We are so happy to have Rev. Joe Pyott, from Washington State (USA) with us for spiritual emphasis. So far it has been a great week with messages from God’s Word on prayer, purity & marriage, faith, soul-winning and the Holy Spirit. Pray that this will be a life-changing week for JBI students.
JBI Installation of New Principal
On Sunday, January 30th, an installation service was held in the Joy Bible Institute chapel to officially install Gary as the new principal of the Bible school. We want to thank Rev. Edgell Iolopua, General Superintendent, for allowing us to serve in this capacity for the next four years. Our missionary colleague, Bryan Webb, graciously flew in from the northern island of Santo and preached our installation service. We thank him for coming and enjoyed having him stay with us. Unfortunately, it ended up that he could not fly back home on Monday as Cyclone Yasi was passing over the northern islands. His family weathered the storm alone and are all well. Thank you also to all the pastors and friends who attended the service and the ladies for the refreshments.
Looking forward to the students arriving for registration on Monday, February 7th. Pray with us for a great school year!
Daily Challenges
It is great to be back online and have internet service again! Getting a house, unpacking and moving has not been as easy as we had hoped…never is really. Things take much longer than you hope they will. We moved into our rental house and five days later had our first robbery which resulted in the loss of Gary’s new Apple laptop and my mobile phone! It was such a shock to us to have this happen! We are so thankful that Gary had everything except a most recent Bible study backed up. Unfortunately, his computer cannot be replaced here and this is really hindering him from getting his work done. The thieves came again two weeks later and damaged windows and a door but did not get in. UPDATE: Our landlord has just installed security bars on the windows. Thank you for praying for our safety and good rest.
Two weeks ago, we were sitting out Cyclone Vania, which actually formed near the southern Vanuatu island of Erromango, about 100 miles away. It was a slow moving cyclone with high winds which uprooted trees in our yard and all over the Joy Bible Institute campus. The campus still looks like a war zone as so many large trees have come down. We are thankful that no buildings were seriously damaged but we lost the bananas, papayas and much of the avocado crop which the students eat.
The southern islands of Vanuatu were harder hit by Cyclone Vania with food gardens and huts destroyed. For people in rural areas this means food shortages until the next crops can be planted and harvested in 4 to 6 months. We know of four AG churches on Tanna which were heavily damaged. The damage reports are still coming in from other rural areas. Plans are underway for a shipment of food to be sent to Tanna with the assistance of AG World Relief. Thank you to those who have given towards this. Pray that things will go smoothly and a ship will be going south with space to take relief supplies very soon.
UPDATE: Yesterday a second cyclone called Yasi passed over the northern Vanuatu islands of the Banks. All domestic flights were cancelled due to the high winds. Our missionary colleague, Bryan Webb, who was down in Port Vila with us over the weekend and unable to fly home yesterday. His wife and children went through the cyclone alone. I am happy to say he was able to get on a flight home today. We have many churches on the small Banks Islands and are waiting for damage reports. So please pray for the people in the Banks who have just gone through this cyclone. The meteorological department has predicted four cyclones to hit Vanuatu this season.
Vision for Vanuatu 