What's Steve Been Doing #2?

One of the things I also did was attend a Fund Raising Conference sponsored by PIBC's accrediting agency, TRACCS, in Lynchburg, VA. PIBC needs to expand it's base of private funding and this conference provided some training on how to begin thinking about this.

We had another visitor from Guam - this time our daughter Evelyn came. She was here to take her final comprehensive exams for her Master's degree at Liberty University in Lynchburg. She studies and prayed and studied and prayed some more...and passed! We're proud of her. While she was here, we took her to New York City...

The skyline from a boat on our way to Staten Island.

After our arrival at Penn Station, Evelyn stands in front of her favorite store (way in the background) - Macy's!

At McDonald's inside Macy's.

Anne and Evelyn in front of a small waterfall in the plaza at Rockefeller Center.

Now I don't want to lose you here. It gets little complicated, but here goes. Even though the eye doctor has released me from seeing her and has given me clearance to return to Guam (as long as I can come back to see her once a year, and can see an eye doctor on Guam 4 times a year), and since I've finished my degree, the only thing that remains is raising a little more financial support. Maybe you "picked up" on that from some of my previous posts. Only the Lord knows when the support will come in. Until it does, I will be working for PIBC full-time, only from here in the States. How do I do that?

From a distance! I have meetings with the leaders on site in Guam via the Internet, conference calls via a program called Skype, via long distance phone calls, and emails. I have been given responsibility for two major areas - everything related to the students at PIBC (including equipping them, mobilizing them, and placing then in other countries on short-term and long-term mission trips), and everything related to the staff (a Human Resources function). In addition, I've been given the responsibility of helping develop PIBC's Fund Raising strategy. One of the things I did was travel to California, not only to visit with Matt and Amy, but to interview a man for the Fund Raising position, and to meet with my assistant, Hollie Schaub, who will do things on the ground on Guam while I help coordinate things with her from here in the States. Make sense?

So, here I am with Amy and her husband, Matt, in Sacramento. They also helped me try to raise some financial support. They arranged for me to speak in the church where they work, Matt as a Youth Pastor, and Amy as a young women's discipler. Here we are at a wedding ceremony in Redding that Matt performed. For those of you who are familiar with it, notice the "David Crowder" look.Maybe it's more apparent here. Matt is becoming a good worship leader as well as a youth pastor. His preferred instrument is the bass guitar, but he's also teaching himself to play the guitar. When I was there with them, I got to play the drums. Amy took me around to a few new places. Here we are in Old Sacramento.

This is Hollie, my "right-hand-man" I referred to above. One of the staff for PIBC, Hollie Schaub, has been working on her Master's degree from BIOLA in Los Angeles this summer. After her classes, she drove up to Sacramento and stayed with Matt and Amy for a few days so she and I could meet together. Her husband is a helicopter pilot in the Navy, on deployment somewhere in the world. They've stationed on Guam for the past almost 3 years.

One of the cool things that Amy did for me while I was in California was take me to my first ever professional sports event - an Oakland Raiders football game.

I had told her that one thing I'd like to do before I die was go to an NFL game. It didn't matter which one. Well, the Oakland Raiders were playing a pre-season game with the Arizona Cardinals that weekend, so we went. It was great!

I know it doesn't mean anything in light of eternity, but the fact that my daughter and I got to do something like this was priceless. As you can see, I'm also speechless!