Good Testimony

Updating my events

2012-01-05T05:39:00.000-08:00

Hello guys, sorry that it's been a while that i don't update my blog. I know some of you guys have been faithful in terms of following my blogs, so i just want to say sorry. Anyways, I finished my last semester in PIU in December and now i'm just waiting for my graduation. Hurrayy... But i do miss studying. Even though the school hasn't start yet, i already want to get into studies. :)

Meanwhile, I am on vacation, relaxing my mind for a month and then get to some real works. Big meeting next month, and after that, I will get busy. I will be doing some mission training and get the team ready for mission trip this coming summer. I have n0t prepared anything, so i am doing some prepreparation works while im on break. So by the finishing of that big meeting next month, i am prepared and ready to train. Also, I will be targeting some people that might be good for the mission team, so by next month, i know whom i will be calling.

There are a lot of blessings happening around. One of my fellow brother in Christ just flew early this morning to Cona for DTS training. Another potential DTS recruit who might be flying on September to DTS in Bali. I'm so excited to witness these little works happening. Though there are so many blessing that I witness while in Palau, it don't mean that I am free from spiritual battles and other challenges in our Christian lives. There are so many things that I encounter every day that sometimes discourage me, challenge me, makes me mad, makes me sad, makes me wanna say something, makes me just want to keep my mouths hot, etc. but i will not put the details in here. God knows my cries and desires in my spiritual walk with him. If you feel like to pray for me, that would be a blessing.

My email is meluat2@hotmail.com so if you are serious about praying for me and want to know more details about my challenges, email me on that address and I'll give you more details. Other than that, I praise the Lord that the enemy recognize that I'm at work on the side of God that's why he want to distruct me from being faithful to the Truth. My encouragement, DO NOT CEASE TO PREACH THE GOSPEL AND DO NOT LET LITTLE THING STOP YOU FROM BLESSING OTHERS OR FULFILLING WHAT YOU REALLY DESIRE. Praises and Glory to God alone.

Passion of Photography

2011-04-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

In my early life, i did not really think about becoming a photographer, until one day. When i bought my first camera, Canon G7 PowerShot, I did not know much about it and i did not know the quality of it. I used it to take pictures like how i used other people's camera. Since i did not know much about camera, i just used Auto and it made it easy for me. This means that the flash was activated. One particular day, one good friend of mine who is a professional photographer taught me some tricks of using this camera that i labeled it as simple camera. With those little skills that he taught me, they were the strong foundation of my photography passion. I have been shooting for over a year without photography training, except using these little skills that this friend of mine taught me. I use only one lens to shoot and my work has expanded to the point where sometimes i look at my own work wonder how i did it. I have the eye, I have the art, i have the creativity, but I'm still lacking skills, and i am short of equipments. With this, i have learned to appreciate what i have and have learned how to take a close shots without scarying the butterfly or any insects that a lot of people usually use bigger zooming lens to take. Knowing that it's gonna take a while for me to invest my lenses, i have stretched my skills to the point that i am satisfied and appreciate about, because they don't exist in other photographers. I have learned that JUMPING SPIDERS are attractive to lenses. I have learned that bees can touch you without stinging you if you don't bother them. I have learned that you can get close to the nest of the bee with your lens 1/2 of an inch away from the nest and they don't sting you, unless they sense you as a threat. I have learned that the reality (Nature) is the most beautiful thing you'll ever encounter if you learn to appreciate it. These i know because of my PASSION OF PHOTOGRAPHY. MY PASSION BEGINS WHEN I CLOSE MY LEFT EYE AND BEND MY ELBOWS, FOCUS STEADILY, AND SEE GOD DISPLAYING HIS GLORY THROUGH THAT LITTLE WINDOW OF MY CAMERA. THE BLESSINGS IS POURED AFTER MY RIGHT POINT FINGER SQUEEZE THE SHUTTER TRIGGER AND CAPTURE THAT GLORY THAT IS DISPLAYED IN FRONT OF MY LENS. I AM UNEDUCATED WHEN IT COMES TO THE FIELD OF PHOTOGRAPHY, BUT GOD IS DEVELOPING MY SKILLS AND USING ME TO DISPLAY THE BEAUTY OF HIS CREATION. MAY THE LORD OF ALL CREATION BE PRAISED FOR HE IS BEAUTIFUL AND LOVING GOD.

In His Timing

2011-02-28T03:15:00.001-08:00

When this semester started, I was debating which mission trip will i join. But it was not that hard to identify which one was right for me. There are some mission trips that will be happening this summer and some are going to Yap, U.S., and other places. Each trips has its own type of ministry, whether evangelizing, connecting with people, helping youths, whatever ministries these missions are presenting, they are different tasks. But one thing that really convicted me. I went with VOM to the states last summer and it was a great ministry and all members were on fire with the works that were held in the States. Even the people in the States were moved by the worship that the VOM presented to them. But when I sat down this semester, though it was a great ministry last summer and i know that it will be much much better this summer, I did not find any conviction toward it. I am a musician but i'm not a singer. Those people that have been chosen or will be chosen to the states, are gifted with singing and are called to be singers. And this trip to the states is the calling for them. Of course, there are some additional works that are going to be involved in this ministry, but most of the time, they will be singing. I am not a singer and I don't have conviction for this trip, that's why i did not choose to join the VOM TEAM. I am an evangelist. Believing that singing inside the church is singing to Christians. And that is not my motivation. My motivation is evangelizing to the people who have not heard the word Bible or the people who have heard a little bit about it but have not chose to follow it because they don't know how.
When the semester started, I was dry because it's been almost two years i have never evangelize to numerous unbeliever, even until now, i'm still dry. But at the right time, I will be soaked with tons of blessing because i will be doing what I really like to do (evangelize) and developing my gift that God has equipped in my life. Staying in campus is okay but I don't really feel like I'm being used by God for some reason. I know He is using me to bless others and encouraging them, but I believe that there are some people somewhere around the world that have not heard the word of God and need it. It's hard for me when i think this way, but in God's timing, it will come. Sometimes i just want to quit school and fly to anywhere where i know where there are unreached people and stay there and share the word of God to them. But, God has not called me, so I'm on the waiting. I will be still and wait for Him to call. I'm really anxious to go out, but I have to stay still and wait on Him. In His timing. In His timing.

Board Chapel

2011-02-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

On this chapel, the Board Members had a chance to come and share some encouragment to us the students, staff and faculty and what they want to see in this campus. The Voices Of Micronesia had a chance to share some of the songs they've been working on these past few months in this school year. Just watch the pictures and make up your story out of the pictures.

Contestants

2011-02-24T00:55:00.000-08:00

Flowers for the contest

2011-02-22T04:19:00.001-08:00

Some photo-shootings around campus

2011-02-11T00:52:00.001-08:00

These are some of the photos that I just took today. I am not a professional photographer, nor I have attended any photo training anywhere else. But because of my passion of shooting nature photography, I have spent time following instructions from other professional photographers on youtube and also have invested my time studying other people's photos by looking at the lighting, angles, zooming, much much more. With few tips from a good friend and mentor, Dan Fields, who is Professional Photographer from San Diego, California, I have used those tips as my guidelines to come up with these images that you are looking at right now. For those of you who knows Dan Fields, we both share same passion of photography, but we totally have different taste of photography. He mostly do weddings and portrait, but I lean more toward Macro Shootings and Natures.

I am still new in the field of photography, so my gears are very limited. I only have EOS 7D Canon with EF28-135mm Ultrasonic f/3.5-5.6IS Lens. This camera is still new to me because it is not even a year yet since I first touched it. With very limited gears, i cannot do much but learn to improvise. Since I like Macro Shootings, instead of buying new set of Macro Lens, i just spent $12.00 for a MacroTube and attached it to my lens and then start taking Macro shots like these ones.

With a strong passion of photography, I really want to get more gears like lenses and UV lenses, but because I don't have much money, I just have to be content with these gears that I have now and try to invest more lenses hopefully in the near future. Some of the lenses that I need, (not want but need), are f1.4 50mm
Lens, 50-500mm Sigma Lens, any wide angle lens, 72mm lens hood, and the last one is UV lenses. These are some of the things that I need to get for my camera. The appriximate overall price for these equipments is over a $2,000.00. I am praying that I will be able to get these someday.

With my passion of photography, I will tell you little more details and the reason why I have passion in photography.
As you look at theses pictures, not everyday you see something like this. Actually, you cannot just use your naked eyes and see details of these creatures like how you are looking at them right now. With that in my mind, I have chose to take a stand and start exposing some things that you barely see everyday. Everytime I press the shutter button on my camera, it is a ministry for me. I do not do this to gain reputation, or show off of what I am capable of, but I want you to see these and appreciate that we have a Perfect Creator who created these creatures just to make our lives wonderful and enjoyable.

For example, like this insect on the left, this is my first time to see something like this and I believe that it is also first time for you to see it, unless you are zoologist or your job is dealing with animals and insects. And for me seeing it for the first time, it ministers to my heart and I want to share it to you so we can all appreciate and glorify God for His wonderful creations.
Again, if you think that I do this for me, I say humbly say "please don't thinkthat way because I don't want to steal the credits that are not mine. The credits belongs to Him who created these. My part and request is that you will see these and think about how wonderful they are, and hope that it will bring you more closer to God.

Taking photos is not just something that do and that's it. This is my ministry, to show some details of God's creation to those who do not have access to photography or other equipments/devices that will expose the details of these beautiful creation of God. It is my desire to take these pictures and hope for you to be ministered through these creation of God, knowing that He is Perfect and He do good things to us.

Taking pictures of these wonderful creatures, I learned that if you don't bother them, they will not harm you. Like these bees on the left side, i came close to them, less than 3inches, and took their pictures, and they did not even sting me because i was not threat to them. I also learned that they were buisy gathering honey to their nest.

I hope you enjoy my blog and the pictures that I am taking and hope that it will bring you more closer to God. If it does, then my job was accomplished.

I am suppose to start posting a lot of pictures of flowers on this blog because I am enrolled in one of the photo contest right now but when i took these pictures today, I can't help myself to share them. The reason why I say like that about the contest is that they are following my blog and evaluating the pictures that i'm posting on this blog. But these majority of these pictures that i just posted are not in the category of the contest. The category that we are focusing on is flower so I have to take pictures of different flowers. This contest is a worldwide so I am competing against some people in Europe, Middle East, U.S., and other major parts of the world.

I am hoping that I will win on this competition because the grand price is $6,000.00 and this can answer my request. I will be able to buy those gears that I need. Again, I hope you enjoy these pictures and just reflect them to how God is working around us and in us. You have a blessed forever.

Random Pictures in one day

2011-02-04T07:11:00.000-08:00

My Apology Letter to PIU Fams

2011-01-24T06:14:00.000-08:00

To all my PIU family:
I am truly sorry for if I have misrepresent Christ and have stumbled you. If you are judging me, i will accept it because I deserve it. If you forgive me, that would be a blessing for me. I am at the point in my life, realizing that i have hurt many people in so many ways which I was not aware of until this moment. I don't intentionally hurt people but I become wreckless in what I do.

To all the Staff and Faculty:
I am truly sorry if i have went against your ways or expectation. I know that you guys are sometimes depending on me because you have learned of what I am capable of or what I know, but i believe that some of you have stop depending on me because you already know that i am very eager and it become wreckless work which could hurt some people who are still learning how to glorify God. I have to be honest that I do have some resentment toward the authority and I'd be happy to share privately and not on this blog. I'd be blessed if I share this as soon as possible so I can get undrstanding. I believe that it is smaller issue for you but I do need someone to give me understanding. It's probably just the lack of my understanding and I probably need help. So it would be better if I get a chance to be heard and get the understanding so I may stop this resentment. If I have made you stumble in some ways or hurt you, I am truly sorry because that is not my intention. I am still a learner and I will not stop learning as you all know. I am taking counseling because I see some things that I need to improve in my life to represent Christ in the right way as he planned it in my life. So again, I am truly sorry if I have hurt you or go against what you are expecting from me and I'd be happy to be heard and get understanding on some issues which caused me to have resentment.

To all the students:
I am truly sorry for being a bad big brother. If i have misled you, please forgive me. I am doing my best to be a person that Christ want me to be, and sometimes I fail at the very point that you really need my help. I am also very prideful person that sometimes some of you tries to encourage me and I just ignore because of my stubbornness and selfishness and I am so sorry for that. Some of you are now scared to approach me because of just the way i talk. Some of you have given up on just fellowship with me because of my big mouth, talking too much. I am truly sorry that I made things hard for you to fellowship with me. I realize things because I evaluate myself every single day and my prayer is to glorify God in whatever I do, whatever I say, or whatever I think of and I believe that I have scared away some of you because I go beyond what I'm suppose to say or do. That means I misrepresnt God. If I represent Him well, I believe that you are to be encouraged and not be scared and run away or be discouraged.

To All:
This is my request. Many of you put a lot of expectation on me which burdens me. One good example is that some of you think that I am very smart based on my 4.o GPA on my first three semester. But I think we have to realize that cycle in life have ups and downs, which I was hoping that someone would approach me and ask what happened or what's wrong with me because from 4.O to 3.5 to 2.8 should tell something. But since I nothing happened or no one have done that, i'm gonna volunteer to step out of Chapel Worship Team based on my academic status, unless I really need to play. This is for the protection of my grades and studies so I can get back on track. Also, many expect me to help and encourage but fail to realize that sometimes I need help and encouragements. I want to wrap this by saying that I love you all PIU Fams and I don't mean to hurt you in any ways because God did not create me to do that. I want to ask you to forgive me and please look at me the way I am right know and don't try to match me to the past because I'm very different from that. Whether I'm different toward good or different toward bad. I have vertical love and I need horizontal love because i'm very lonely at this point in my life. If you are showing that to me, I need to be taught how to recognize them and accept them. Please consider these words of mine because I am a person who needs help and love.

