Author: Lori Ellison

Saturday morning, the school was blessed by the visit of women from many different churches around the island of Efate. They came bearing gifts of food, yams, sweet potatoes, cabbages and various fruits from their gardens. The WM ladies met in the school cafeteria and had a time of worship with the Bible school students. Marie Paule, pastor’s wife from the village of Pango shared a very timely word. The various WM groups also blessed us with a cash offering for the school cafeteria. The JBI school cafeteria has no budget and functions solely on donations. A time of fellowship followed with the JBI students serving the ladies tea and baked goods. Thank you to all the churches and WM groups who so generously donated food and money to feed the Bible school students! You have blessed us so much!

I am not sure where the last month has gone but I know it has been a very busy one for us! Classes started at JBI on February 8 and we were so excited to see returning students and freshmen arriving on campus from so many different islands. Several were delayed because Cyclone Yasi and Vania had interrupted inter-island flights and passenger ship schedules but by the end of the first week everyone had found an alternative way to get to Port Vila. The highlight of the second week was Spiritual Emphasis with Rev. Joe Pyott, from Washington State, followed by yet another cyclone called Atu.

Then came the all-island combined service to celebrate the newly constructed church at Fresh Wind, a JBI back to school party, a four day missionary field retreat and the visit of several special chapel speakers! We were so pleased to have our missionary colleagues, the Webbs and missionary associates, the Jaegers and Thomas’ all in town for our missionary retreat. They all live on the island of Santo in the northern part of the country and we rarely get together. As I write, we are under another tropical storm warning which has delayed their flights back to Santo. Please pray this storm does not become a cyclone. This has been a particularly turbulent cyclone season and we have so many islands already experiencing hardship and severe food shortages because of storm damage!

Things are going well at JBI. Gary is busy in his new role as principal and he continues to teach and preach. I teach four days a week at JBI and oversee the homeschooling of our children. Our work schedule is substantial. The new students are settling in and adjusting well to campus life. We have two great national pastors teaching with us, Pastor Philip Naias and Pastor Kiel Maimai, who is also serving as campus pastor. We do have some challenges so thank you for continuing to pray for us and the school.

FYI – If you have been consulting our Joy Bible website/blog you will see that it is not updated. We have a technical problem and have been locked out of it for quite some time. We are hoping to get this resolved soon or else we will set up a new site.

In a few days we will be leaving North America and heading back home to Vanuatu. So many of you have been praying for our visas to be issued and our funds to be sufficient in order for us to leave. The final paperwork came through yesterday. Thank you so much for standing with us! We have enjoyed seeing so many of you personally over the past year and speaking in your churches and small groups. Thank you for your hospitality and generosity to our family! Keep in touch!

I am sorry that I have not written much this past year. We have been in the United States visiting friends and supporting churches. It has been a very busy 13 months with 20,000 miles of car travel, home school, medical check-ups and many other things that itineration requires. We hope to be leaving for Vanuatu around the end of September, which is only about 6 weeks away. In order to leave on time, we need to have our Vanuatu work permits/visas in hand and a remaining $500 a month in support. Thank you to those of you who have sent offerings and increased your pledges of support. Even a $5 or $10 increase will help us reach this final goal. Thank you for praying for us as we pack and finalize our departure.

While we have been in the US, senior students have graduated from Joy Bible Institute and new students have come to study. 2010 has been a year of spiritual refreshing on campus and we thank the Lord for His transforming work in many lives. We are anxious to be back at JBI and to resume training young men and women for ministry in Vanuatu, but not only for Vanuatu as JBI now has 3 students from the Solomon Islands.

The Solomon Islands is an island country just to the north of Vanuatu. Not only do these two countries share a common culture but also their Pijin English language is very similar to the Bislama language of Vanuatu. So we are casting our nets farther afield as the Lord opens the doors.

Life in Vanuatu has been eventful in many ways this year. I have previously mentioned the Gaua volcanic eruption which prompted the evacuation of the population and the delay of a church-planting effort. That was followed by a volcanic eruption on the heavily populated island of Tanna which destroyed essential crops and caused respiratory problems among the population.

The year has also been marked by many strong earthquakes with a 7.1 quake in May and a 7.5 quake hitting the capital city of Port Vila on Aug. 10th. The innumerable aftershocks continue to unsettle the population with 19 of them registering between 4.3 and 5.9! This latest earthquake was stronger than the deadly Haiti one but lasted only 31 seconds. We are grateful that it did not create the same devastation and are happy to report that there was little damage on the JBI campus. Only a few cracks in the school office walls and some garden retaining walls collapsed. The faculty and students are fine but a little stressed as the earth continues shake.

It has been our privilege to visit with so many of you and share about the work in Vanuatu but now we are anxious to be on our way. Thank you for your faithful partnership which enables us to go!