Right now the Merrells are on two sides of the world.

As I write this post, only one of us is in Micronesia, but we are both part of the continuing adventure.
Essential to "an adventure" is the "venture" of experiencing something new and challenging. Our life continues to have those elements. Some aspects of adventuring are more fun than others; that means some aren't all that enjoyable.
For Kathy and me, being away from one another is no good. Right now, though, it is necessary, and there are good things going on.
Kathy dropped me at the airport on Guam, early October 19. After stops in Honolulu, Los Angeles, and Denver, I arrived in Dallas, just "a few" hours after I left. Actually, the flight took the better part of a day, but time in Texas is "Chamorro Standard time" minus fifteen hours.
There are small communities of Micronesians all over the United States. I had supper with a Chuukese couple--he is a pastor and church leader. I worshipped with a group from Palau, on Sunday morning. Both promised to send me some pictures, but I haven't gotten them yet. Micronesians love their island cultures. One of the ladies in the Palauan/Texan group had been in Palau at the Gospel Day celebration earlier this year. Kathy and I were also there. It is important for PIU and me to maintain these connections with the Micronesian Diaspora.


PIU is also dependent on connections with churches. Former PIU Board Member, John Robertson, arranged for he and I to meet a couple of members of the Missions leadership team at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, in Houston. John and Anna recently moved from Guam to Houston. MDPC is their church. MDPC invests heavily in missionary ventures. As a pastor, I know that there are far more opportunities to invest than there are resources to invest (on a local level, with God there is no lack). John and I very much enjoyed meeting with Kelsi and Amy. We leave the outcome in the Lord's hands.
Since I am traveling all over this side of the world, and some on the other side, I decided that I should--real burden, here--visit with family. I drove from Dallas to Houston, with an overnight in Corsicana, where I met my Micronesian friends. After the meeting at MDPC on Monday, I drove to Shreveport LA, where I met my two oldest grands, Carrington and Christopher. After supper, I drove to College Station Texas, let myself into the house and saw Silas and Kira when I got up. I was only at Chris and Nancy's house for about twenty-six hours, but I really enjoyed it.

I left early on Thursday morning, drove to Dallas and flew, by way of  Greenville Mississippi, to Atlanta. I didn't know when I booked the flight, but my journey was in a little single-engine plane. The airport in Greenville, a farming community near the Mississippi River, was about the smallest I had ever been in. The plane I was on, was the only one in sight. It was an enjoyable trip. I enjoyed seeing the farmland and rivers below.

Madeline is a student at North Greenville University. I met her for supper in the little touristy town of Traveler's Rest. From there, I went on to Rock Hill South Carolina, where I am now. One of my Papa traditions is doing a doughnut run. Ava and I picked up a supply at Crispy Creme this morning. I'll attend church at North Rock Hill Church, where Chad pastors. Chris, who joined us here last night, is preaching in the morning.

In between family time the main purpose of my trip continued. While in College Station I met with a potential partner. Please pray for this ongoing conversation. Between Atlanta and Greenville, I spent a delightful hour with Sue Rector. Sue is one of our partners; she supports Kathy and me in our missionary venture.


 This relationship cam together in a remarkable way. You can read about it, here. It gave me real joy to see Sue's bulletin board. She said she kept our prayer card there to remind her to pray for us. Just what we hope for.

This is going to get too long, so I'll wrap it up and continue it tomorrow or sometime soon. I'll give you some meanwhile back on Guam news.
I appreciate you praying for us.
As I flew over the rich southern farmland, I was reminded of the words of our Lord to His disciples, and through the inspiration of Holy Spirit to us. "The fields are white for harvest." John 4:35. In Matthew 10:38, Jesus instructs His disciples to "pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

For now, that's the prayer request I leave with you. That, and that I'll get back to Kathy on November 25.

Watch for part 2.

July 2019 thoughts on Prayer and God's Provision:

Frequently, I sign my letters and emails with a closing that mentions God's grace--"By His Grace," or, “By His Grace, we Carry on," or "… Continue." I can assure you it is much more than a literary flourish. 

When I arrived at PIU two and a half years ago, I looked at the situation around me, and at my own resources and quickly saw that this was a God-sized task, with Divinely-proportioned possibilities if we should succeed. Again and again, those realities have been emphasized in my time as President of this school. I've seen it as new needs appear, and I’ve observed it even more as I observe God's gracious—grace-filled—provision. It confirms that what I can do isn’t enough—not nearly enough.

I think I've mentioned in a previous communique that I’ve been working to gain a better understanding of Isaiah 40:31. 

“[T]hey who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31, ESV)

I was privileged to share from this powerful passage, a little over a month ago at my home church in Covington VA, and then again at the Gospel Day celebration in Palau. The Palau Evangelical Church chose the verse as the theme verse of their conference.