Need Horizontal blessings.

2011-01-20T02:14:00.000-08:00

It is the beginning of the school and I can't seem put myself together. there are many things that runs in my mind that I don't even want to mention because it's no use. I have lost some of my good friends and every now and then, i want to say something but i can't because it is hard for me to trust people these days. Many things i went through to make me feel this way. My counseling is next week and it seems so far away. I deff need my counseling so i can get rid of some of these heavy burdens that i am carrying right now. A smile is something that i only show because i don't want my brothers and sisters to be burdened because of how i am right now. but at the same time, i dont feel like to talk about things since i have trust issue right now. I sometimes just want to get back to my old style and let everyone follow what i say, but that is just wnat i want and it does not benefit me. I say this because my leadership has a poor performace these days. I don't want to voice out because i might gonna be too demand, and at the same time, it is a burden for me because i know that there are many things that i can improve, yet i am scared to take a step. i dont want to encounter my old style again. I am trying to humble myself to the best i can, even when it comes to something that deals with trust or even forgiveness, i just let it go. but i know that these things have to come out. otherwise i might gonna stress out and be a problem, which is the reason why i am writing on this blog to releave some of them. I can start sharing what I am going through, but i am trying not to because i know that there are some people who are following my blog like you, who are reading this right now. So if I say too much, please excuse me because i need to express these and take them out of my system.

As of now, my personal life is no longer only my business, but i feel and it aslo seems like my life is now everyone's business. I have suffered emotionally and it stumbles me, which causes my spiritual walk to be so hard. I will be straight up and I apologize if you get offended, but i just want to say welcome to my blog. Here we go...

Micronesia, is one of the best place to train gossipers. Observing things around me when i was young even until today, it never change. When something happens in a particular place, it does not take one day for every people in town to know what happened. People just want to go to anybody's business, which does not have anything to do with them. It is the sin inside of a person that have been going since decades and no one have addressed it, which gives me an idea that i probably should about it sometimes in the near future. I am hurting because people have talked about me and i have to suffer and continue submitting to the humility of Christ that He showed it to me when he washed the feet of Judas. Now it is in the Bible that we forgive and if someone continues, we have to correct and rebuke them. But that is another problem. Majority of Micronesians do not want to be confronted. When we confront them, they either get offened and raging anger burst out into physical, or they be so scared because they think that that is the biggest mistakes they've ever made and don't want to be confronted so they ran away. What shall i do with this as a mature Christian? My answer is that i don't know. I think i just have to relocate. That's why i keep silent. But I cannot do anything or keep these to myself for long that's why I write them on this blog. What really hurts me is that when I see people who are hurting, or who are in pain, i go right beside them and help them, encourage them, and trying my best to minister to them. But when it comes to me, when i'm hurting or need help, only few of those people that I helped will show up and trying their best to make me happy. When i say few, I can count them. I think at the most, it's six people who comes and give genuine help to me. I have a lot of leaders that i look up to, and they depend on me everytime things has to be put into actions, but only one have showed up to help. HOW SELFISH. What an unfair world we have, you know.... I feel like im a tool. I know that people depend on me because I have the gift of leadership. I can lead, for sure. But what has failed in this situation, is that there is no provision of mentoring or discipleship to me. This brings me back to the unfair world thought. People knows that i have gift of leadership so they put me in the mission to accomplish it. But they failed to supply discipleship and mentoring to me. I believe that to be a leader, we should take the first initiative and tell a person that we are willing to help, instead of waiting for them running to us, bleeding and in pain, dry spiritually, and begging for help. I don't thinkt that is a good way to start leadership. I speak what's in my mind and what's in my mind always comes from my heart. I share like this because it's been almost two years that i've submitted myself to missions and ministry and no one has come and pull me aside, in a sense of leadership, and ask if i need help. I've been giving and giving and not enough receiving. I need blessings. I know that i'm getting vertical blessings, but i also need horizontal blessings too. I'm done for now.

How we should love

2011-01-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

Watching and listening to this one clip on youtube, it brought something to my mind that I am about to write.

It is amazing how we prioritize things in our lives that really shifts things around and we tend to not realizing that the true priorities in our lives are actually not on the list or hard to see them on the list. On this blog, i will be sharing some of the expience and the observations that i've encountered in my life.

There are many times that when we go to the store, we tend to forget to eat. That is the biggest mistake that a shopper will do when they go shopping (Forget to eat before going to the store). With the stomach empty, with our list of groceries in our hand, and knowing in our mind what are the proirities, it never gonna work when we go shopping with empty stomach.

When I was taking Consumer Math Class in high school, I learned that the first rule of shopping, is never shopping with empty stomach or hungry. You must eat before you go to the store. When you go to the store with empty stomach, everything that you see will be tasty, especially on the sweet section and in the soda fridge. Everything will look like Alice in the WonderLand. so peaceful and so juicy. Your imagination is so strong that when you look at some candy bar on the shelf, your mouth starts to water and it seems like the candy bar is in your mouth already. When you go and about to grab specific candy bar, you see another different one, so you stop and start thinking what you gonna take. Without knowing it, you already consume five minutes looking at these candy bars on just one isle. The time went by so fast and you just don't know. All of the sudden, you look at your hand and saw a white piece of paper on it, realizing that it is a shopping list. "Ooops". YES, you definitley gonna say "Ooops". start walking around and grabbing whatever inside the store that was on that shopping list. But still, in your mind, you want to go back to that isle of candy bars. NOTE:(There is no candy bar on the list). So you start estimating the items that you are getting. When you realized that there are enough change for the candy bar, you take the last item and then walked through the candy bar isle and grab the candy bar. Ooops. guess what? there must be something that has to partner up with this candy bar. so you walk to the refigerator and grab the soda... oh never mind soda. Too small. Get the Gatorade..... tsk tsk tsk. you go to the cashier and he/she start scanning. everything that you grabbed fits the amount of money that you have. That's approximately $2.50 unnecessary spending that you did. later days, when you are really broke, you wish that you did not spend those money for just satisfaction.
So how we solve this problem? very easy. eat and drink before you go to the store. I have tried it many times and it does work. it's the first rule of consumer math , so that means that there was a survey about it before it went inside that textbook. They did not just write that rule in there because they want to. So eat before you go shopping.

This is just the same situation when it comes to love between us and our families.

Our family is the first priority in our physical life. But many times, we tend not to think abou them or we tend to put them in the last part of our priority list.
When we start making friends, we start to receive good respond that we want from our friends. We start connecting with them based on the same interests. All of the sudden, we become so addicted with fun with our friends and try to enjoy to the max. We receive a call from our friends that they are going to the beach... so we ask for the key from our parents and hop inside the car and go to the beach and have fun. On the weekdays, we are too busy studying so we dont have much time enjoying with our family. then another weekend arrive. THen a friend call that they are going Jet Skying. So we ask for the key and hop on the car and go. then the weekdays. then the weekend, then the weekdays, the weekend. still, no time with our family. What's the problem on this? Two people who helps us to be well educated, two people who make sure that we dont get hungry, two people who make sure that we have roof to stay under, two people who are making sure that we have transporation with gas so we can travel to anywhere we want so easily, we failed to acknowledge or spend time with them. Because of our excitements and enjoyments with our friends, we have failed to see these provisions that they give us everyday. We have failed to love them back. we have failed to put them as the first priority in our list. Instead, they were the last people that we think of when it comes to the priority.
What's the solution for this? Knowing what's important for you and your family before thinking about the outsiders.... and yes, our friends are outsiders when it comes to the family.

This is just the same when it comes to serving God and this is the focus that i want us to focus on.

We live in a sinful world because of the sin that was committed by Adam and Eve. Because of that, we love to sin. it is our instinct. it is in our blood to sin. Everyone are capable of murdering, lusting, covetting, raping, masturbating, pornography, idolatry, immorality, suicide, adultery, and any sin that you could think of. we are all capable of these because they're our instinct. We were not made to do them but because of the sin that was committed, have become emptied and lusting for satisfaction of our body. Feeding our mind, our heart, our body with anything that we think that are tasty. Let me tell you something. all sin are tasty to us, humanly speaking. The reason why everything are so tasty or let me use the word attractive. the reason why everything are so attractive to us is because we are empty. our mind, our soul, or heart, even our body. there is nothing in this world that can satisfy us once and for all. NONE. But here is a thing. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and He has tore the vail so now we can just go to Him without using other person or Priest. We can just pray directly to Him now. And He is our Hope. He is the one that can satisfy our needs. Believe it or not, He does give us satisfaction. But why some of us, including myself,.... you know what? not some but most.... why most of us the Christians already know that He is the priority, the HOPE for our lives, and yet we still put Him on the second, third, fourth, or...so sad... so sad. WHY? Huh? WHY? Why when we talk to our friends, we talk only ten minutes about God and 50minutes about other things and not relating them to God? Why when we spend 30minutes talking about blessings, we dont spend time thanking God? Huh? Why?.... Now some of us say that we thank God when we talk about blessings. In some part of that, i believe, but most part, i don't. Some of us usually say, "Oh, I thank God for this and this, and thank God for this and this, and thank God for you being part of my life, thank God because you're such a blessing...etc" Stop the Crap. this is not thanking God. Thanking God is when we start praying to God and talk to Him and start giving Him thanks. That's the part that I agree when someone say that he/she is giving thanks to God. We have missed the priority. Let me share this and this is one of the biggest mistake that i see almost everyday. People write their prayers online/facebook. We have missed the proirity, people. Writing on facebook gives information to the world or friends from other places that you are not in. writing a prayer online/facebook is boasting your prayer. you're showing your prayer to everyone what you are praying for. The Bible tells us not to boast our prayers but to hide inside the room and pray. We have missed our priority. Facebook is not connecting to God but and instrument that is used to connect to other people to Glorify God. We don't connect with God on facebook. writing a prayer on facebook is giving information. To make it more clear, writing prayer online/facebook is using our prayer to entertain people. simple as that. Seems like we have lost our sights of what's the priorities in our grocery list. Prayer to God has to be pure. What makes this worse is that writing things to facebook, we mostly make typo error so we have to delete and then make corrections. Prayer should not be edited. Seems like some have lost the priority of prayer, which is PRAYING in the Room and NOT BOASTING them to the world. Now it seems like we only hear about God but it's in vain. It seems like we have lost the true picture. It seems like we have lost the true priority. To fix this, Pray to God silently in our room and not boasting our prayers to the whole world. It's in the Bible. Also, when we say I praise God for this and that, do the actual prayer prior to that before you share it to others or pray right after you share it. if you don't pray before or after you say that, it is in vain. God should be the priority. We should be concious of God in our mind and heart whenever we talk about praises, whenever we talk about praying. You can enjoy boasting your prayers and let others see what you write, but if you are editing them, delete and write again, i say it's in vain. You have missed the priority. You can share your praises to others about how God has dealt with your life, but if you don't actually pray and give praise to Him, your sharing of praise is in vain. You have missed the true priority.

When you go to the store, have your stomach filled up, so when you go buy your items, you get what's on your priority list. When you enjoy your time with your friends, dont forget your responsibility by also sharing your love to them, spending time with them. WHen you pray or giving praise, Don't forget to put God first in your mind. Be concious of Him all the time. He is your proirity because He is the reason for your life. He is my priority because He is the reason for my life. He is our proirity because He is the LIFE.

THat's how we should love. Getting what's on your priority list is treating you right, loving yourself; responsiblility to spending time with your family is treating your love ones right, loving your family; being concious with God when praying or giving praises is treating God right, loving God. That's how we should love.

Preaching Seminar

2010-11-29T15:23:00.001-08:00

Mark Mitchell (Speaker for the Preaching Seminar)

Eric Sorenson (Master of Ceremony) and friend of Mitchell

There were ladies attending the seminar

Different Ethnicity

Different Colors

Different Denominations

Different Ages

But

We all connected

Worship

Serve

Praising

In unity

With

Everything

and

Giving glorification

to the one

and only

God who deserves

THIS.... The best of us.

Dave Owen (President of PIU)

Mitchell gave us some basic ways of how to serve as a preacher.

Whether we are a tent maker preachers

Or living by supports,

We all share the same thing... which is pursuing the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Palauans... aside from the seminar, we also got together as Palauans and just enjoy our fellowship through foods....

Oh, How we role, roll?

This is how we roll, role....

Yep, get it right....

Spiritual Emphasis 2010

2010-10-25T20:07:00.000-07:00

Let the pictrues speak to you. Pictures that shows what was happening during this weekend on Spiritual Emphasis.

I hate it.

2010-10-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

I have exam tomorrow but need to blog this. I cannot hold this in my heart because it will hurt me, and i cannot share a lot to some people because i might say some bad words that hey dont want to hear. I have too many burdens in my heart right now. the Spiritual emphasis is coming and i am pretty much out of shape right now. i am trying my best to cope with things that im facing and not offending other people but this comes constantly.

Let me tell why im so discouraged. I just found out recently that i could have shaved of one semester of mine if some of my previous courses were used. but because of some situation, they were not used. I already understand that one but i cannot do anymore and but i still claim that i could have graduate this coming graduation. but it's okay. it is the Will of God as many people say. and i have to live with it.
Another thing, Through just one course of Scuba diving, i went through a lot with my advisor that it hurt me so much that i just had to step out of the office, with tears of discouragement falling down. I had to step out to calm myself down in order to continue fighting to get this one class and it wont affect my FAFSA and VA benefit. After that, i came back with right attitude and she changed her talking, though she don't realize that, by saying that i can take the course without affecting my FAFSA and VA benefit and she told me the things I've been trying to tell her at the first place.
It is really hard when we become Christians because sometimes we want to deal with situation with a knuckle sandwitch, but we have to just let things go and give grace (forgiveness) because God gives grace to us every single days of our lives.
Okay, now, what follows that? while im trying to settle these things in my mind, someone just comment on one of my photo and pretty much discouraged me. so I told him that he can come to me and i will encourage teach him how to encourage and how to win other people's heart. But he turned around and said that he is good, he already know how. What i was trying to tell him is that he discouraged me, but instead he said something with pride. maybe he was playing, but i was not in a moment of playing or fooling around. when i c0nfront him, he say im sorry but it seems like his "IM SORRY" was not real for me, because he tried to advice me what to do after he discouraged me. I just told him this, "Why can't you accept your wrong and stop trying to advice me? And trust me, i know the time for playing and this is not one of those time."
So while i was still trying to cope with this, and it pretty much distructed me from our evening devotion, I found out that someone used my pictures to make his slide show without asking a permission from me. and guess what? majority of those pictures are mine.

