Joy Bible Institute – Page 8 – Vision for Vanuatu

November 2, 2008March 21, 2013

2008 JBI Graduation

It was a beautiful sunny day for the Joy Bible Institute graduation service held Sunday, Nov. 2 at Evangel Temple Assembly of God in Port Vila. Friends and family gathered for this special service. The church was full and latecomers had to sit on benches outside.

Three young men, Job Dalili Emele from Ambrym, Andrick Fai from Paama and Elvis Maltok from Malekula received their three year diploma in Biblical studies.

Evangel Temple, host pastor, Rev. Youen Atnelo, opened the service with prayer. The JBI school choir sang, “Touch the World” led by Rev. Philip Naias with Gary playing sax.

J. Gary Ellison, Academic Dean and JBI Principal Edgell Iolopua handed out the three diplomas, followed prayer and the laying on of hands.

We were so privileged to have Rev. Aeron Morgan from Australia as our 2008 graduation speaker this year.

November 1, 2008March 21, 2013

Graduation Banquet

It is that time of the year again when we prepare to say good-bye to graduating JBI third year students. The day after final exams, the first and second year students and faculty wives cook and prepare a wonderful feast of foods: stews, curries, taros, sweet potatoes, salads, lap lap and roasted pig to serve to the graduates and their guests. A short program of songs, gift-giving and skits takes place during the mealtime.

The school also thanked Mrs. Margaret Nicholson for coming back for a month and cataloguing all of the library books. Rev. Aeron Morgan, our JBI graduation speaker was also present and warmly welcomed by Principal Edgell Iolopua.

October 21, 2008March 21, 2013

Kitchen Progress

I thought you might like to see the progress that has been made on the new student kitchen. Though we do not have the funds yet to do the chimney and roof, we are finishing the sink and cooking area. JBI students, Job and Alick are working a few hours each afternoon and it is looking wonderful! The students are really looking forward to the day when they can move in and use it!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR GIFTS TO JBI PROJECT #5619.

October 21, 2008March 21, 2013

Margaret & the JBI Library

Margaret has returned for a month to finish cataloguing the JBI library books! Yes, it is a news flash and a wonderful gift of her time to us! Margaret was here in August with her husband and catalogued hundreds of books but when she left about 2/3 of the books still remained uncategorized and randomly sitting on the new shelves. So she decided to come back for a month and see if she could finish the job for us. She is staying in the girl’s dorm and the girls have been giving her a hand in the afternoons by gluing in the card pockets and labels! Pictured are student helpers Ronneth, Flora and Jill, Margaret is seated. Thank you Margaret for the tremendous help to us at JBI!

October 19, 2008March 21, 2013

Sunday at Evangel Temple

We went to Evangel Temple Assembly of God this morning to hear one of our JBI student ministry teams. The guys are from five different islands in Vanuatu (pictured left to right) Cedrick from Santo, Job from Ambrym, Tom from Tanna, Clovis from Mota and Norman from Paama. It was a wonderful service. Cedrick, a second year student preached and many came to the altar for prayer afterwards. An offering was taken to help with the JBI student mission trip planned to the northern Banks islands in November.

During the greeting time I turned around and saw people whom I recognized but could not believe would ever be in Vanuatu. I was astounded to see old family friends, Alex and Janet. They have come to Vanuatu to work with an NGO. We are just delighted to have them in country!

September 27, 2008March 21, 2013

Sundays at JBI

On Sundays, the JBI campus is a busy place. At 8:30 a.m., an English-speaking church, Family Worship Center, meets in the chapel. This church was started in the 1980’s by former missionaries, Frank and Karla Beardsley. The church continues to reach out to English-speaking people from several different countries. This past Sunday, Gary had the privilege of sharing the Word.

As soon as the English service is dismissed, the people move out under the big mango tree for fellowship because at 10 a.m., a French-speaking AG church meets in the JBI chapel. This work started less than 10 years ago and is led by a pastor from New Caledonia. The congregation is made up of French-speaking Ni-Vanuatu nationals. Vanuatu has three official languages; Bislama, English, French, plus over one hundred national languages.

So even on Sundays, when JBI students are involved in practical ministry elsewhere, the JBI facilities are put to good use by two different groups of believers.

September 25, 2008March 21, 2013

JBI Missions Convention

The theme for the JBI missions convention this year was “EVERYONE EVERYWHERE! Acts 1:8”

Missions convention is always a special moment on the JBI school calendar. Our guest speaker was Rev. Jone Koro, pastor of a Fijian church in Sydney, Australia. He challenged the students to be active witnesses everywhere and at all times.

The JBI students provided special music and a missions video was shown on Wednesday night. Many off-campus guests attended the evening services.

September 25, 2008March 21, 2013

Roof Needed

We were making good progress on our new kitchen project but funds have run low and we still need the chimney, trusses and iron roofing materials.

The students are really anxious to move into the new kitchen as they are currently cooking in a shack behind the classroom building. You can only imagine how unsatisfactory that situation is for everyone concerned. In the above photo, second year student Jean Paul is busy cutting Chinese cabbage and watching the kettle boil on the open fire.

We would really appreciate your help to get this new kitchen finished. The photo on the left shows the walls standing waiting for a roof! Thank you for helping with project 5619!

September 21, 2008March 21, 2013

Praying for New Recruits

This morning at Fresh Wota Assembly a group of newly trained military men and women were attending service. Their commanding officer had brought them to service and requested a special prayer of installation for them. Gary prayed and Rev. Raymond Clay, senior pastor of the church, is standing beside him.

Three of our JBI students were leading the Sunday morning service. Kelfau from Pango led worship, Christiong from the Banks gave his testimony and Alick from Epi island preached on “Dealing with Disappointments in Life” from Matthew 11:2-6. Having just finished a course on “Expository Preaching” with Gary, he did a tremendous job. An offering was taken to help the JBI students with a missions trip they are planning in November to the northern Banks islands.

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

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.

July 31, 2008March 21, 2013

Roof Demolition

Today the guys dismantled the old iron roofing over the outside cooking area. The structure was not very safe as many of the wooden beams were termite-eaten and the wood under the eaves was quite hollow in places! Once the area is cleared we can begin the new concrete floor and wall.