Month: May 2009

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News from Santo Bush

Forest ferns Sunday morning phone calls do not always bring good news. This Sunday morning, Pastor Mendor was standing high on a hill in the middle bush on the large island of Espiritu Santo with a cell phone and had good news to share. He was so excited because today a man from an influential family in an unreached village was going to be baptized! This is an unreached village that Pastor Mendor has trekked by while evangelizing other places but this particular village had remained closed to him. What is hard to imagine is that this village among others in the dense jungle of Santo has resisted the Gospel of Christ not because of traditional animistic beliefs (which they still adhere to) but because a Baha’i believer had previously been there and “claimed” them.

How can I share with you Pastor Mendor’s passion to reach the people in remote villages on Espiritu Santo? How his heart breaks when he hears that villagers who have never had an adequate presentation of the Gospel of Christ fall prey to foreign cults. He asked us to share this testimony with the JBI students and challenge them to take the Gospel to the hard unreached places of Vanuatu. He said, “While Christians stay in the easy coastline areas, foreign cults are going inland and claiming villagers by business contracts and development projects. They are doing this right under our noses.”

Last year Pastor Mendor and Terry, a young Christian man, were trekking by this village when they were stopped by a torrential rainstorm. They were given shelter and Pastor Mendor took advantage of this opportunity to share the message of Christ with his host family. They listened but the head of the family said that they had already agreed to follow Bahá’u’lláh. But the Holy Spirit was working in hearts and one man asked Pastor Mendor to pray for him. Pastor Mendor promised to stop by again in a few months on his next trip.

Today, that same man, Philip, is being baptized in this village as a testimony to his claiming Christ as his personal Savior. Someone had claimed Philip for another prophet but Philip experienced Christ in his life after Pastor Mendor’s visit and has made his own decision.

Pastor Mendor asked me if I could send 10 Bislama Bibles and writing notebooks for the literacy class he is giving to help the villagers read the Bislama Bible. He is not interested in “claiming” people but rather in making disciples who will follow Christ and understand God’s Word. Please pray for Pastor Mendor and others as they trek through the bush taking the Gospel to the isolated places.

Thank you also for supporting LFTL literature projects. We are currently in the final editorial stages before we print 20,000 copies of the Gospel of John in Bislama. A Bislama Bible costs US$22.00 but the Gospel of John will cost about 60 cents and will be more readily available to men like Pastor Mendor who are taking the Gospel to those who have not yet heard.

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Kitchen: Almost Finished

Thank you! We have the new roof installed on the student kitchen and paid for! Thank you so much to everyone who responded to our request for $7,400 on May 13th. Only a $1,000 more is needed to completely pay for this new kitchen.

New white metal roof on JBI kitchenNew JBI student kitchen

Gary is standing on the hill above the kitchen which gives a good view of the new metal kitchen roof (and the rusty cafeteria roof in the background). The new cement floor was poured since the photo above right. The finishing touches on plumbing, electrical wiring and the chimney are the only things remaining to be done! Thank you so much to everyone who has given sacrificially over the months to complete this new kitchen for the Bible school students!

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Kitchen Progress

JBI Kitchen roof

Job has been busy ever since his arrival in town, assisted by two JBI students, Cedrick and Clovis. Here they are getting the beams up so that the iron roofing can be installed. We need US$7400.00 to cover the timber already purchased and the remaining roofing materials, chimney, concrete floor and labor.  Gifts should be labeled project #5619 so they are directed to our JBI construction fund. Thank you for your generous support in this project.

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Happy Mother’s Day!

P5100020

 

WM ladies choir

 

On Mother’s Day in Vanuatu, the Women’s Ministry ladies lead the Sunday morning service. They wear lovely red and white island dresses as a group uniform and gifts are given to the widows of the church. This year at Evangel Temple, the children’s choir sang, the men and then the ladies’ WM choir. Sister Oriva preached.

 Happy Mother’s Day to all!

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Kitchen To Be Finished!

What happened – the JBI kitchen renovation is not finished? Well, Job, our JBI student and talented construction worker graduated last year and went home to his island. We ran short of funds and could not find anyone reliable to continue the work. But the new JBI school kitchen must be finished before we leave for furlough in June!

P5020002 Job graciously agreed to come back to town and got on a small cargo boat and travelled 14 hours to Port Vila last weekend. This week he and two JBI students have been working. So we have the workers, now we need some more funds!

We need to purchase wood for trusses, iron sheet roofing, cement for the new floor, rain gutters and a custom aluminum chimney. This can no longer be delayed as the students need the kitchen and we will be leaving for a year! Thank you for any size gift you can send to help us finish off the new JBI kitchen! Project #5619.

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Health Care Team to Visit Tanna

By world standards, Port Vila is a small capital city. But it is certainly the center of comings and goings to Vanuatu and the outer lying islands. Since we live in Port Vila, we are privileged to meet many people and do many airport welcomes and farewells.

When literature or medication are urgently needed by missionaries or national pastors on other islands we send them by plane. When larger shipments of food, building materials or church supplies are needed, we ship them by small boat.

Doctors and dentists work primarily here in Port Vila so many people have to come to town for treatment. Small commercial planes and a private helicopter are sometimes used in emergency cases to evacuate people to Port Vila for medical treatment. Good medical care is not available to many people.

Beautiful Vila harbor!

Our missionary colleague, Bryan Webb, is currently organizing a Health Care team which will be going to the southern island of Tanna. Bryan works on the northern island of Santo so he shipped us the necessary camping supplies of tents, toilets, portable shower and even an electrical generator which we then put on another ship headed to Tanna to be used by the team.

At this point, everything seems to be falling into place for the medical team, except the AIDS awareness kits which are needed for a community health seminar. These were shipped from Fiji in February but have not arrived. Please pray that these parcels will arrive in time to be used in this outreach.