordan with a hat and Jordan without a hat, but then Jordan without a hat started wearing one--a Yankees' hat, no less--me, Cedric Hollowell, and Jele' (Jele' is only part of his first name)  Binejal.  1st languages in the group.  Chuukese, Korean, Marshallese, Pohnpeian, Palauan, & English.

I'll miss you guys! 

Shopping and decorating for Jesus--hard work, but Kathy did it well.

Shopping for Jesus.
That's been part of Kathy's ministry while she has been here at PIU on Guam.
Liebenzell Germany has sectioned off part of a house they own, here on campus, to be a guest apartment for visiting personnel--primarily teachers.  They provided most of the resources for the project.  Kathy and Joyce Owen, the President's wife, and staff member here, had the task of doing all the finishing up.  Which included a lot of shopping.  :)
The unit is fully furnished with a complete kitchen.  The new cabinets and appliances were here before we arrived.  Joyce and Kathy, scrounged, visited thrift shops and other stores to get it outfitted.  A very important piece of equipment--a coffee-maker was donated.  A lady won it as a prize & didn't need it.

As those of you who know me, Howard, know, when it comes to decorating, I have no opinion.  I do like the end result, though.


There is one more room in the apartment.  It has a desk shelves & futon.  It still had some extra stuff in it on the day we took pictures.  Anyhow.  We'll be here for another week.  If you come for a visit you can sleep on the futon.


 Kathy & I enjoyed having a group of students over for a snack and Bible study.

Here, the table is set, ready for guests.

Jele', on the left, is a student in my class.  His wife, Kaki is a counselor and is on staff at PIU.  Jele' has pastored in the Marshall Islands for about twenty years, but had no formal training.  While he is a student he is pastoring a Marshallese church here on Guam.  We enjoyed an evening with them, in our temporary home.

Like much that Kathy has done, her work will be a blessing to many who come after her.

Thanks for enabling us to serve the Lord here for these weeks.

Doing short-term missions, or mounting an invasion?

Definitely what we are trying not to do:

https://www.facebook.com/steven.hoyt.10/videos/vb.579811279/10153194104961280/?type=2&theater

But we are probably failing.

I'm not a missionary, or a college-instructor, and I didn't even stay at Holiday Inn Express, but . . .

I read an article a while back about "Urban Farming."  The author was very much in favor of city-dwellers growing their own tomatoes and peppers.  What she wasn't in favor of is these folk who have a few pots, and/raised beds of vegetable plants calling themselves "Farmers."  They aren't, and to claim the title is an insult to the real thing.
The above comparison is similar to my current situation.  I am teaching a college class in a missionary setting.  I don't want to diminish the role of either Missionaries, or Teachers, by laying claim to either title, missionary or college-instructor.
Having said that, the guy with a tomato-patch on the roof of a Manhattan high-rise, comes closer to understanding farming--perhaps far closer--than the typical urbanite who has never seen a tomato actually hanging on a growing vine.  So with that caveat out of the way, I'll make some observations.
Missionary work is all about crossing from one culture to another.  There are eight students in my class.  For seven of them English is a second language.  I count up, at least, five different first-languages in the class--maybe six when you consider that one for whom English is a first-language is from Kentucky.  Some of the students have never seen snow.  Some have never been to a place where the speed limit is more than 35 mph.  For most Spam is not from the internet; it is a staple in their diet.   The family structures some of the students grew up in are strange to me, as, I'm sure, mine is to them.  I'm the only "white" person in the room.  For most of the class "Medicare" is for "those old people."  I am one of those oldsters.  I find myself constantly asking myself, sometimes asking the class, "Does this word, concept, scenario, make sense to you?"  It works both ways, some of the images they draw on when they speak don't make sense to me.  It is work.  Real missionaries have to make far wider, more difficult cultural crossings with far less assistance than I am receiving.

Teaching, in whatever cultural setting, is likewise about crossing barriers.  The difference between just standing in front of people and talking--or showing PowerPoint, or giving quizzes, or leading discussions or any of the other didactic methods we may employ--and actually teaching can be determined by asking this question:

"Has anyone actually learned?"

Added to that needs to be this commentary on learning:

 "The best indicator that something has been learned is the resultant life-change."

  In some cases I am like a translator.  We are using a couple of textbooks in the class I am teaching.  I mostly understand what the textbooks are saying; the students, not so much.  We don't have time, or in my case the mental ability, to memorize the texts, and even if we did, that wouldn't mean we had learned the material, so I have to decide what in the texts is most important in the situation in which we find ourselves and then translate that knowledge into a form that can be taken in by the students in the class.  In other cases--not that often, the head of the department will be glad to know--I take things straight from what I know and seek to package it so it is comprehensible and consumable by the students on the other side of the culture/generational/knowledge barrier.  It's work.

I'm very much aware that if the students in my class don't do well on an exam, they might not be the ones who have failed.

If we take the later portion of the Great Commission, "Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you." that is where the intersection of the two roles that I'm sorta-kinda filling right now intersect.  I'm not a teacher, and I'm not a missionary--keep in mind the caveat at the beginning of this post--but in a roof-top garden sort of way, I am privileged to be teaching students who will take what they are learning and use it a place where the light is a good bit dimmer than where I have lived for most of my life, and while that sure is work, it's an awful lot of fun.

This isn't the class I'm teaching.  Kathy and I
invited a group of students over to talk about
some stuff from God's word, that young adults 

need to know.  

We had a good time.

A bit of video news about PIU, where we are right now:

If you go to 12:55 on this video, you'll see Kathy almost immediately.  The chapel service is being put on by Dr. Bill Wood and his class on Psalms.

http://www.pacificnewscenter.com/livestream

Kathy meets with the ladies

I just got back from my first session with the girls at PIU....we meet at 9:30pm on Monday evenings.
I have not gotten to spend a lot of time with them yet...but that should change in the next few days
as we get on campus and are closer to where they live and hang out.  Tonight I shared my testimony
and a little how Coffee Break began and what God has done in many of the girl's lives.  It was
fun and they listened well with a couple of questions at the end.  Only 2 1/2 weeks left....hard to believe!  Thank you for your prayers!