August 2008 – Vision for Vanuatu

August 24, 2008March 21, 2013

Genesis Course Ends

On Friday the students took their final exam for the Genesis-Early Biblical History course. The 30 participants have thoroughly enjoyed their intensive course with Maurice Nicholson these last two weeks. One participant commented, “Every pastor in Vanuatu needs this course!” We were happy to have several non-JBI students, including five SIL Bible translators attending the course.

During this time, Margaret valiantly tackled our hundreds of un-catalogued library books. She worked every day, usually alone, sorting and cataloguing hundreds of books. I was planning to work with her and refresh my Dewey Decimal cataloguing skills, something I have not used since leaving Togo, West Africa in 1992. Unfortunately, Jeremy was not feeling very well and progressively got worse as the days went by. We thought he was fighting the flu, which is currently going around here, until his fever climbed dangerously to 105.7 one night. He has pneumonia and with antibiotics is now on the road to recovery. Thank you for praying for him as he has lost a lot of weight and is still weak.

The Nicholsons’ visit was such a benefit to the school and we certainly hope they will come again next year!

August 14, 2008March 21, 2013

Genesis Course and Library Work

We are so happy to have our Australian friends, Maurice and Margaret Nicholson, with us for two weeks. Maurice is teaching a two week block course on Genesis 1-11 to thirty students at JBI. The students are enjoying his class so much and are beginning to have a clearer understanding of God’s creation and plan for mankind. Margaret is very busy cataloguing our school library! She is facing a huge job as all of the books need to be catalogued in the Dewey Decimal system! Already she has processed a couple of hundreds books. Only thing missing, are the funds to buy at least one computer for the library so the book catalogue can be searched and accessed by the teachers and students. At this point, we do not even know how many books are in the library!

August 12, 2008June 24, 2012

So far…

On Tuesday July 29, the old outdoor kitchen (photo on left) was demolished and work began on a larger concrete floor, partial walls and new roof (photo above right). By Friday, August 8, the guys had made great progress and the new kitchen was taking shape. This week classes resumed at JBI and the students are back in the classroom and construction work has slowed. We have most of the materials on hand to finish the project except for expensive trusses and metal roofing. I stopped at a hardware store today and discovered that they had one color of tile on sale and it was exactly what we wanted for the sink area! We paid a third of what tile normally costs! PTL! Building supplies are not normally on sale here so this was such a great encouragement! If you would like to contribute to the roof materials, the project number is 5619. Thank you.

August 5, 2008March 21, 2013

Roofing Materials to Repair Futuna AG

In February we wrote about Hurricane Gene which had devastated the small southern island of Futuna. Thanks to AG World Relief we quickly had money in hand to send emergency food supplies on the first ship going to Futuna after the disaster. Futuna is a small island and the inter-island ships only stop there a few times each year. Ever since February we have been waiting for the next ship headed to Futuna to send more supplies. This morning I was able to put 19 sheets of metal roofing on the MV Southern Star leaving for Futuna tonight. This roofing is to help repair the damaged AG church. We needed 44 sheets of metal roofing but I only had funds on hand to purchase 19 sheets. I want to thank local business Vate Industries, for a great price on the 19 sheets! If you would like to assist us in providing some or all of the remaining roofing, please email us. About US$2,200 will finish the job!

August 5, 2008March 21, 2013

Walls Going Up

The walls are going up in the new outdoor kitchen area. The crew was busy laying block today. We are making good progress – just wish we had another week before the next school term starts. Next Tuesday the students will be back in class and the work will continue part-time. We have changed our minds on some of the materials we were going to use, mainly the wooden posts and beams. Since we discovered that the termite damage has spread from the old kitchen roof to the attached main cafeteria building, we do not want to use wood in the new kitchen roof. Our tropical termites are voracious and we would rather not entice them with another free meal! It is going to cost us more but we would like to raise the extra funds and use metal beams with the metal roofing instead. Thank you for your support!

August 2, 2008March 21, 2013

Pouring the Floor

Today we had nice weather to pour the new cement floor. Just seeing the area cleared and the floor going in is so exciting! In a few weeks the students will have a new cooking area! Second year JBI student, Cedrick has joined the work crew. Here are a few photos from this morning’s activities.