Commentator, Alec Motyer, comments on this passage: Those who wait on the Lord “will ‘keep putting on fresh strength’. They are promised different strength, a strength that is not natural. It’s as if people should grow wings like an eagle, the greatest of birds. They are also to be given divine strength. The natural person [the youths and young men of verse 30, are] not like God [Who does not faint or grow weary, verse 28] but the believer is." Wow! The believer is like God, not that we take on the “omni” traits of our Lord, but we become like Him in strength to meet the challenges of our day, because as we wait on God, rather than take matters into our own hands, God himself works through us.
 

Waiting on/trusting/hoping in the Lord, all these elements are contained in the Hebrew word. This is not a passive state. We have to work at waiting. Praying is the task of the one who waits on God. Please join us in praying that we will have that "different, unnatural, God-like" strength and provision for the important work of PIU.

Know that God is using you as you partner with us. Please continue to pray.

Here are a few items for waiting-prayer.

•      As is true in any facility, we have ongoing maintenance needs. Pray that our reduced staff, with a severely limited budget, can get needed repairs done before the Fall Semester.
•      Pray for a good crop of new students.
•      Thank God for a couple who are going to volunteer some time to help us with some of our IT needs, especially web-based.
•       Joyce Owen, wife of our late President, David Owen, is returning to Guam to work with us at PIU. Pray for her transition, continued adjustment to her new life, and her effective ministry at PIU.
•     Late Spring and early Summer was wedding season. Pray for several new PIU related families. I’m told that others are in the works.

·        Please let us know how we can pray for you.

By God’s Grace We Wait,

Howard Merrell, President PIU
hmerrell@piu.edu

PS: I posted a brief video that contains much of the same material as this note, https://youtu.be/5XPnEsI6pL4. You may want to watch it yourself or use it to let others know about PIU.

You can keep up with the news at PIU on the “News” tab of our website. Likewise, the “Donate” tab will give you information about how to partner financially with PIU.

The Merrell's May, 2019 News & Prayer Letter

News from Kathy and Howard Merrell, serving at Pacific Islands University, Guam
May 2019

Dear Partners,

Over our years of marriage, we have
been blessed with 

The PIU Class of 2019. There are two pastors in this group.
Most of the class wants to be a teacher. This is a picture of hope. 

 far more than we deserve. Part of that blessing has come from the God-given ability to take used things and make something useful, even beautiful of them. Over the years Kathy and I have remodeled our home in Covington VA, repaired old cars and trucks, refinished and built furniture. Kathy dresses stylishly mostly with selections from yard sales and thrift stores.

In many ways, our current ministry is a continuation of that pattern. We are taking what we acquired over a half-century of

Joyce Owen, wife of former

President, David Owen, 

was our graduation speaker. 

The theme of her message, God’s love.

preparation and ministry, and repurposing and investing it in a new place, in new ways, in new lives.

Thus far, 2019 has been one of the busiest times of our lives. The year began with the pressure of completing the self-study for the reaffirmation of our accreditation. There was the preparation for the visiting team from our accrediting agency, and then the visit itself. Our Student Development team planned an “In House Mission Project” for Spring Break. Most of our dorm students and some commuters participated in a number of activities including some campus improvement projects. Howard planned those, supervised some, and both he and Kathy got their hands dirty along the way.

Even Howard’s saw-damaged
thumb turned out to be useful.
It was a great incentive to
pay attention to safety rules
when using power tools.

 Though we are half a world away, we rode the roller-coaster with our friends Dave (former PIU President) and Joyce Owen. We rejoiced with them as it appeared that Dave was cured, only to weep when three weeks later it was clear that his body was ravaged with a different variety of the dread disease. We helped plan a memorial chapel service in Dave’s honor and then
Howard made the trip to California to take part in his memorial service. This past weekend was graduation, and, last night, Howard performed his first wedding on this side of the world.

Along the way we each taught a class in the Spring Semester, and kept up with our day-to-day

Kathy teaching Introduction to Music.

responsibilities.

Kathy leaves tomorrow for Virginia, and Howard a week later. At the end of June we’ll be in Palau, where Howard will be one of the speakers in the Palauan Evangelical Church’s Gospel Day Celebration. We’ll arrive back in Guam, July 1. Perhaps we’ll see you while we are stateside.

At the school’s Board of Trustees’ meeting in March—I forgot to mention that—the board indicated a desire for Howard to continue as President. At this point we figure it is best to make commitments in smaller bites. We told the Board we would be here through the 2019-20 academic year. We’ll evaluate as May 2020 approaches. Our plan is to continue to invest the resources the Lord has entrusted to us as long as we are able. For the foreseeable future, we are glad to continue to serve as missionaries at PIU.