YOU KNOW WHAT? I WANT TO DELETE THIS BLOG ON TOP, BUT I WILL NOT BECAUSE I WANT TO SHOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH. I CHANGE THE SUBJECT BECAUSE I JUST WANT TO INFORM THAT I JUST PRAYED WITH ONE OF MY BROTHER. AND THIS BROTHER IS THE ONE THAT WAS TRYING TO GIVE ME ADVICE. WE ALREADY HAVE A FULL UNDERSTANDING AND HE ALREADY KNOW WHY I WAS SO EASILY DISCOURAGE. AFTER WE SAY THAT WE WILL PRAY FOR EACH OTHER ON FACEBOOK MESSAGE, I SAID YES BUT IT WAS NOT ENOUGHT FOR ME. IT HAS BEEN A CULTURE TO SAY "WE WILL PRAY FOR EACH OTHER," "I WILL PRAY FOR YOU," AND SO ON. BUT FOR ME, I ALREADY MAKE IT THAT IF I SAY I WILL PRAY FOR SOMEONE, I WILL PRAY FOR HIM ON THAT PARTICULAR TIME. SO I WENT TO HIS ROOM AND ASKED HIM IF WE CAN PRAY. AFTER I PRAYED FOR HIM. SOMETHING GOOD HAPPENED. I BECAME SO LIGHT. I PRAISE THE LORD THAT I BLOGGED THE ONE ON TOP SO I ACTUALLY ALREADY EXPRESS MY FEELING AND THEN ALREADY PRAY SO MY BURDENS ARE NOW LIGHTER. AND TO INFORM YOU ABOUT THAT PERSON THAT USED MY PICTURES, I ALREADY TELL HIM TO DELETE THE VIDEO AND TOLD HIM THAT HE IS LUCKY THAT I AM MICRONESIAN AND WE'RE NOT IN THE STATES OR OTHER BIG COUNTRIES. IF HE WAS THERE, SOMEONE COULD HAVE SUED HIM FOR USING OTHER PEOPLE'S PICTURES ON HIS PROJECT WHEN HE DONT ASK PERMISSION. LET'S CONTINUE GIVING PRAISES AND WORD OF THANKSGIVING TO THE LORD WHETHER IN TIMES OF GOODNESS OR TIMES OF TROUBLE FOR HE IS FAITHFUL TO DELIVER US FROM TROUBLE. CALL ON HIS TELEPHONE: PSALM 50:15 AND HE ANSWERS, "CALL UPON ME IN TIMES OF TROUBLE, I WILL DELIVER YOU AND YOU WILL HONOR ME."

2010-10-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

On this Fall of 2010, PIU started to offer Diving Course for the students. With this great opportunity, only six students decided to join class. This Fall Semester, it offers Open Water Diving, Advance Open Water Diving, and the last one is Emergency First Response.

Fred, the one in the red arm suit, is the one instructing the course while Eric assisting him in any situation he need.

HERE ARE THE SIX STUDENTS THAT ENROLLED THIS COURSE. THEY ARE THE FIRST PIU STUDENTS TO TAKE THIS COURSE.

CECILIA:
FROM YAP AND PALAU

FINISHED HER AA DEGREE AND NOW PURSUING HER BA ON BIBLICAL STUDIES

SPECIALTY:
LOVE TO SERVE GOD AND LIKES TO TOUCH ANYTHING THAT ARE CATEGORIZED AS ELECTRONIC DEVICES THAT AT LEAST PRODUCE SOUND, MUSIC, OR ANY TYPES OF ENTERTAINMENTS.

HADSON:

FROM NGIWAL PALAU

PURSUING HIS BA DEGREE ON BIBLICAL STUDIES AND WANT TO BE TEACHER IN THE FUTURE. SOON TO FINISH HIS RACE IN PIU.

FAITHFULLY SERVING PALAU EVANGELICAL CHURCH IN GUAM (TEACHING SUNDAY SCHOOL)

SPECIALTY: VERY QUIET BUT VERY SHARP MINDED STUDENT. HE IS SKILLED IN PLAYING KEYBOARD.

JONIE:

FROM CHUUK

SECOND YEAR STUDENT, PURSUING HER BA DEGREE AND LOVES TO SERVE ALMIGHTY GOD

INVOLVE IN A LOT OF MINISTRY, i.e. CHURCH PLANTING AND UOG MINISTRY.

SPECIALTY:

LIKES TO LAUGH AND MAKE HER FRIENDS HAPPY WHEN THEY ARE IN DOWNPOINT OF THEIR LIVES.

BEN:

FROM SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

FIRST YEAR IN PIU AND HE'S A PART TIME STUDENT AND HE LOVES TO WORK.

INVOLVE IN UOG MINISTRY AND HE LIKES TO DO ALMOST EVERYTHING.

VERY TALENTED AND GIFTED MAN.

SPECIALTY:

FIXING ANYTHING THAT IS BROKEN TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

MELUAT:

FROM PALAU

FORGET ABOUT THIS GUY. THIS IS ME. ALL I CAN SAY ABOUT ME, I WANNA BE MISSIONARY

SPECIALTY: "GOT ANY COFFEE?"

SCOTT:

FROM LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

FRESHMEN STUDENT AND HE IS PART TIME STUDENT.

HE TUTORS SOME OF THE ESL STUDENTS AND IS INVOLVED WITH UOG MINISTRY AND ALSO MEMBER OF PIU WORSHIP TEAM

SPECIALTY:

PLAYING GUITAR AND JUST WANNA RUN HIS FINGER ON HIS GUITAR LIKE THERE'S NO ENDING.

LET'S ALL PRAY THAT THESE STUDENTS CAN PURSUE THIS COURSE AND USE IT FOR THE BENEFIT OF THEIR FUTURE MINISTRIES IN ORDER TO GLORIFY GOD.

Little bit about myself

2010-10-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

One thing i found out about myself. Since i was young, i never found out much about myself. but it was very quick for me to explore external and internal about myself. through struggle and trials in my life when i was young until now, i went through a lot that helped me shape up my life, but not only that, but also explore of who i am. I am a very time oriented person who will stick to what i say. I am not a typical micronesian. I have suffered trying to live like micronesian but it never fits me. I am a time oriented person, and i get irritated easily when people dont show up on the time where they said they would show up. This is something that is in my life that i've tried to change it but it cannot. i was born TIME ORIENTED person and i stick to my promises. I am a man of my words. But you may think that it is easy for me but there is more that i want to reveal on this blog. There are two things in my life that keeps me going and at the same time, very challenging for me sometimes. The first one, I am a perfectionist and the second one is OCD. If you dont know what is OCD, it is Obsesive Compulsive Disorder. This kind of disorder make me do things that are wierd and not normal for most of the people. if you are familiar with the Episode show called MONK, you can understand my sitation. Monk is a true OCD and i think he is at the highest. But for me, i am not so extreme like him but i go beyond normal. Let me show you some things to prove to you that i am OCD. When i chew any food, they gotta be evenly shared on both side of my mouth (left and right). When i shake someone's hand, i sometimes wipe it with my other hand, or in other word, i shake of the imaginary dust or dirt from it. I say sometimes because sometimes i dont. I'm not too extreme like Monk. When i walk across the tiles, i have to be evenly share the lines of the tiles or square on both of my feet. if i walk and my right foot step on top of the line, my left foot have to do that also, if the lines run out and my left did not step on the line, my right foot literally drag on the ground to wipe off the imaginary line that has stuck under my foot. again, not all the time because im not extreme OCD. when someone tap on my shoulder, i sometimes wipe of the imaginary dust on my shoulder. okay, i say imaginary and i know that it's imaginary. So why do i keep wiping or shaking off the dust if i know that they are just imainary? well, to be honest, the feeling is not imaginary. i feel the dust or dirt on my shoulder or on my hand when i shake hand. Also the imaginary line under my foot is real for me. i actually feel it that's why i have to drag my foot to wipe that line off of my foot. Is it cazy? yes, it is crazy for normal people but for me it is not crazy. This is something that many people don't understand. And again, i said PERFECTIONIST. Combining my perfectionist and OCD together, it makes me fulfill the things that i promised on time and it makes me follow what people say and it will benefit if they are time oriented. but if they are event oriented, it's a hurt to me. That's why a lot of time i make small things to be big deal or problem for me. Because normal people think that it is no big deal, but for me, it is a different story. It's a big deal. So am I a typical Micronesian? I dont know. I still say no. These stuff that i have makes me live easier when I'm with westerners. Why do i say that? I say this based on my experiences.

I feel like Abraham right now

2010-10-01T06:23:00.001-07:00

For this school semester, i have been disconnecting myself from a lot of responsibilities and leadership on PIU and other areas. The reason why is that i was so burnt out last semester by a lot of good works that the school had set before me to accomplish. I, with a very good team of mine from STUCO helped each other to accomplishing these responsibilities. But even more, I had some other ministries that i was involved with. At the same time, I had some personal issues that i was dealing in my life. Through these things and some other things that i did not mention, I was so burned out. But I did not have a chance to rest during the summer because of the ministry to the States. So that means, since I'm human that need rest, I decided not to get involved with a lot of things this semester. I wanted to relax my mind while i was recovering on those hardship that i went through last semester. With a blessing from God, the pre-registration that i did last semester for this semester made my classes so flexible in terms of my studying. Though I am taking six classes, I'm still able to have good amount of rest that can treat me like I'm in vacation.

But though I am away from those things/responsibilities, it doesn't mean that I have easy life on campus. I still have work to do as in assignments/homeworks. This is the only thing that occupies my time. I enjoy studying and enjoy my classes this semester because they are well spread or well scheduled so i can do my assignments and ministries with not a lot of hard thinkings.

Through some everyday challenges, and try to keep myself away from responsibilities, i guess i exagerated my actions in terms of away from task and responsibilities. I think i was more like run away of even worse, procrastinating. But there is even more harder challenge. I made a covenant to myself that I will control my itch (talking a lot in terms of testimonies or encouragement) and try to just be cool and not say much. through this covenant that i made, it was hard and frustrating because i was doing something that a lot of people say "out of my league" by not talking a lot. With the covenant and the keeping myself away from responsibilities, I became so lonely and I kept forcing myself to do it in order just to hurt me so i wont feel those other pain that i felt last semesters. Instead of lifting them up to God, i try to hide them by covering them up with blessings at the moments. In other words, instead of talking about them, I try to think or seek happiness and think about those happiness more often so i wont have time to think about the hurts or pain that i am holding or carrying. with this, i pretty much did not excape from the pain, but i just blindfold myself with the blessings and not trying to understand those pain and get over them and move on. Sadly to say this, but it got worse because I became so lonely because i disconnect myself from people when i have not solved and get understanding with these pain that im having from the past semester. With this situation, i became more frustrated and irritated. Lonely, frustrated, angry, confused, hurt, and others. What even made it worse was that i receive some bad news from one of my sibling and i felt so disappointed and discouraged, and it seems that things were so unfair to me. The tears started running down my face because i was so hurt and the tears where the tears of pain and anger. With my situation like this, i risked my time to stay awake until 2am on Sep 27th, just to talk and pour out these things to one of my very close family on this campus. Through the sharing, i gained more understanding of the situations that i was in and gained a knowledge of how to approach these challenges and pains that im holding. Even before this, i had a chance to talk to one of the sister that is always faithful to pray for me and she gave me some advices. And talking with this sister, she gave me one advice that i took it into action... REST IN THE LORD.... and then i talked to that brother at 2am in the morning, the advice were just side by side and it gave me understanding. The very next day, that's where the blessings started to reveal.

September 28th, this was the first day of our class on SCUBA DIVING. We went to buy our diving gears and Eric Sorenson was driving us. On our way back, I was talking about my vision or i would say ambition for Thailand as always. But out of nowhere, Eric said this, "YOU SHOULD BE THINKING ABOUT GOING TO DO MINISTRY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA. THEY ARE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE QUALIFIED SCUBA DIVERS." With these information that he said, i did not really consider it or think about it with confidence. i want to go there because i can say that i am from there also since my great grandfather is from there. But i did not really think about it as mission field because my mind is still focusing in Thailand.

