Author: Lori Ellison

The French calendar denotes Sunday, May 25th, as Mother’s Day this year and Evangel Temple chose to honor its Mothers today. The church ladies wore their WM uniform, a red and white island dress, and the church was decorated accordingly. The Sunday School choir, men’s choir, Missionnettes, and the WM ladies all presented special songs. Even though the preliminaries last over 2 hours, I still went ahead and preached my sermon as planned. I do all my teaching and preaching in the Bislama language. On special days here people are not watching the clock and the service lasted at least another 30 minutes after I sat down. We had a wonderful service.

An Australian friend, Robyn Harbour, asked me if I would like to help her organize a charity concert with Australian tenor Bernard Hull. We rented an auditorium at the University of the South Pacific and began advertising the event. Bernard has performed in Phantom of the Opera and many other well-known operas and musicals. He is also a man of faith and has a personal connection to Vanuatu. In 1908 his grandfather, Frank Filmer, arrived in Northern Vanuatu as a Church of Christ missionary. The Filmer family was involved in early church work, the founding of schools and a Bible School. Bernard’s mother was born on the island of Epi over 80 years ago. So this was a private family trip but Bernard has been gracious and sung in churches each Sunday and delighted his concert audience on Saturday night. We were able to raise money for Ranwadi School on the island of Pentecost, which I believe Frank Filmer founded, and J. N. Christian School on Malekula. It was a privilege for us to meet Bernard and Debbie, and appreciate his God-given talent.

In Vanuatu there are two dates this year to celebrate Mother’s Day, May 11th and May 25th.

May 11th is the “American” date and May 25th follows the French European tradition. This dual holiday calendar is left over from colonial days when Vanuatu was a condominium ruled jointly by both the British and the French.

“We Care” church honored their mothers today. The church was decorated in red and white and all the ladies were wearing red and white dresses too. Sister Lily (photo upper left) is the women’s ministries president at the church.

All ages of women were involved in the special service. A grandmother and a young mother both shared short messages and several gave testimonies. The missionettes performed a moving skit which brought tears to many eyes. Several choirs sang including the men’s fellowship and the Sunday School children. After service refreshments were served in the church yard.

Friday night the worship team from We Care Church was asked to lead worship for an open air meeting. Gary (far left) was on the saxophone. He enjoys playing with the group whenever he can. A visiting evangelist from Singapore preached and many came forward for prayer.

This morning at “We Care” Assembly of God church, the AG General Superintendent and JBI principal, Pastor Edgell Iolopua, was the guest speaker. Pastor Edgell travels regularly speaking in the churches throughout the islands of Vanuatu and yet still directs and teaches at the Bible school. His text this morning was 2 Kings 6:1 and he challenged us all to move into the future with a larger vision than what we currently have. This means that we will need to work more as a team, be willing to accept change, move forward with intention of purpose, be ready to take risks and pay the price to be more effective in building the kingdom of God.

Several years ago, the “We Care” church stepped out in faith and bought a very large piece of property with a small church building already on it. Today they were reminded that God has more for them than what they currently do or have.

We thank the Lord for leaders like Pastor Edgell. He became the principal of Joy Bible Institute in 2005 and the following year General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God of Vanuatu. He has many responsibilities so please pray for him and his wife Roz.