Greetings Everyone,
We’ve been off the air for the last few weeks as we have been staying ashore at Jelewaga, a village on the south coast of Sudest Island. It’s been a real encouragement to see the growth in this fairly new church. Last time we were here I challenged them to read the Bible right through and set them a three year plan to do so. They are working on it and Stanley, one of their leaders sets them in home groups, gives them the readings for the week and does competitive quizzes after church on Sunday. It’s a popular event!!
I had also started English classes here before, especially for Ken their pastor who had never been to school. I continued with him and he has made great progress. One of the young men will continue his lessons when we leave and I’m confident he’ll be reading fluently within another couple of weeks.
As well as this I’ve done a lot of teaching with the Sunday School teachers and we’ve shown films most evenings. They really liked “Fireproof” and “Courageous” as there are a lot of marriage problems in this area and the life of Reinhardt Bonke — a real challenge to evangelism.
Meanwhile, Phil has reinstall their radio installation that was destroyed in the cyclone but they lack a battery and are using our little film batteries until we leave. Being able to communicate with the outside world with the radio makes a huge difference for them as there are no other radios on the whole of the south coast of the island.
We were most impressed to see they had kept all the church material safe during the cyclone as this area was the worst affected by the cyclone and many of their homes were completely destroyed. They managed to salvage the solar panel and antenna (the radio and battery died), guitars, Sunday School materials, blackboard, etc and to protect them in a couple of the houses left standing — quite a feat and symbolic of their priorities and depth of their commitment. They decided to rebuild their church building before they rebuilt their own houses. Three young people; a married couple and a single man are planning to go to Bible College next year.
Meanwhile we are waiting on the weather to go to Rehuwa at the end of the island where we would like to spend a couple of days with the church there before we head for home. So far it has stayed wild, wet and woolly!! Thankfully the anchorage at Jelewaga is very secure in the strong south east winds but it is an hour’s trip both ways paddling the banana boat whenever we need to return to the yacht.
God bless you all,
Pam and Phil
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