Thank you, so much for partnering with us in raising up a new generation of leaders in the Western Pacific. We are making some new prayer cards. We’ll be glad to give you one when we see you, or if don’t get to see you, we’ll send you one. 

   Speaking of Prayer, here are some praise and prayer notes:

  

•  We praise the Lord that our reaccreditation process is going well. We aren’t there, yet, but it looks like we’ll make it.
• We see growth in the lives of some students.
• We also see tragic collapses. Pray especially for Alex, Scott and the rest our Student Development Team. They are the point of the spear in touching student lives.
• Pray for families.
• Alex and his family are, like many of us, traveling. Pray for good contacts, safety, and refreshment.
• Pray for those holding things together here on campus.
• We are in good health. We’ll do our annual checkups while in VA. No one is indispensable, but it would make things inconvenient for a lot of folk, if we can’t continue for a while.
• The big three requests remain. We need students, PIU needs financial partners, and we need staff who can serve with us as missionaries.

The Passing of My Predecessor and Friend

I awoke on the morning of March 30 to news that Dr. David Owen, the longest serving President of Pacific Islands University graduated to heaven. 
It was about two and a half years ago that Dave and I were in Germany together. We were meeting with others who have an interest in the Lord's work in Micronesia. Dave was there as President of PIU and a lifelong missionary to this mostly forgotten part of the world. I was there as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the school and as one who was transitioning from a pastoral to a missionary role. Dave didn't feel well, yet his advocacy for the work he loved was vigorous. 
A few weeks later we were together again, at our mission's headquarters in New Jersey. Dave still wasn't feeling well. He was concerned about some sores on his legs. He thought maybe they were from insect bites or an allergic reaction. Soon, we found out they had a much more serious cause.
Dave often talked about the "contingency" of this universe in which we live. It is something with which the greatest of minds struggle--and Dave's was an impressive intellect. 
On one occasion, Solomon observed, "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11–12, ESV)
Neither the King of Israel nor the third President of a Christian University in Micronesia were cynics. They were just honest. There is a lot that we don't know, and down here can't know. Dave and I drove our Theological stakes at different points in the trying-to-figure-out-God-and-His-ways spectrum. I more to the Calvinist end, Dave more to the it's-a-work-in-progress end. 
I have spent the last twenty-seven months sitting in the President's chair. I am in that seat at Dave's invitation. When he asked me to come, he had no idea that he would never sit in that chair again.
It is remarkable that a small-town pastor from Virginia got to be a good friend of, and ministry colleague with, a Christian educator on the opposite side of the globe. I was privileged to walk with Dave on the road next to the firehouse in Yigo, Guam, in the Black Forest of Germany, and down the main street of Weno Chuuk. We also walked together through many good and bad times in the life of PIU. Though Dave mostly left me alone in my new role, I took great comfort in knowing that he continued to walk with me through prayer.
In his younger years, Dave was a fiercely competitive athlete. He brought that same vigor to the work he did. He wanted to win. Sometimes he struggled with that, but, to his credit, after he processed things Dave didn't want others to lose. Much of the last decade of Dave's life was spent building coalitions, making peace, and searching for ways victories could be shared. My prayer is that this legacy will continue to bear eternal fruit.
It is a great honor to sit in what I'll probably always consider Dave's chair. Over the past couple of years, I've often wondered what Dave thought about what I was doing from that seat. Perhaps we'll talk about that over a cup of "coffee, black." As Dave often said, those are the only two words needed when you order the blessed elixir.
As I sip my coffee down here, I am confident that he and I shared--dare I say, "still share"--the same desire. There is a great need for Christian leaders in Micronesia and beyond. Dave's passion was expressed in the words of PIU's Mission, words of which he was the main author.

Pacific Islands University exists to provide

accessible, excellent, transformational Christian higher education 

and ministry training to the people of Micronesia, the Pacific islands, and to the ends of the earth. As such, our mission is to prepare men and women with a biblical worldview for leadership and service in life, work, and ministry in the global community and the church. (emphasis mine)

Dave firmly believed that the truth of God's word is transformational. In order to make that kind of education accessible to the people of Micronesia, someone has to come out to this side of the world, somebody has to travel to various Island communities that make up Micronesia and let the people know that there is a Christian institution that offers education from a Biblical worldview. Dave did all of that. He recruited people who would do an excellent job of delivering that education. He and his wife, Joyce, served with excellence in what they did. It was a privilege to serve with him. Now, though my feet are bigger than Dave's, I can't come close to filling his shoes. If Dave were here, I'm confident he would say, "Don't try to be me. Be the best you, you can be and trust God.