September 29th, I finished my class and went to Steve Stinette's office and had a good amount of time talking with him, seeking for some advice. Not only seeking for advice, but i was also sharing what i wanted to do after i finish.... as always, THAILAND..... But with the sharing, i found out one thing that we both share the same vision but our focus on the field of ministry was different. I did not really get the sense that there is something that gonna happen in this particular room that will change me totally. When i found out that we share the same vision but different field, i was thinking in this way, "OH, THAT'S GOOD SO NOW WE CAN HELP EACH OTHER AND MAKE THE WORK MORE BETTER AND EASIER." Stubborn i am and blind i am because i still focus on my ambition. While we were still talking, and him knowing that i have enrolled on scuba diving class, he got up and took a map with routes of plain in it. before he got up, we were talking about that micronesia is the best place to send missionaries because communist people and other big places does not know much about micronesia. When he got up to take the map or book with map in it that has flight route in it, i thought he was gonna connect it with the one that we were just talking about. He pointed to Papua and Papua New Guinee and said that there are a lot of needs over there. so i said in my mind, "THAT'S COOL. NOW WHEN I GO TO THAILAND AND TRAIN SOME OF FUTURE MISSIONARIES FROM MICRONESIA, THEY WILL TAKE THIS FIELD THAT STEVE IS TALKING ABOUT". HOw blind i am and how stubborn i am so my mind is still in my ambition of Thailand. The next thing he said is, "THIS PARTICULAR PLACE NEED PEOPLE WHO CAN DO SCUBA DIVING." Three seconds after he said scuba diving, i was a mess. my tears start running down my face and i felt something that i've never felt before. it was something joyful and very convicting feeling. I knew where this was leading me to. Steve start giggling at me because i could not stop crying. He kept talking and we prayed. Now for that, i started connecting everything. With me and Steve sharing the same vision, and Eric mentioning to me that i should go to PNG for mission, and with the information about palauans trying to make a full support of one missionary in the future, I started to realized more and more things. It was not just Eric talking to me about going to PNG for diving, but it was God who used him. It was not just by mistake that I went to Steve's office, but it was on the right timing. It was not the calling for me to go to Thailand, YET, but it was just an ambition. not yet a calling.
After that, I walked out of the door and only thing that came out of my mouth is the word of praises and thanksgiving. I was speechless. I went to my room and prayed. There was nothing i could say to make myself feel good in expression of my feeling to God but just to say HALELUJIA. I feel like Abraham right now because i know there is a field out there waiting for me but i dont even know where. I know that it's unfamiliar place and i know that God is right by my side preparing me.
This thing that happened to me is that i know that it's not ambition, because i have never been to that side of the world, and at the same time im not in a rush or eagerness to go there. it is something that just fit well in me. for that whole day, I was overwhelmed with blessings. I think what im trying to say is that God has prepared a field for me to minister after I graduate, and i'm just waiting for its time to come. Even makes it more better, one of the thing that happened to make my week sooooooo blessing is the prayer time and fasting time. I was talking to one of the leader about something like this and now it's happening. I praise the Lord that He really answers our prayers on HIS timing. Praise HIM, Praise the Lord.

Blessings

2010-09-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

What is a definition of blessings to you?
For me, blessing is a result. Things that happens to me in this present time, whether it is smooth or painful, but if i know that the result of it or i assume that the result of it or even if i dont know the outcome of it, i should rejoice. Because i know that in the end, the result comes out good. I will give an example:
If I fail to inform my roommate that it is already time for he class, i may face the consequence but i still have to praise the Lord because i did not only make a mistake but i agained a knowledge of it, and that's a blessing. Now let's go even more further. If i failed again and again, it dont mean that i am a failure or the result will end with bad result. I still need to praise the Lord for the fact that my roommate is already smarter than earlier that he cannot depend on me. At the same time, it is a blessing for me because i already know that i am weak on this part so in order to improve it, i change my strategy of how to inform him that the class is starting. Either i get an alarm clock or i find a way that i will not fail. so it was a gaining of understanding on both sides.

Blessings
School has a lot of rules nowadays and some of them are pretty much against my interest. But is that mean that i need to go around and say that this is not good and we must go against it? ...NO... It may be not good for me but it is good for others. So how will i be a blessing to this situation. Let's bring it to the term STRIKE in the Dorm. If something is messy in the dorm, i know it's not me that did it. But that does not mean that I am not responsible for this STRIKE. I am pretty much also responsible for it. I should not be complaining that "THE STRIKE SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY AFFECT ON ME" because i myself is also guilty by not stewarding my brother's mess. And if i have an attitude by saying "I DO WHAT I DO AND HE DO WHAT HE DO", I dont think this is the right place for me. So again, what should i do to be a blessing of this STRIKE thing? In order to be a blessing is that i must learn how to have selfless virtue in me before i think about anything else. If i do not have this in me, i would be one of a stubborn and selfish person in this face of the earth. ACTION TAKING is to minister to my brothers by cleaning their mess up and teach them how to live in a clean environment by showing it in my action. I have to be their leaders. Not by words, but by actions. I have to lead them and let them learn from my actions. Word can be said but it's very less effective. but if my brother see me doing it, he will for sure be motivated to do it. This is when i know that i have won his heart because he is already comfortable with my fellowhip of cleanliness. I should think about others more than myself. Am i doing that? In me i say yes. but for others, i would say i dont know because i know that i have blindspots that others can see that i dont see.

Blessing:
A lot of time, when we think that we have a lot to do, it is not true. We jus think that we have a lot to do because we wait and procrastinate until the time is very close and then we start thinking hard. But before, we were relaxing our mind like we were in Chillax Land. I say this because many times i caught myself in this situation. I thought that i was really busy but i was not. it was just works that could have been done simply if i spread them in the week, but i was procrastinating and ended up doing them in one day. So my work for 1 hour a day ended up work a 6hour works. I say six hour because 3 actual hour for the works but the other three is just frustration inbetween. With this result, we can end up with lack of sleep, having headache, possible missing or be late to class, bad mood because not enough rest, and last, we cannot think straight and we get so annoyed by a little things. There is a term, pre-job planning. This mean, we plan our job ahead of time. This only work if we stick on to it. This dont mean that we do things on the actual time we put on our calendar or planner, but this is a guide for us to succeed. How we do it? Let's say that we have three task that needed to be done in a week. the first one we put it on Monday, the second one we put or schedule it on Wednesday and the last one we schedule it on Friday. The pre-job planning is to make sure that these will get done and easily. So now what we need to plan is that we just need to see what time of the day we will do them. Failing to use the pre-job planning, the first task ended up not be done on Monday. Now this already bring pressure to you because you now have to work two consecutive days for these tasks on Tuesday and Wednesday, if you actually do them. IF you fail again, you can end up stressing out trying to figure what to do first because they all piling up to one another. Pre-job planning is a tool that will help us minimize our frustration at work and at the same time, help us not to fail our accomplishment or our works.
What is this has to do with blessings? Very simple. Failing to meet the goal for Monday is now a burden for the next day when you were actually had free time on the next day. For this, it is now taking away the free time that you were suppose to spend with other brothers or sisters for hiking or other good stuff. now you have to stay back and finish this job that was suppose to be done on Monday and missing fun on hikings. Let's keep it real and try not to procrastinate or be lazy but finish the things at the time that we need to finish.

KEEP UP THE STRENGTH AND MOTIVATE OTHERS TO DO GOOD.

Blessings in God's Provision

2010-09-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

Before our ministry to the States this last summer, I was debating if i want to buy my ticket to fly to Palau after ministry. But i did not get it until the summer was over. Here is the reason why i did not get it until the end of the summer. even before the ministry, God already have plans for me to stay on campus after our ministry.

Toward the end of our ministry I asked the president of the school if i could stay back on campus when we return and work with the guys. He agreed and so when I came, i worked not under contract but was working as volunteer (which means that i dont get paid and i have to pay for my own food with my own money). Knowing that, I saved enough money from the mission trip so that i could buy my food when i stay on campus. I just had enough. I praise the Lord that He is always faithful and know how to prepare everything for me.

Before I continue about this story, i want to tell you little bit about myself. When it comes to money, i am really bad at it. I cannot manage, and i am pretty much a big spender. But through this past ministry, knowing that our trailer was fully packed and i knew that it was challenging to arrange or find the things inside, i did not want to buy more stuff to fill the trailer and make it more messy and difficult to deal with. So with that thinking, i was able to manage my money and was thinking to spend them in the last place before we leave the states. it was thought about it and i took it into action at the last day of our ministry. I had enough money to shop and buys some gifts for students that were staying back. Not only that, there were also enough money to cover my needs on campus when i served the Lord on campus after our ministry.

When i came to campus, i was astoned with the poles that were surrounding the Cannex dorm. i thought there was a plan of building a fence around it or something. But after two or three days of resting, I found out that there will be overhanging roof outside the Cannex. So during the very next week, I pretty much overcame my Jet Lag so i was able to work with the guys. We started with short devotion in the morning before we start working. I like those devotions because it kept us not forgeting the purpose of our work on campus, that it was not nessessarily how fast, but how the job was done well and how we minister to one another through the felloship of work. There were four gentlemen and five ladies who were the main worker crews, but mostly i worked with the guys.

The first work that i faced was cutting the grasses. I kind of did not have contentment on it but toward the end of the day, i started to like it. i did not like it because this one bush cutter kept dying on me. I brought it to the shop, tried to overhaul it, but i could not pinpoint the problem. So the next day, i changed my bush cutter and used the smaller one and i had more contentment on it. It was small, lighter, but did a great job.

For few days working on campus with the crew, then there was a big project that came about. (While i was working here, I was still questioning in my mind, "Why am I here and not in Susanville or back in Palau ministrying to my mom?") Tim Plaxton, who was managing the work on campus, told us that we are gonna start building the overhang on Cannex. With Tim knowing that i have just little skill of carpentry, he included me on the job of building the overhang. Still, my mind is questioning why I'm here on campus. When the work started, I did not know how this things gonna look like. I have not build any house or shelter on my own or put any idea on building things, but was just a helper. But on this particular job, I was able to exercise my skill and wisdom (mostly imagination and assumtions) in building this overhang. What became challenge is that it was my first time doing it, and Tim never build a house or roofing a house with these kinds of tin roofs. At the same time, one person who was working with us, though he is skilled in some works, but i knew that i had to take charge on this because I have not seen him doing this kind of work and i believed that he did not have much skills on this. I believed that we have almost the same amount of skills. But with another student that i really trust, I knew that he have some skills in building because i can see in his performance of any work on campus. Though I have not seen him building anything, but i believed that he have experience that I need to combine with mine and other guy to make this job complete.

I am a person who like to have prejob planning before i do any kinds of works, especially when it comes to building projects so i can actually see how it gonna look like and how much materials we gonna need to complete the job. But with flexibility and just let things go as it is, we started building it. Starting with the frame, it was tough because. I did not even know what will be on this frame, how the crossmember or the rafters going to be attached to these frames; did not know how the roofs gonna be attached to the wall of Cannex. but with patience, I was just observing and follow what Tim told us to do. There were times that I really wanted to put ideas, but i did not want because i did not see the picture of this project because there was no drawings or blueprints. Listening and following what Tim told us to do, the frame that is attached to the wall was complete and the frame that was hanging on the poles were finished. after those two finished, you know that i already start having imagination on how this project gonna look like.

Those hanging up the frames took us two days because we were kind of catching the idea of how this project gonna look like. After those hanging of the frames, we started with the rafters. It was challenging because now everyone already start thinking and our minds are now preparing what needs to be done next. This is what you call preparation on progress. So with everyone thinking, there were some tensions that happened because of the conflict of skills. And let me show you two things that caused the conflictions.

We have one guy who want to find the best way or fastest way for the job to complete. And there is another guy who is good in math, (especially geometry). The one with good math already know how the job should be done from step one to the ending of just rafting. But other person, he is smart, but he just want the work to finish fast. With the person who want to finish the work fast, he pretty much dont hear or communicate well with the other person. This caused tension and the second person just gave up so he stepped out of the work area to gain his composure. After few minutes then he came back and they both ask forgiveness and continued the works.

Why am i telling this? The reason why I am telling this is because i want to tell that every ministry, there is always a challenge that you face. but that is just a short term situation. And to think about it, the reason for your mission is much bigger than the challenge that you face at that particular moment.

After hanging the frames and overcoming that little challenge, the work went so smooth. We actually put the whole overhanging within a week. But that is not something that is just the tip of the iceberg that i want to tell. The main thing that i want to tell about this is of how God revealed something to me while working on this small project.

Before i started this, I said it before but i will say it again. I did not know why i was coming to campus. it was not taking a risk but i did not know exactly why i came to this campus. but with this working on the overhanging, i learned something that God was teaching me and was showing me. As you know that i have been talking about my ambition to Thailand... I started slacking about my prayer toward Thailand. But there was something that caught my attention with this summer work. When we almost completed the overhang for the Cannex, i found out that i could build the house. It really caught my attention because one of the thing in my mind was "how will i build the mission house in Thailand with no skills; how will i pay for the contractors to build the house if i live by supports." These worries came to my mind and i started to slack on my prayers. Even through this work, i found out that big part of our classrooms were build by a second hand materials. I found out that they built it with materials that were donated by other people, which means that these materials were used for another house before and they actually reused them to build our classrooms. It is such a blessing to hear that because our classroom is strong and there is no leak in it. The nails that they used to hold the lumber and plywoods in some part of our classrooms were actually straightened by one member of our school who was a student during that time. He actually brought these used nails and hammered them until they were straightened and then use them to guild the house.

How amazing is that? how blessing is that? using second hand materials to build the classrooms and now we are using it and no complaint about the leaking or worries that it will fall on us... This caught my attention. It gave me an idea of how to build the mission house in Thailand. That's the reason why i came to work over here on campus after our mission trip. TO LEARN THAT I CAN ACTUALLY BUILD THE HOUSE, AND ALL I NEED IS TO COLLECT THE SECOND HAND MATERIALS TO BUILD THE HOUSE. LESS EXPENSIVE AND THERE IS A SOLID EVIDENCE THAT I CAN USE SECOND HAND MATERIALS AND IT'S STILL SAFE. I not only found out about that one, but i found out about this one brother of mine that when i am ready to build the house over there, i would be willing to bring him to Thailand with me to build that mission house because he is gifted in building houses. So now i know some of my skills and also a person that will be helping me to build the house. Oh, and don't worry. we already talk about it so, YES, he knows about it. This is how God is providing. This is how God is working in our lives.

