Farnsworth Forum

The Palau Summer Mission Team will be leaving on Thursday, June 5, 2008. We will return on July 3. I took this picture during a recent team meeting. Please pray for us during our time in Palau. Marisol, Joel, Amelia and I look forward to our time working alongside the students and the team from Liebenzell Germany. We will post more when we return in early July. Thanks for your prayers and support.

Joel wanted to take a family island tour before we go to Palau. He made a list of the places he wanted to visit. We started on Mount Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is the name of the town in Ecuador where Marisol's family lives. The Spanish ruled Guam for many years. Amelia and Joel visited the Chocolate House where the Spanish governor and his family sat and drank the customary hot chocolate each afternoon. See the Spanish coat of arms on the wall. One of the symbols of Guam is the carabao (water buffalo), and one can find painted ones all over the island. In Agaña, the capital of Guam, the Boy Scouts built a replica of the Statue of Liberty in 1950 to commemorate their 50th anniversary. However, this is not the original statue but a replica of the replica, which was destroyed by vandalism. We watched the boats going out to sea at the Agaña Marina. Joel and Amelia explored some of the caves used by the Japanese for hiding during the American reoccupation of Guam in July 1944. Talk abo...

All of us received a surprise and a bit of a shock on Saturday when Joel lost his first tooth. We did not realize it was loose, and there it was out with blood and tears flowing. We explained to Joel that this was part of growing up, and all was well, especially when the Tooth Fairy visited that night.

Saturday we went to a birthday party at a water park. The birthday boy Alfonso is the son of one of Marisol's new friends, Carmen. From Panama, she is married to the cousin of one of our former PIBC students, Merong. Joel and I really enjoyed going down the big slide on the inner tube. Joel was so pleased to be able to go down the water slides by himself! Marisol has enjoyed talking to Carmen on the phone and we all were happy to meet her and her family. This is a good opportunity for us to have friends outside of PIBC.

Recently we spent a delightful afternoon with Elizabeth, Dan and Nathaniel. They serve with Trans World Radio in Guam. Elizabeth is from Puerto Rico. They will soon be going to the States for a mini-furlough as Nathaniel will be starting college. As you can see, Joel loves receiving attention from adults other than his parents. Marisol really enjoys having people that she can speak Spanish with. That was one of the hard things about moving to Guam. Elizabeth was her first Spanish-speaking friend here in Guam. I can't say enough nice things about her; she is a true gem!

Two weekends ago we joined people from our church for an overnight campout on the church grounds. It was a great time to connect with people that we normally only say "hi" to on Sunday mornings. The new interim pastor Mike and his wife Judy were there helping to set up on Friday afternoon when we arrived. Real troopers. We received the prize for being the first family to arrive and set up our tent. A first for our family! Amelia and Joel played in the water while we pitched our tent in very rocky soil. You can see the array of colorful tents in this picture. Marisol holds two very tired campers. Joel and Mamá were up before Amelia and Papá. Pastor Greg led us in a devotional on Saturday morning. Everything concluded by 10 AM! We can hardly wait for next year's campout.