I've missed my friend for some time. For much of the last couple of years he has been too sick to communicate much. I don't know if he heard me the other day. Joyce put the phone on speaker so I could share some good news about PIU. I hope he did. Now, from an earthly viewpoint, the separation is final. I'll not see Dave again down here. 
My prayers are with Joyce and the family. 
Dave, I remember you describing PIU something like "a treasure in a brown paper bag." That's a pretty fragile arrangement. I'm doing my best to take care of it. Keep the coffee hot.

Please pray for me as I lead a chapel service in honor of Dave tomorrow, April 2, here at PIU, then as I travel to California for his Memorial Service.

A memorial service for David Lee Owen will be held on April 6, 2019 at Gold Country Baptist Church (3800 North Shingle Road, Shingle Springs, CA 95682) at 3pm. 

In honor of Dave and Joyce's lifelong commitment to PIU the family stated,

If you wish to make a donation, please donate to Pacific Islands University

(https://piu.edu/welcome-to-the-piu-donation-page/)

Thank you.

A Brief Update & Link to a Nice Publication:

Welcome to H&K's mailing list. View this email in your browser

Dear, Howard Back in the old days, before we "retired," there were times of intense activity in our ministry. TEENWEEK and Live Nativity are notable examples. I don't think we ever had a spell as intense for as long as the period from which we just emerged. For most of you, the next few sentences will be a glimpse into the strange world of academia but hang with me, it'll help you understand what we and PIU do.  PIU is an accredited school. That accreditation has to be reaffirmed every ten years. That involves a multi-step process with our Accrediting agency, TRACS. A big part of the process is preparing a Self-Study, a comprehensive examination of every aspect of the school. We just sent the 110-page document to the Peer Evaluators who will visit our campus at the end of March. I was very much involved in writing that Self-Study. Now our focus has shifted to preparing for the visiting team. That and all the normal stuff--Kathy works two days a week in the front office and is teaching the Intro. to Music class again, that and keeping house, entertaining guests, helping to disciple the women students, and. . . .  I'm also teaching a class and keeping up with all my usual stuff. We are well. Though what we are doing is challenging we continue to enjoy it. After we completed the Self-Study, Kathy and I were able to get out of Mangilao for a weekend. We got a good deal at one of Guam's oldest resorts. We basically did nothing and enjoyed it a lot. Our mission, LMUSA, just published the newest edition of Live Ready, their quarterly mini-magazine. This edition focuses on Micronesia. I think you'll like it. Thank you, so much for partnering with us in this work. We should tell you more often, but know that we really appreciate all that you do. By His Grace, we press on, H&K

Christmas with the Guam Merrells

Christmas in Guam with the Merrells--a quick run-down.
As most of you are starting Christmas Day, Kathy & I are finishing ours. It's been a good celebration.
Yesterday, we had guests for breakfast. Alex, Dani, Bekah, Micah, Isaiah, Selah, & Meleah. 9 people filled our apartment, but it was filled with fun. The kids went home to watch a movie--they also live on campus--so we actually had adult conversation for almost an hour. Prior to our guest's arriving, while Kathy finished the prep for breakfast, I took one of our students to the airport. We aren't sure this is the best thing for this student--going to the mainland to work for a semester--kind of shaky looking family connection there. Please pray. Kathy needed to practice some music, I put in a couple of hours on a campus maintenance project and we both did some last minute shopping. Last night Kathy and I both had part in our Guam church's candlelight service. Prior to the service there was a soup and bread supper. We enjoyed the meal and the program.

This morning we had a light breakfast on the beach, came home & opened presents, then went to some dear friends' house for a great meal at noon. I think there were 10 of us there. On the way home, we stopped at the Hyatt to see the decorations. That's a real gingerbread house. Then we spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

We miss those of you on the other side, but we had a good couple of days. We pray yours is good, as well.

Like the enlightened Scrooge, we are seeking to live in the Spirit of Christmas all year long.

H&K

Christmas Greeting

Christmas Greetings from the Merrells, The Guam Merrells, that is

Inbox

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Howard & Kathy Merrell via mailchimpapp.net	8:31 PM (32 minutes ago)
to me

Welcome to H&K's mailing list. View this email in your browser Merry Christmas, Howard. We mentioned in our last note that we were planning to send a Christmas greeting. We decided to do something different and put together a  video. It's about the  right length for a cup of coffee or hot chocolate. Or, if you are in a warm place, like we are, a glass of iced tea. Our video comes with a free bonus. Felis Nabidat. That's Merry Christmas in Chamarro. Click on the picture to view our Christmas video. In case you didn't get a chance to look at it, yet, here is the link to the latest Tide's Currents, PIU's quarterly newsletter. By His Grace--the grace of Christmas, H&K Our mailing address is: Howard & Kathy Merrell 172 Kinney;s Road Mangilao GU 96913