Okay, just one more example of how God provide. toward the starting of the school, i did not have enough money to buy my books. I looked at the prices and it would cost more than what i have. the day of paying for my books came and i did not know what to do. I had only $30.00 in my wallet and $7.00 on my bank. even before I put those $30.00 for the books, i receive the envelope that was a love gift from Palau Evangelical Church in Guam that contained some money that was enough to knock out two of the books. I was so blessed for that, but i still had some books that i needed to pay. Though i knew i still had some more books to pay for, I was not thinking about that one but was celeberating the fact that i got those money to knock out those two books. I was celeberating the moment and not thinking about what's to come because I did not want to ruin the joy that God is giving me that comes with happiness. It would be sad thing if I receive a blessing and yet i dont have happiness when God already give me a part of what i've prayed for. after few days, then it came a time that i really needed to find the money or the way to get the rest of those books that i needed. I came to one brother and talked about some of the things that i wanted to make them straight, but with this conversation, he actually found out that i need help to buy my books. so I received enough money to cover the rest of the books and the art materials that i needed for the courses this semester. How much blessing would you want to ask from God? God dont give us blessings when we expect them to happen. NO. He gives us when we need them. I praise Him because He is JEHOVAH JIRAH. I praise Him because He is faithful God. I praise Him because He draws me close to Him every single day of my life. I am satisfied with the life that I'm in right now and i want to grow more and more everyday toward Him. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.

NOW I KNOW THE REASON WHY I DID NOT STAY BACK IN SUSANVILLE OR WENT BACK TO PALAU.

Use Scripture in a Right way

2010-08-30T05:18:00.000-07:00

Submission to God's Will

2010-08-14T03:17:00.000-07:00

I'm just gonna write some part of my testimony and also give some of the implications that you might can use them and apply them to your situation.

My mom and dad used to drink a lot back in their times. even my grandfather and great grandfather from my father's side. this mean that i have it in me that i can easily grab a glass of whisky and or a bottle of beer and drink it and then it goes from one to two, from two to three and on. since i have explore myself that i am weak on drinking, even until today my mouth will be watery when i see them. so what i do is that i stay away from the place that they serve alcohol like clubs and bars. even when my friends are drinking, i try to stay away from them as much as i can. That is one technique that i use to get myself away from drinking again.

Let me explain one thing that might help you a little bit. Addictions can be cured. it sometimes takes bloodshed or almost a loss of life, but it can be cured. my uncle was alcoholic and he just recently quit it because he had pneumonia and it almost killed him. he had only 20% to live as the doctor said. but because of his sickness, he was in the hospital for over two weeks and that cleansed him from drinking. he is clean now, still. I am saying this because it can be applicable to any addictions. i know that you are not alcoholic so i was just using that as an example. but when you have something that you are struggling with, here is one thing that you use it to challenge yourself. if you start quiting and you reach 2 days, on the third day, you can say "I did not drink or smoke for two days, that mean i can do it one more day". the third day finish and on the fourth day, you say, "I did not drink or smoke for 3 days, that means i can do it one more day". keep doing that and sooner or later, you find out that 3 weeks have elopse, 5 weeks, 2 months, one year. by this time, it is already easy. But here is a thing. Don't think that one year has passed so you can go put your guards down. because sometime you say that it is easy, but when you get closer to them, the temptation is stronger than you think. As you know, we cannot do things on our own. so to make this more easy, always seek guidance from God.

Here are three terms that you can use to escape the temptations of addictions. First, you have to DISCIPLINE yourself. If you keep thinking about them, try to occupy yourself with other things so you wont think about them. Train your mind not to think about them. it will be hard but when you continue doing it, the next term kicks in, which is PERSEVERANCE. at this point, your body want to do something crazy to get that thing so bad. But if you continue and persevere that stage which is very hard, it will be much more easy afterward. After those, you can be witnessing to other people with what God had done to your life. when you share to others, it will challenge you in this way. WHEN YOU TELL OTHERS, IT MAKES YOU DONT WANT TO GET BACK TO IT BECAUSE IT WOULD BE BAD EXAMPLE IF WE TELL OTHERS OF HOW GOD HELPED US, AND ALL OF THE SUDDEN, THEY SEE US DOING IT, AGAIN. I've used this to help me and its working. I say things that i am weak at it out loud so I can remind myself that I should not go back to it because i just said it.

Dont be discourage if you fail. there's room for failure. when you make mistake, you can learn from it and see what you can do to improve from it. You stumble and shake it off and say, "Lord, help me I need you." You stumble again and then you shake it again and say, "Lord, help me because I cannot do this on my own." Keep doing that day by day, moment by moment, situation by situation and you will be able to be submissive to God's Will. Always allow Him to work in you and through you. You cannot change yourself and I cannot change myself. It is God who make changes, that's why we need to allow Him to work and make changes. If you fail or stumble but get up and shake the dust and continue, that is what we call submission to God's Will. but if you fall down and decided not want to get up, then it's not submission to God. Take one thing at a time, little by little and allow Him to break you and mold you to the way that is good for you but also what He wants.

Palauans In Kileen and Corsicana

2010-07-10T21:21:00.000-07:00

Dominic and I
Leeman, Alister, Me, and Jesse

Mamang Nina and others

Ime and others

DE cleaning Andrew. Andrew is DE's Patient in Nursery Home in Corsicana Texas.

DE and Precila

Me and my sister DE reuniting after little bit over ten years not seeing each other. I love my families.

Alister and his wife Zenida and Jesse at the back.

Twilla and others.

Dedaes and Bevan and others

Ime and others

and others

Kekerelchad's daughter.

Dominic's Daughter inviting Ceci

Alister's son and Friend's daughter.

2010-07-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, sorry for not updating this for a long time. I have a lot of pictures that i want to post, but because of the ministry that i've been so busy, I just want to say that our ministry has been a blessing to us and the people that we meet. There are lot of stories about blessings that i want to tell you and even the members of VOM want to tell you, but because of time, i cannot tell you all on this little writing. later i will give you whole story. but to give short version, we have met palauans and chuukese and Americans and Mexicans and other people. God has been using us in many ways. there are some places that we ministered that has brought some people together and we have seen the fruit bearing. We are in San Diego and we will be seeing Dan Field tomorrow and on monday we will be on our way to Texas. check our schedule on Dave's Blog. I will update to you guys more once i have more time and of course my laptop. im using Keiny's Laptop. God Bless.

2010-05-18T01:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had intensive and blessing practice. We practiced songs, dramas and hand motions of action songs.

The guys did really good job on practicing dramas.

It's such a blessing to have awesome people to work with and serving the Lord.

We had good lunch. it was not micronesian style, but more like western style. Roast chicken, potato salad, fritos, tostitos, grapes, and biscuit. mmmmhhh. i don't mind eating these.

After the practice, we came back home to where we stayed and spent time with our host family and just have quality time with them since we always stay out doing ministry or practicing and not hanging out with our family often. Oh, and my family, we had Italian night. We had some hommade spaggetti....

Hommade garic bread....

We had a this special dessert that was the first time ever made so we came up with the name "Cold Strawberry Sundae." This is composed of Cold Strawberry with little sprinkle of sugar, Cookies and Cream Ice Cream, and of course the Ho Ho's on the top of it. mmmmmmhhhhmmmm...

Afterward, we had fun with our family by cleaning the mess and washing the dishes together. We enjoyed the blessing and for me, I enjoyed every bit of these blessings that God is bringing to my life. It's all about Him and Him only. What a wonderful and blessing life to be part of God's plan.

2010-05-16T22:03:00.000-07:00

Today we stated little bit earlier. It was little bit cold than other past days. For this day, there were lot of works and very little time to rest, but over all, everything when so well.

Meyou and Kita early morning before we left to church.

We performed some of our songs and actions songs for the kids at the church.

They were so nice and very open. This is Elijah who was very sweet and cute.

I did not really get this girl's name but she loved the camera. I like her smile and she was so outspoken.

This is another kid that Kita was making friend with.

There were some questionaire so some were eager to answer as you can see that girl raising her hand for the questions.

After we finished the Church, we went to have some good Chinese food in Panda Express.

Courage was really enjoying the water while we were waiting for things to do. I went to walk around other stores to look for some things that i might need.

Well, these are some good pictures.

You guys know how am I really crazy about natural pictures.

I am that crazy. I like natural pictures. it looks good.

Then we came back to our house. after that, we went straight to the house and got ready for the evening fellowship. we did some performance over there, but i think the most good thing that happened was when some of the students shared their powerful testimonies like Meyou's testimony and other team members.

There were not many questions that they asked, but there were good amount of testimonies and information that were brought up to the people here before they prayed for us.

There were some good people over there that I talked with and they were really blessing to me.

I have to say that this is really good picture from tonight.

Eric an Nathan discussing about Church History.

Nathan is really good guy whom i enjoyed talking with.

One of the highlight that happened today was when i showed at the side of the stage where the worship team were performing. I can tell the story later about this, but today was a long day but a blessing for me. I just want to thank God for his love for me. Thank you Oh Lord.

My grammar on this post is really messy because im so tired. as long as you can understand, that's all i care. Thank you and God Bless.

2010-05-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,
Sorry that i dont have any pictures because i left my camera. But i just want to say that the performance yesterday at LA West was a blessing for us. We performed to the AWANA group and it was such a blessing for us and for them too. the performance was really good, and everyone enjoyed it, especially me. I had a blast with our performance. We are just relaxing for today, but tomorrow we will do another performance. God has been good to us. Thank you all of your support of prayers.

Second day of Ministry (VOM)

2010-05-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

We hopped inside the van this morning at about 9ish and head to the church for practice.

This church will be the place that we will use to practice everyday for this upcoming 8 days before we move to another place.

We got there and waited for others to come because we live in different houses.

After everyone came, we started practicing some songs and action movements for tomorrow. We also practiced our Chuukese stick dance.

Oh, and yes... Eric was very helpful in volunteering in dancing, preparing us to see what we could possibly face tomorrow when we get to West L.A.

Definitely, Dave was very flexible when we requested him to pretend that he is one of the youth or teenager that we will ask to dance with us tomorrow. Oh, not only that he was flexible in terms of responding to our request, but you can see that he was very flexible in movement, like how he is swinging on this picture.

Karyn was also volunteering to pretend to be like a youth. All staffs were very helpful. Thank you all for your helps and advices.

After we finished practice, we went to Round Table Pizza for dinner.

And we watched Celtics VS Cavaliers.

Foods were good and the game was good too. Thanks Dave for fulfilling your promises. We had a good night because of you.

Ladies came but i don't really know if they were interested in baskeball or not. But it seems like Jaynee was really paying attention, so they probably were enjoying it.

After dinner, we went to Old Navy and ROSS to by some essencial needs like blankets and sweaters.

Yeah, these kinds of sweaters. It's cold over here not really cold. I can wear only T-shirt and still enjoy walking around. But some of the brothers and sister are kind of not used to this cold weather so they had to buy sweaters. I bought one because I probably gonna use it when we go to Susanville. I heard that it's little bit colder over there.

Then some of us were quick in shopping so they stayed outside waiting for others to finish.

And we waited...

But the trick was that the leaders were actually kept us busy and not try to bring us home early. They did this for our goods, trying to keep us busy so by the time we got home, we were really tired, but ready to sleep at the right time. If they did not do this, we probably would have fallen asleep if we came early, then wake up in the middle of the night and will not be able to sleep again. when i look at my time right now, it's 11:20pm over here but 4:20pm in Guam. This mean that this is the time we actually are awake, sitting and talking stories in Guam. But since the leaders' plan was working really well, i can actually say that i will have a good night sleep tonight without any problem.

Thank you all for praying for us. Please continue to pray for us because we really need your prayers. We have one or two members who are sick because they are not used to the climate over here. One of them told me that it's little bit hard for her to bread on this weather. So please pray for us so we can adjust well to this side of the world. Thank you again and God Bless.

First Day of Mission Trip

2010-05-12T14:26:00.001-07:00

We flew to Hawaii and I met Ransome (Tiny)

I also Saw my sister Molly

Jayleen got reunited with her sisters once again.

Then, we're back on the plane again

Heading to L.A. Cali

Welcome to L.A.

We were waiting for Eric and Karyn. We waited for over an hour.

While we were relaxing waiting for Eric, me and Dave drank couple of coffee. Oh, it tasted so good. We did some entertainment on the airport by playing Guitar, Ukuleleh and Harmonica. Oh, we were entertaining ourselves. hehe.

After we got picked up, we went to Wal Mart and Shop.

Then we went to eat at Home Style Buffet

Then,,,

Then,,,,

We took a nap. You see, i do not have picture in here. that means, i am not sleeping. So, what does that mean? I have to take a nap just like my brothers and sister who are doing it right now. I will update more when i wake up. ZZZzzzZZZzzzzZZZ

Thank You

2010-04-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

I just want to take this time and thank all the 2009-2010 StuCo members for the works that we shared together. We went through some challenges but we have gain more knowledge and understanding of working together. You guys have made this school year for me a successful and fruitful for me. I have learned a lot from you guys and at the same time, I have learned more about leadership through this StuCo presidential position than learning inside the class. I will surely miss working with you guys. We say that we will see each other on campus, but that is not so intimate like how we worked together as a team under StuCo. This academic year was really challenging to us, the StuCo, because there were lot of things that we were doing and the deadline on them were very crunching to one after another. We ratified the Bylaw and that was the most challenging in our work and we made it. Let's just pray that it will be the final ratification and be approved.

I also want to take this time and thank all the staff and faculty for their prayers and support to our team (StuCo). If you are a staff and reading this one, i want to make a report and say that the StuCo members that i was working with did their best and they worked really hard with me to make things happen. We just wished that there were more time but times are very limited. I have seen one or two members in StuCo sacrificing by skipping one of their class to make things done. It was planned by StuCo for this person to skip class, but it was his/her own choice to skip and make things happen. I can say that that is heart. They have taught me a lot, especially that one person who took one absent to make things done to make sure that people will get what they need and what StuCo promised them.

I also want to thank God about this past voting for the upcoming StuCo members. The team that are going to work this coming school year are really good team. I would say that they will make a good government. I want us to remember them in our prayer.

Once again, thank you very much and let us just be happy of what God is doing in our lives.

2010-04-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

My two good sister, Mulan and Ceci
Mulan is a Bethania Alumni from China. She has incarnate with Micronesian people very well. Mulan is one of the student over here in Pacific Island University and is very good person to hang out with. She is very outgoing person and knows how to socialize.

Ceci is from Palau and grew up in Yap most of time in her life. She is also PIU student and has been involved in some ministries like Thai Mission that went to Thailand last summer 2009. Ceci likes to take pictures and very creative when it comes to movies/slideshow presentation. She finished her AA last semester and decided to change her program to BA so now she is still with us and persuing her BA. She is also a memer of the mission trip that goes to the States this summer 2010.

Rob, Vincent, and Hartmut:
Rob has been here in Micronesia for over five years and he is currently working here in PIU as a Dean of Men and there are other more titles that he holds over here in PIU Campus.
Vincent is very new to our PIU family and has been a blessing to my life and some other students. Every night he comes to my room and read Scriptures with my roommate Leeman and sometimes they play games by racing to find the Scripture. Vincent is one of the many students in PIU that I always look up to and get a blessings from. He is very open person and is very eager to learn about missions and ministries. Not only those, but mostly want to learn more about God.
Hartmut is from Germany and has been serving God over here in Micronesia for many years also. He was serving the branch or PIBC in Tol and now he is serving God over here in Guam Campus.

Hipper:
Hipper is also student of PIU and has been a blessing to my life. He is persuing his education under AA program and this will be his last semester. Through my conversation with one time, he wanted to change from AA to BA but he will see when times come. He is very quiet but when it comes to the basketball court, he's very fast and have a lot of good moves.

Davy:

Davy was my roommate last semester and he has been a blessing in my life. He is one of the student that always challenge me. I always look up to this guy even though he is younger than me. I see that he has a lot of good characteristics of leadership in him. He is one my pertners of asking questions in Larry Bock's class in Pauline Literature. I'm really happy to have Davy as a part of my life.

Daisy:

Daisy is a missionary from Texas who came to Palau in 2008 for Gospel Day and found out about PIU aka PIBC and decided to attend PIBC. She is from Texas and has served a lot of Micronesians in the States, mostly Palauans. She is a part time student and staff over here in PIU campus. She want to serve God in Palau after she graduate over here. She has been a blessing to a lot of PIU family and very mission minded person. God has brought her here and she has been a helpful person in our lives.

Shelby and Hadson:

Two of a very special person in my life over here in PIU. They have been a good example in my life and have been a good helper when I need something. The first time I came to PIU, they were always by my side, helping me with everything. I think we are going to march out together. They are also very dedicated students and have been a big blessing to Palau Evangelical Church in Guam. They both teach sunday school and they are involved in some small ministry in PECG.

Davy and Tyler sitting and resting during the basketball game. I think they were making their plans for the championship and they did took the champion.

Montel and Jeremiah (Sou sou)
Montel is a graduate student and now continuing his education, persuing his Master course right now.

Sou Sou is undergraduate student and still persuing his BA. He is a very gifted in basketball. When we play basketball, he's fast, got moves, and knows how to play as a team.

Scott, Omar and TJ:

These are all Palauans that are potential future student over here in PIU. At the same time, these are the youths that I minister to them every Friday nights in Tumon Village. Pray for them that they may be able to attend PIU in the future.

Beaula and Jenn:

Beau is a student that is very gifted in singing and composing songs. She has been a blessing to my life over here in PIU. She is very quiet but very outgoing once you get to know her.

Jenn is a teacher who teach English courses and has been a blessing to my life and also other student's lives.

Jake:

Jake is very close brother of mine and is also very gifted in basketball skills. He's fast, got moves, not only that, but he also got style. He's very gifted in playing keyboard or piano. He's also one of the students that will be going to the states this summer.

Stella:

Stella is from Yap and working as a librarian. She is very close to me, not that she is from Yap or we have good conversation, but also, her two brothers are very good friends of mine. Me and one of her brother were taking mechanic courses in Palau Community College. Stella is more like a family to me.

Justin:

Justin's story is almost like Jake's. He is good in basketball and very gifted in playing keyboard and piano. He is also a member of the mission trip to the States this summer "Voices of Micronesia". He also have touched my life and been a blessing to me.

Jayleen:

Jayleen is also a Bethania alumni and has been a blessing to my life. She is very stong in ministry works and very outspoken person. She has a lot of leadership in her and has helped me in my ministry as a STU CO President. I really enjoyed working with Jayleen in STU CO. She is also a member of "The Voices of Micronesia".

Tyler:

Tyler is a Palauan and also a student of PIU. He has been a blessing to me and a lot of students. There are some ministries that he is very actively involved and has been a good role model for me. I really appreciate Tyler's leadership and he has been a big help with me and other students. He sometimes just come to the campus and pick up some students and go do ministry inside the mall or other open places.

Random Pictures

2010-04-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

She's running, striving, persevering, Xy took the Gold.

Running and enjoying the day, she don't realize that
she's hanging on the air. Y0u go Steph.

Dolo enjoying the photoshoot while we were in Saipan.
Christmas 2009

Thai Student who always pays attention to cameras around her.
Everytime I take a shot, she's always ready. I cannot take a surprise
picture out of her.

May and Tracy enjoying the pizza during our work with
New Mexico team (Summer 2009)

Maymay laxing from the work

Sister Mesikt on her way to finish her last task as a PIBC Student.

Joses making peace during car wash.

Jirah posing for the camera... very cute..

Erten being happy during our ministry in Mae Jo University, Thailand.

Mission To Mainland

2010-02-09T20:41:00.000-08:00

Hello reader... thank you for reading this blog of mine. I am writing this to inform you that I will be flying to the states for some ministry with other students and Staff of Pacific Island University. This mission trip is to promote PIU but at the same time to show what Christians in Micronesia can bring and how God has worked in our lives. I know that some of you have come to this blog through the link on facebook and Yahoo mail. If you are willing to support please contact me through those sites that led you here...facebook and yahoo....There are five kinds of support that I need from you. First one is prayer, second one is donations of money, third thing is prayer, fourth thing is donations of Airline Mileage, and the last one is prayer. If you are willing to be part our our team by supporting, I would be really glad. If you are friend of mine from the states, you are not only supporting me and that is it, but you are also supporting me to enable me to come to the states and perform skits, preaching, songs, or whatever we got for you. Our team is called Voices of Micronesia consist of 14 students: T'nel Mori, Keiny Aisek, Charles Sam, Erten Herner, Leeman Sebastian, Jayleen Nakamura, Jaynee Sam, Meyou Marar, Maybellene Marar, Cecilia Pedro, Menkita Mokut, Mary Grace Lisarfach, Grace Tina Neth, myself (Meluat Sean Meluat) and six Staff: Dave & Joyce Owen, Eric & Karyn Sorenson, Delight & Evelyn Suda. Our team will leave right after graduation in May and come back to Guam at the end of July. We will go around the U.S., mostly in California, Texas and the South-eastern U.S. Each members have to come up with $2500 that will cover everything. If you sense that God is calling you to help us, please don't hesitate to support. It would be really big help if you will be part of our team. If you are willing, please reply to this request through yahoo or facebook and I will give you more details. My address is pjvc2001@yahoo.com. Thank you and may God bless you for what you are doing.

Which one came first?

2009-12-01T15:49:00.000-08:00

On the last Tuesday Chapel, December 1 2009, Rob asked a question that has been a question for decades and some people still get it wrong, including the Christians. But here is my observation and interpretation of the situation... Oh, and the question is this: "Which one came first...Chicken or the Egg?" For my observation, and based on what I study from the Bible, I would say that Chicken came first. The reason for this is very clear and we can also just use our common sense to answer this question if we carefully think about it. But let me answer it with my common sense before I give my answer based on my studying from the Bible. Common Sense Answer: if the egg came first, it will surely die. before it even crack open. The reason for this is because the egg needs some heat to keep itself warm so it can be fully develop. At the same time, even if the chick survive from that, it would not be able to survive on the second stage of its life because it does not know how to hunt their food or maybe can be killed by other creatures because it does not know how to protect itself yet, especially when it have not develop its wings to fly. But if the Chicken came first, it can actually conceive the egg and keep it warm. After the egg become chick, then the chicken will train the small one to hunt for its food and at the same time, protecting it from other creatures until it's fully grown. OK. Now, that is a Common Sense Answer. Let me bring our mind to the Bible now. Bible Answer: In the beginning, man and woman were created....not baby. In later days, God created plants and trees and said that they will bear fruits of its kind.... not fruit to become tree. Continuing with creation, God created beasts of the land. Baby lions are not beast yet. It will be beast if they are big and vicious already. All the creations happened in seven days....and we know that baby lion cannot develop to become a beast within seven days. I want to say that these are not speculations, but because I know that some people would disagree with me, I will say that you can say that I'm just speculating. Chicken came first.

Calling from God

2009-11-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

Putting all the things that I experience in my life together and praying about the place that I want to serve in the future is really something to me right now. When it comes to preaching, I get disturbed too much. When I listen to the preacher on any Sundays, I get disturbed because when the person preach, I start thinking about some good sermons that pops out of my mind through his illustrations, examples, or sometimes only one of his point. When it comes to conversation about cross culture, I am really crazy about it. Sometimes I get too crazy that makes me want to quit school and go straight ahead to Thailand and serve there. But I know that if that happens, I probably succeed in some point but I know that I would struggle because it is not God's timing but my timing to go to Thailand. A lot of things happens in my life that seems so crazy and I know that some people get irritated about them because I speak about them too much, like mission abroad. But I know that there is a reason why I keep talking about them. Even before I went to Thai Mission Trip, I already start talking about it. My mentality is little bit different from a lot of people around me, whether over here in Guam of back in Palau. I always look beyond what normal viewer see. What I mean about that is that a lot of Christians over here in Micronesia only look within their territories because they see what strength and what weaknesses is happening around them. But what I am looking for is beyond that one. Some of the things that always comes to my mind are future Micronesian Church Leaders. What I am looking at is that I want them to go outside their own island to experience some cross-culture ministry and see other people's need so they will actually know what to talk about when it comes to church needs or the needs of a person struggling walking with Christ. I have told some of you that I want to be a full time missionary in Thailand. And what I want to do over there is to make a channel for future Micronesian Church leaders to come and experience Thailand Mission before they take their permanent or long term mission. I am talking about Thailand, because my heart is with those people over there. But if God does not want me to go to Thailand, then I will just pray and hope that He send me anywhere else but the States and anywhere over here in Micronesia.

I was raised with independent thinking, so with that kind of ability, I always wanted challenges. After I came from military and serving Palau church for over a year, I realized that I wanted more than just ministering over here in Micronesia. One of the first place that came to my mind was China. I wanted to do ministry to places that people hardly speak the Gospel, or places that are unreached when it comes to the Gospel. I had this thing that came to my mind that "there are a lot of Christians over here in Micronesia that can deal with struggles within their reach." That made me realize that there are not many people, or let me say Micronesians, doing ministries abroad, especially when it come to the 10-40 window. I have made up my mind that God is calling me to do ministry in Thailand. I have a feeling about it but I have not receive the confirmation. It's just made up in my mind. But I am ready. My mind and my heart and everything in me are ready to be sent to do ministry there right after I graduate. I no one will send me, I will do it myself. I have seen the needs of people over there in Thailand and they need people to stay there, not only two months, but I am talking about years. Mission trip during summer is good but it is not good enough. If there is someone that will change that two month ministry into years, that is gonna be me if it's according to the Will of Almighty God. I have been prompted by others, I have experienced or seen the needs over there, and I have a reasonable decision about going to do ministry over there so I am going. If you are reading this and you think that your gift is cross culture ministry and wanna give a try out, start praying right now so when the time comes for departure, you may know if this is your calling or not. I do not know that if my definition of full time missionary is right or not. I say I want to be a full time missionary over there, but if the definition of full time missionary is like 10-20, than I would want to change my word again. I want to be a lifer. I will do my ministry over there and plant my tomb stone over there after my last breath. God is calling me, and I know that Micronesia is not one of them. Calling from God... it does not hurt to give a try and you will not regret it if you go outside. You can always come back. But I believe that if you stay here in Micronesia without tasting the bit of mission abroad, you will regret it when someone come later after you and tell you the experience he/she gained when he/she went abroad. Money is just a little paper that destroys your focus on what God wants you to do. So don't ever say money is the problem. God's calling you. Are you there by the phone and ready to answer it? I know I am. Send me anywhere and I will take it. But I just pray that not over here in Micronesia or the States. And I am talking about life time or permanent mission. God is always by the telephone and waiting for you to call Him..."Call upon me in times of trouble, I will deliver you and you will honor Me." (Psalm 50:15) What about you? Are you ready to answer God's calling? Maybe your phone is ringing right now. I know I have and my respond to Him is this, "Send me anywhere and I will go."

THANKS BE TO GOD

2009-11-23T18:33:00.000-08:00

There will be times that you will have to encourage people, but there are also times that you need encouragements. At this point of my life, I am really dry on encouragement. Sometimes I think that I am encouraging people, but instead, I bring more troubles to myself, more like a headache. There are some things that are happening in my life and sometimes, I just want to sleep and never come out of my room. I have lack of sleep; I hardly prioritize now; my head is not thinking well; I have family issues coming here and there that I am thinking of; I have some works as a Student Council President that needs to be done, actually, not some but a lot; I have some ministry things that I need to take care of.... There are many things in my life that I do not share right now. I am dry when it comes to encouragement. I really need encouragement. ITS HARD to wake up every morning when I know that I have a lot of things that i need to take care of. ITS HARD for me to face a day when I know that I am overwhelmed with my own problems or issues and some of my brothers come to me and seek encouragements. ITS HARD for me to help a person when he or she have the same problem that I have and I know that even me is struggling on that particular issue. I know that these things happens to my life for a reason. If it was not God's will for me to face these struggles, then it would never happened to me. I know God allow this in my life because He have a great plans for me. I am not complaining, but just want to give thanks to God for these because it helps me come to the Lord more than usual. I thank God for allowing me to face these things because these are sharpening stone in my life. I thank God that He gave me the ability to SEE so i can see the blessings surrounding me. I thank God for my ability to walk so I can WALK to my br0thers and sisters and bless them as they bless me. I thank God for my ability to TALK so i can give encouragement and receive encouragement from others. I thank God for my ability to LOVE so I can love others as HE loves me. But one thing is that I can never thank God enough for his GRACE and MERCY for giving me breath and sparing another day for me to live. And the last thing that I want to say is that I can never thank God enough for dying on a cross for my sins. Praise be to GOD and nothing else.

PIU Basketball

2009-10-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

This past few weeks after the school stated, PIU had been battling their games inside the basketball court. On the first game, we took the win over Harvest so it kind of gave us a hope that we will make a good season for this year. After we played the next three games, our mind started to change because we lost those three or four games back-to-back but our hope were still high. There were times in the games that brought silence to our mouth because of how we hated the game and how we struggle to get the desire that we wanted in the game which was and still is winning. But we never lost hope and we continued believing in ourselves. There are some games that I feel so sad about because when we come back home from the game with a lose, one or sometimes couple of my brothers complained because they did not even get in the game at all. I do understand that one because it happened to me few times in this season. So I vividly know how they feel, especially when a person know that he was working hard and putting all of his effort on the practice, not hoping but desiring to go in the game and yet did not have any chance to play at all. Even though we faced those challenges in this particular ministry, we did overame them. I have to tell you one thing. This season, comparing to last year season, it turned out quite ok. Actually, it turned out much better than last year. Last year PIU only had two wins for the whole season so they did not have a chance to go to PlayOff. But this year, we have raised up our status. Right now our standing is 5-5. The amazing thing about it, as you know that we only won Harvest, right now we have five wins with four consecutive winning from these past four games including the one that we played today. We just broke the record from last year, and not only that, but we also just earned couple more games to play because we are now going for PlayOffs. I enjoy watching my brothers building their relationship not only inside the campus activities, but also outside like basketball with other church teams. Other than that, our team had been crying for the uniform. we are already getting toward the end of our season of the basketball and still have no uniforms. The uniforms cost $41.00 but most of the students in the team could not afford with that amount of money. I dont really want to see my brothers to play inside the court for PlayOffs and raise their fingers to show their numbers or shout their numbers. It's a PlayOffs and could be Championship after three of four year. They deserve uniforms. I am willing to sponsor one of them but I cannot sponsor all of them. I just hope that they will wear uniforms on the PlayOffs. This is the first Pacific Island University Basketball team and I want to see them in to court with PIU Basketball uniform on instead of yelling out their number or raising up their fingers to show their numbers. I can do something but I cannot do it on my own. It's just my wish and desire that my brothers will have uniforms before playoffs.

Spiritual Emphasis

2009-10-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

This Spiritual Emphasis was very good and I believe that it met all the expectations of many people regarding our Spiritual lives. I know it did met my expectations. Even the speaker is very special because he flew from California all the way to this very island of Guam just to give us three sessions or messages (Word of God) with nothing to ask for. How amazing and blessing is that. So let me just tell the story through pictures. The name of the speaker is Matt. Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce you Matt Augee.....

Sorry.. wrong picture... let's try again....

Sorry... wrong again...ok... one more time..
That's better...
Matt has been a good friend with Steve and coming to Guam is not his first time but this is like his second time after so many years. He said that coming to Guam is "coming home" for him. You can learn more about Matt on PIU blog. He came with Dan Fields who is a professional photographer, not only a professional photographer, but also is a Christian. Dan is not a Missionary but a Passionary.

I will let the pictures speak for itself about the Spiritual Emphasis.
First thing we did was to have some quiet time with God individually for about an hour...

Then there was Ice Breaker Then we were divided into our community group and prayed and discussed about what we felt about the passage that Rob gave us and how God spoke to us through that passage...

Then there was lunch
People were so lovable and cared for each other these days in this Spiritual Emphasis
Then we had competition between community groups
First one was blowing flour and find something under it...
RESULT....
We had some in between flour and watermelon... and watermelon was the last event.....
Oh yes... they were monster beast, torturing and ripping the layers and sucking the blood of these poor watermelons...wahhhahahahahha...After this, then we took off to Bay View

We had Commuter students that joined us and it was a blessing to have them with us... including these Chinese sisters of ours.....
We played some rubber rockets sponsored by Matt... thanx Matt...
Dan was there with us and he took a lot of pictures so you guys can check them on his website....
http://www.danfieldsphotographyblog.com/

Oh, well that's my roommate... call him Diki boo
After the fun and games, Matt gave us the first Session
Then he gave us instructions of how to put this very particular puzzle together, then he tossed them and let us solve it. It was also an exercise of communication.
After we played that, and Matt relate it to our spiritual lives, the basketball team took off for the game and we won over Abundant Life. We came back to Bay View and ate delicious dinner.
Then, we did a worship.
This was one of my best moment in my life, especially when I worship with my PIU Family. I was so moved.
Next day we had a Sunrise Service
Not only the Deans but also some staffs were with us... This is Hartmut ane Urte.
This is Kalvin and Ninio
Some of the students are not a morning people
Rob shared some Scriptures in the book of Psalm and I also shared Scriptures that was in the book 1Peter Chapter 2.
After this service, we split and did our quiet times. On my quiet time, after I meditate on Psalm 103, I spent some part of this quiet time enjoying the creations of God that was around me that moment...
Thanks to our sister because they were the ones preparing our breakfasts. I love you sisters.
After breakfast, Matt gave us his session #2

And again, there was another ice breaker which we enjoyed it too...After Matt delivered his message for that session #2, we were divided into community groups and shared of how God spoke to us in our quiet time.

During our sharing in our community groups, one student shared her experience and during her sharing, it brought tears of joy to here eyes because she felt really good so some of the sisters were comforting her with hugs and some thanksgiving of her sharing.
After the community group, people were so tired so some of them took a nap during lunch hour.
After lunch, we were free until 4:00pm then Matt delivered his last message on that third Session. This time i did not have pictures to take because by this time I was using Dan's camera to take pictures.
After the session, we broke out and there was dinner and clean up/pack-up. Then the best thing happened at the very end which was Wrap-up Worship Time.

And That's how we ended our Spiritual Emphasis this 2009
Word of thanks to these three sisters of our who were living outside and were willing to take part of this Spiritual Emphasis. They are from China and Taiwan.
This was the Best Spiritual Emphasis I've ever experienced. I tried to show the video but there were some technical problem of loading so I could not load it. Like what I always say in my saying and my prayers, I can never thank God enough for these blessings that He brings to my life. God is good all the time and everyday all day.

Some of you may think, "Why there's no post about the topic of the Spiritual Emphasis or the things that the Speaker was talking about." Well Students, the question is "What was the topic of the Spiritual Emphasis and what was the speaker talking about on each three sessions. This might come with the reward. I know what were they but I will not tell you. Whoever answer these questions will probably get some fair reward from me. This only goes to the students. Make sure put your name so no one will claim your answer if the answer is correct. If you cannot give me answer through this because you do not have a blog or access to blogger, then give me the answer around the campus.

Thank you Student Body

2009-10-06T03:48:00.000-07:00

I just want to take this time and thank all of you PIBC/PIU students for putting your trust in me on this responsibility as a Student Body President. This task is a big responsibility, but it was not by a mistake it was appointed to me. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for this. One thing that I want to let you all know that even though I am the President of Student Body, I do not want you guys to call me president. I want you guys to approach me as I am your brother. I will act as a President when I do paper works and the request that you make, but as far as addressing my title, call me brother. Calling me President will separate me from everyone and make me like higher than any student... and I don't like that. I am still the same person, but my responsibility is big and heavy. I believe one of the reason that made you guys vote for me is because the relationship that we built in this campus is vivid and healthy. So I want to continue to do that and meet your needs and at the same time, I want you all to be open minded because I do need help from you guys for this responsibility. There are lot of things in my mind that I have been thinking to make changes in our environment for better, and since you guys already put me in this spot, I think it is time to initiate those thoughts. I also want to thank all the Staff and Faculty for their prayer on this position. I know that it was not only students' votes made me of put me in this position, but I claim that it was the calling from God. So I will assume my responsibility with no complaints and try to serve the students and meet their needs with all my best. I want to picture this as a small ministry in campus. So thank you all for this. I do have experienced in the past about this kind of responsibility so I will try to make things for the better of the students and the school. I love you all and thank you again.

It just comes natural

2009-09-15T20:01:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that for me preparing a sermon is not that hard. I noticed this last Sunday and this morning. Last Sunday i was attending Palau Church and while Pastor Andrew was delivering his sermon, I was taking a notes. And while i was doing that, out of his sermon, two or three topics just clicked to my mind which were good for sermons. Another thing, every weekdays since the beginning of this school semester, I sort of lead our devotion in the morning with some PIU student and we basically pray for everyone in this campus i.e. students, staffs, faculties and other personal prayer requests. To put this into the subject that I was talking about which is sermon, Doug was sharing a devotion this morning and I also caught couple more sermon topic out of his devotion. The problem this morning was that I did not have 3x5 card with me to write those potential sermons that i caught. But I know I can catch them again so no worry. Now the challenge is that I have to build these five sermons topics into sermons. It seems that sermon for me just comes naturally. Funny thing is that i've only preached three times and I now doing this really easy. I know this is one of my gift, but I just want you all to pray for me that the situation that i mentioned above can continue because I know there will be a time that I will be a full time preacher and I dont want to be dry on sermons.

Tiger Zoo

2009-09-09T20:10:00.001-07:00

OK I KNOW THAT I'VE SAID SOMETHING ON MY FACEBOOK THAT I WENT TO THE TIGER ZOO WHEN I WENT TO THAILAND. BUT THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE COMPUTERS OVER THERE DON'T HAVE CD ROM DRIVE BECAUSE THEY DISABLED THEM. NOW THAT I HAVE COMPUTER THAT HAVE CD ROM DRIVE AND ARE FUNCTIONING, I JUST POSTED THESE PICTURES FOR YOU ALL TO LOOK AND ENJOY.

THIS TIGER WAS ONE OF THE BIGGEST TIGER ON THAT ZOO.

MELISSA AND KALVIN WANTED THE MIDDLE SIZES BUT I WANTED THE BIG SIZE TIGERS.

WHILE I WAS POSING MYSELF AND THE PHOTOGRAPHER WAS TAKING PICTURES, THIS MONSTER RAISED HIMSELF UP BECAUSE HE WAS IN BOREDOM ALL BECAUSE OF THESE CREATURES CALLED HUMAN BEING. THEY COME AND TAKE PICTURES WITH HIM BUT DO NOT EVEN GIVE FOOD TO HIM.

I ENJOYED THIS DAY.... WE WENT RIDING ELEPHANT BEFORE THIS VISITATION WITH TIGERS.

Back to School

2009-08-27T22:36:00.000-07:00

I remember when there was a time that i wished that there would be a break time for me and not study or work or do anything. Well, to tell you the truth, one month vacation in palau for me was a long vacation. after two weeks, I already start wishing that i was in school studying and doing my homework. This means, Im so happy to be back in campus. I'm happy to see new faces, new staffs, but most of all, my brothers and sisters back in campus. coming back with a warm welcome from my PwiPwi Kalvin at the airport and my little brother Leeman, it was a good feeling, especially when i took few hours of nap and come out and my sisters are saying "Hello, welcome back...How are you?" etc. It really make me feel like the first time I came to this campus. I never miss home because of the great bound of good family in this campus. Am i ready for schooling and study? YOU BET I AM. Later i will write some ministries that i did back in Palau even though it was my vacation time. There were a lot of blessings that i from those ministry and i know it would be a blessing for you so i will share later. but anyways, i got to go arrange my stuffs in my room because it's a total mess. I gotta go. God Blesss.

Urgency

2009-07-11T01:27:00.000-07:00

Hello to you, you might be that important person im expecting. My name is Meluat and i'm a student of Pacific Island University AKA Pacific Island Bible College. Our school is in need of a person that can take a responsibility of becoming a VP of Finince and Operation in our school. It is a desparate need in our school. if you read this and tend to have a skill, please help us on this issue, or if you know someone that are skilled in Business and Finance, please extend our request to that person. The person who is responsible for this job has just finished his term and he's going back home, so if you have any skill of finance on know someone with the skill, please help us whith this need. Thank you and i know that browsing on my blog was not a mistake. Hopefully you will respond to this request... and believe me, it would be a really big help if you respond to this request. Thank you again and thank you for browsing to my blog. God Bless You.

Challenges and Blessings

2009-06-24T03:44:00.000-07:00

There is a reason why i dont have picture posted when i update my blog. I left my camera and i still have not got it yet. I do not mind because i can just share without a picture. some people might say that "but it's good if you take pictures for the ministies you do in Thailand". Well, that was in my mind the first time i got here and i was so frustrated that i might not get the pictures of what i am doing here for memory, but s0mething just came to my realization. Taking picture is good but that is not the reason why i am here in Thailand. the reason why i am here is to share the Good News to the people over here in Thailand. Picture is only my interest but not my mission. That is why i was not and still not worried if i take pictures or n0t. i know who has my camera and he will give me as he said. It was a challenging to left my camera and not having it for some days, but it is a blessing because it helped me shape up my view of my ministry over here in Thailand.

Anyways, let me continue the sharing of blessings that i have faced over here in Thailand. During the time of Erten's injury, it was suppose to be a downpoint for everyone. But because everyone's focus was on Christ, it did not slow down our work, but motivated us to work even harder. During that night of injury, I challenged my brother Erten while he was laying on the bed waiting for the doctor to bring him to th O.R. I told him that everything that comes to our lives, either joyful moment or painful moment, we have to thank God for allowing these things to happen in our lives. I explained to him of how he can consider this injury and the situation that he went through as a blessing. Brothers and sisters, Erten's injury did not only impact us alone, but also impacted Campus Crusades and this brought us more closer and motivated us to stand firm on our mission and not giving up, not making excuses, but it derived us more toward the core of our goal. After he came out from the hospital, I challenged some of my brothers and sister's one night when we were in the kitchen and i told them about Job's faithfulness toward God and compare it to the situation that happened to us. First, it was Job's animals and crobs were taken away but Job did not submit to the hands of satan. Then his family were taken away too but his faith remained in God's presence. For that, the enemy thought that attacking his physical body would make him give up. But Job's faithfulness was fixed on God. Later on that story, we knew that God doubled up the things that Job lost. Same situation that happened to us and this is what i told my brothers and sisters that night, "The enemy was trying to destroy us through miscommunications and some little insidence even until few days before we leave, but we survived because we allowed God to take charge. We are here in Thailand and the enemy try to separate us or make us give up on reaching out to the students, but we never gave up. He could not destroy our relationship and our focus to God because our mind is fixed toward God, so he try to destruct us by hurting our brother Erten. We did not give up but continued to minister and actually our ministry and our relationship got even more stronger than ever." This is what i challenged them that night. Brothers and sisters, our ministry is still strong and we will keep it that way so the fountain of blessings will continue. I believe yesterday the heaven was shaking and the angels were shouting for joy because one of the student allowed our Lord Jesus Christ to take over her life. She was sitting with us today and we continued having a good fellowship in the campus. Like what i said earlier, there are lot of blessings happening over here and i always want to share. but since my fingers are already hurting from typing because of this keyboard that is so stiff, i will have to say to be continued. Pray for us that we may have good rest for tomorrow because these past two nights we stayed up until 2am for fixing foods for the booth. some members just went straight to sleep after we came back from campus because they were so exhausted from last night and the work we did today. Alright, it's time for me to go because my body need rest like those other brothers and sisters of mine that are resting right now. ZZZZZZ.......ZZZZZZZZ......

Great Commission

2009-06-21T00:59:00.000-07:00

Being a student with a desire to serve the Lord outside my own comfort zone is really challenging but a great blessing too. I've been here in Thailand for about two weeks and there are lot of things that happened which really made me more closer to God than ever. One thing that i kept in my mind before I left, even pastor Hiob was telling me about was the washing of the feet. I kept this idea in my mind and i was really convict to do it. From the day i left Guam and until i arrive here in Thailand, it never got out of my head. so for a week, i was looking for a chance to do it. I really wanted to do it before we started our ministry on campus but i did not have a chance. After a week, it was my turn to do devotion, so that's when i had a chance to do it. I read John 13 while i was washing the feet of my brothers and sisters. The reason why i was doing it is because it says in the bible that we should do it because our teacher did it. At the same time, it helped me humble myself down and always know that i am not better or above anyone on this mission trip but same level. And last was to show that i do love my brothers and sisters on this mission trip and i am willing to wash their feet and help them through any sort of challenges that we face on this mission.

Other than that, the mission is so blessing and this coming Tuesday and Wednesday, we will have a chance to show the Thai students where we come from by showing them in our booth. Sorry there are no pictures because i left my camera in the church last sunday and the pastor that took it says he will give it to me tomorrow. The family that im experiencing right now is flooded with blessings. We make jokes to each other and we comfort each other. We tease each other and encourage each other and it really helps us especially when we finish our good day in the campus. The ministry in the campus is very effective. Before, we approach students to talk to them. But now, there are some students that actually asking us to sit with them and ask a lot of questions about us which is really a blessings. I already met one student who is a christian and Kalvin met one student on friday who is Christian too. it makes us feel good and know that there are some students attending Maejo University that are part of God's family. I have a lot of blessings that i want to share on this post but i have to go because we're going to do a "Walking Street" today. i will post again whenever i have a chance. Thank you all for praying for us.

Seniors Got Tortured

2009-05-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

After Baccelorette of the 2009 Seniors, we had a chance to come back to campus and enjoy dinner together. SBA requested me to be the chairman of the Games, so I had a chance to come up with some good games and the purpose of the game was to make sure we (lower classmen) torture seniors for the last time before they leave us. In other words, make them remeber us.

( I have to remind that the seniors and the students are pretty much full because they just finished a delicious BBQ's and some other good foods.)

First event was relaying Onion Rings with the straw.Oh, you can't really see how the game work?

Here's a little bit more clear to see.

After The Onion Ring relay, then it was a pudding feeders. The good thing about this is that it exercises your geometry or blind targeting.
It tests your estimation toward your target after blindfold....
It test your teamwork skills....

It tests your communication......

It test your obedience, like Joe telling Ned to open wide and Ned of course did an outstanding job.
It test the strategies that you and your partner have built together over four years.
But sometimes.......

Things don't go your way.

After the pudding, it was a peekaboo box. In order to win this game, you have to name all the items under each boxes within 15 seconds. Before those 15 seconds are over, you should be on the 5th box to meet peekaboo in order to win this game.
Like this one.

And the last event that happened this night was to determine who was going to be the winner for tonight since the seniors, lower classmen and the staffs were divided into two groups.

This last event was of course, another eating contest. We had to torture seniors before they graduated. The rule for this came was to consume any type of food that you pick inside the box. Once you consume it, then you run to your next partner in line to come to the box and do the same until each team have done two rounds on the box. Whoever finishes first is the winner. Well.....
The good thing about this game is that a person can choose whatever item to consume.

But he/she has to remember that he/she must come again for second round.
Remember, They just finished dinner.
The food in the boxes are either too sweet or too dry. (Like biscuits, Kisses, Reese's, etc.)

Some are just huge to consume, especially when you are full from BBQ's

All in all, everyone were winners and there were no losers. But the mission was well accomplished.

"TORTURING THE SENIORS"

In other words, make them fat before they leave PIBC.

Finally

2009-05-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

This semester was a little bit rough on some of the students and staffs because of some students that had "Unpleasant Goodbye". It was hard for those students that were leaving, and at the same time, it was hard for us the students that remained in campus because a little part of our family was leaving us. At the same time, it was hard for staffs because their expectation toward these students just ended in a sudden. Toward the end of this semester, we started hearing that some of the staffs were leaving for their new assignments or mission, but we did not know that one of them was not leaving to the new mission but was leaving because her mission has been completed. Humanly speaking, it was like an arrow that had been penetrated into my flesh and protruding on the other side of my skin slowly. But with all of these, I know that there is a good reason for it. I have experienced suffering blessings and I know really well the purpose of those hardships or suffering blessings.

Other than that, we are done, finally, with our school works and now, for me, I'm just focusing on our Thai Mission Trip. Beside on my focus, I want to report a little bit about the ending of our semester this school year.

Last Saturday, Seniors had their Baccelorette and we (worship team) had our last effort for the seniors and the school for this semester. Finally it's over.

Worship team

Seniors last effort of voicing out their vocals that are about to be missed.

Lower classmen's last special number to seniors.

Sonny and other brothers' last service for PIBC

Ladies and Gentleman, Seniors. (((applause))))

It's not a judgment

2009-05-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday Chapel, president of our school, Dave Owen, gave us a final challenge before we face our vacation in summer. He was mentioning about an old man with a horse and a lot of people brought a lot of good and bad judgment toward this horse and even this old man's son. Later he told a little challenge that he faced in mid 90's about his house that he lost before Christmas. With these transitional stories, he led us into the word of God in 2 Chronicles 14 which was the story of Asa. At the end of this Sermon, he said, "I believe this is not a judgment. I know he is doing this for a reason. Am I concern about the future of PIBC? 'YES'. Am I worried? 'NO'."

Why am I pointing these out? I too am not worried about the future of PIBC/PIU. But I am just puzzled with the loss of our staffs. Losing Brad, Jens, Hiob from our PIBC Family is understood because somewhere in the line, I believe they will visit PIU in the future. But losing our beloved sister Kathy keeps puzzling my mind. I knew that she was going to leave our campus too. But the destination that all the students and staffs thought about was wrong and the date of her departure was wrong too. We all thought that she was going to leave our campus on May 28, 2009 to the States. Instead, she departed from us on May 06, 2009, not going to the states, but left to the place of rest.

I am shock and still puzzled, but I am not thrawing any judgment. I know God have a purpose for this and I hope all the brothers and sisters of mine (Students) on this campus also understand. I never had a chance to go to her class, but I had a chance to get some help from her regarding my registration and some tutoring in the Library. I will treasure those little help that I got from her.

I did research about Frederick Douglass and considered him and other people like Susan B. Anthony, Abraham Lincoln, Mary and Betsy from Holocost as heroes because of the things that are written in history books, but I want to announce that Kathy Newell's performance and her love toward us are to be remembered and has to be shared to others. Not only her words are her testimonies, but her actions that we see everytime she is in campus is her testimony too. I remember when Leah left to Philippine for funeral and she makes some food at her house and deliver them to Hiob because she want to make sure that Pastor Hiob does not get hungry. I am glad that she became part of my life. I remember her in my heart and will never forget about her. Her departure shocked me and puzzled me, but I will not thraw any judgment. Something good is going to happen in this very campus.

Ants Mission

2009-05-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

My last sermon on preaching practicum was based on either poetic or prophetic passage and I chose to do poetic sermon. This was my last sermon for preaching practicum class and my passage was in Proverbs 30:24-28 that talks about four wise creatures. This is a very familiar passage to most Christians. On my preaching, when I described the characteristics of ants, I mentioned that one reason why ants are well prepared ahead of time, "yet they store up their food in the summer;" is because they do not really think much about playing around like grasshopper. Instead, only thing in ant's mind is mission for survival and planning ahead of time. Every opportunity that they get, they will grasp it. When a person eat bread and little particles or pieces of bread falls to the ground or table, ants are not anticipating or hesitating but just go right ahead to get those pieces of bread. Their mind is filled with "Grab the food for the future"; "Prepare the food for the future"; "Take any opportunity that comes your way." Some people might disagree with me when i said that ants' mentality is all about the mission and opportunity, but I can prove it. Look at this....
This is a picture of a bread that has been covered with soil by some effective work of ants. It was not the erosion or person that covered this piece of bread with these particles of soil. You still not convinced that ants are up to mission? well, look at this picture....
This is a picture of ants' kingdom that is built in front of our Connex. This picture is not zoomed and i am not tricking you with the picture. Look at the grasses. They are smaller than this ants' kingdom. It proves that ants are mission oriented creatures and they take any opportunity that comes to their ways. You're still not convinced? Well, put a piece of breath outside your door as i mentioned and wait for at least 10 minutes. make sure that your bread is sweet and not bitter. Ants do prepare things ahead of time while other creatures like grasshoppers enjoy their singing and not concern about their food until the time comes and they run to ants to look for food.

Creation of God

2009-05-05T00:02:00.000-07:00

A lot of people say creation of God is beautiful but they do not really pay attention to its beauty. For instance, they say that the flower is beautiful when they see it on the street or on the sidewalk. But they do not really say that they are good for something. They do not really describe its beauty. But when they look at it on the picture, they will admire it more than they look at it live or with their own eyes. Like this picture:and this....

These are just a simple flower in front of the men's dorm that I took a picture with my camera. The sad thing about it is this... these two pictures that you are looking at are just the same as the ones on the outside of the Library. But because the camera already zoom enough to expose its beauty, we can appreciate it. What seems so sad about this is that we are too lazy to come closer and spend time observing the creation of God with our own eyes. Instead, we just look at the copy of God's creation (Pictures). Its beauty is still the same and we can see it if we really have patience to look at the creations of God slowly and carefully. But if we just look at it for just a minute or less, we will not be able to see its beauty and continuing appreciating the copy (Picture) of God's creation. Look at this picture that I took early in the morning one time when I was doing my devotion....
This is just a picture. I believe that if someone will wake up in the morning and look at this same tree beside our baskeball court, they will see these hornets buzzing around the tree. But i believe that people would not have patience to watch them sucking honey out of the flowers. In other words, they do not spend time appreciating the beauty that God present to us everyday. Watching these hornets early in the morning after my devotion is one of the thing that gives me sense of serenity and I can never get tired of doing it by watching these hornets buzzing and sucking the honey out of the flowers. It gives me a peace of mind and it makes me appreciate God more than usual.

Look at this next picture:

I saw this lizard in front of the classroom on one of those little palm tree on the morning of PIBC Day when we went to BAY VIEW for the field events. I bet if someone saw this lizard, either they throw a rock at it or do not take much time to observe its beauty. This is just a picture. I know that when people see it they will say that this is really nice picture. But that is not what i want. I want people to see and say, "God is so good." A lot of times, people appreciate the picture itself and not God. For me, I appreciate God for this beautiful creature. Its characteristics and structures are so perfect that if I had a power to change it, I would not.

So what is my point? SPEND MORE TIME OBSERVING GOD'S CREATION WITH YOUR OWN EYES AND APPRECIATE HIM FOR EXPOSING THE BEAUTY OF HIS CREATION EVERYDAY INSTEAD OF JUST LOOKING AT THE COPY (PICTURE) OF HIS CREATION. HAVE PATIENCE TO OBSERVE HIS CREATION AND YOU WILL KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.