Looking back over the past few months since our arrival in Torba Province, Vanuatu, we can only thank the Lord for His guidance and blessing on the Vanuatu Project! In a few days we will be leaving for a month in Australia-to get some urgently needed things, to "equilibrate" (yes we are still adjusting to being here!), and to share what God is doing here with friends and supporters in Australia. We consider Australia a very needy missionary field also (in a different sense), and it is our desire to somehow uplift God's work in our 'homeland' during our brief visit.

Over the last few weeks we have been through many incredible experiences. Many of these were associated with the time we spent in Mota Lava island during an annual district meeting at the Seventh-day Adventist church on this island. Although there have been district meetings in this province in the past, usually attendance has been fairly poor due to extremely difficult transportation problems between islands. For the first time in history this year, SDAs members and leaders from nearly all the Banks islands were able to come together to fellowship-this time at the one and only "organized" SDA church in this province of islands. (Other church companies exist, including the Gaua SDA church.) The main guest speaker this year was Pr Laurie Evans, President of the South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists. Also speaking was Pr Douw Venter, Vanuatu SDA Mission Secretary. To have these two very pleasant natured, encouraging and positive leading men attending these meetings was a great privilege for the membership of these islands. Naomi, Kay and I shared accomodation with the two pastors and ate meals with them, which we really enjoyed. The fact that Pr Laurie holds a very significant position in the church encouraged many to make extraordinary efforts to attend and prepare for the meetings. We have discovered that the people of Vanuatu are event-oriented people-extremely so. When the event is special, they will often make special efforts to attend the anticipated event-and this was the case with these meetings.

Our journey to Mota Lava was particularly pleasant as we set out accross truly "pacific" waters with Minister Philip and a group of 5 youth boys from Gaua who were attending to sing at the meetings. A larger group of youth from Gaua, including 4 who were prepared to get baptized at the meetings were sadly disappointed when the ship that was supposed to take them to Mota Lava was delayed. One teenage girl, Tania, who was planning to get baptized, wept as she called us at Mota Lava, from Gaua, after our arrival at the meetings-with the sad news of the delay of the ship. But there will be another opportunity-their baptisms have been postponed to later this year, in Gaua. Life on these islands is almost constantly affected in some way or another by the extremely difficult travelling situation between islands...

Prs Douw and Laurie were unable to fly all the way to the meetings due to the irregular schedule of domestic flights in Banks, and had to take the last part of their journey by boat from Vanua Lava to Mota Lava-accross a fairly rough 10 miles of ocean. After discovering that the church has a great need for a boat here in Banks, the president saw the possibility of raising funds in Australia for this. (He can see that the work in Torba is right now at a critical stage of development. Seventh-day Adventists must seize the golden opportunities currently at hand to spread God's word in these islands.) Naomi and I were asked to write an article about his trip to the district meetings and about the need for a banana boat, just like the one we are using, which will be used by the district pastor in Mota Lava. This article is now ready and will be sent soon to the Record (for our US readers, this is a weekly Australian equivalent of the Adventist Review magazine). Prs Douw and Laurie also had occasion to come in our banana boat when returning to the airport. Our prayer is that, after seeing the article in the Record, church members in Australia will help to finance a new banana boat for this much needed aspect of the work in Torba.

We really appreciated having the opportunity of renewing our acquaintance with Pr Laurie Evans, and sharing our visions for Torba with him and Pr Douw. We deeply appreciate the good friendship we have with the leadership of the mission and division. The Lord certainly blessed the meetings and the fellowship that took place was a great benefit to us all. In particular, it helped the small army of Seventh-day Adventist workers who are scattered around these islands to gain strength from each other and set a clear focus on the goal of evangelizing these islands. It also helped us to meet the lay-ministers of the scattered SDA church companies in Torba, to get an idea of what hardships these companies are battling with, and to get an idea of what we could do to help them. At the end of the meetings 10 were baptised, and 5 made a decision for baptism at the next opportunity, including a paramount chief. Following the meetings many came to me for treatment as word spread that a doctor was on the island. As usual many teeth were pulled and other minor surgery cases were performed.

While at Mota Lava I had the opportunity of visiting the island clinic, which is currently the best one in Torba Province. Here they have a small unused operating room. They also hava a maternity ward. Historically the Mota Lava clinic has acted like a small hospital although plans are under way to build a small rural hospital in Sola to take the place of the one in Mota Lava. But Sola airstrip is frequently flooded and has quite a dangerous approach, so flights there are often cancelled due to bad weather, making it less suitable as a center for medical work in Banks. But whatever happens with the Sola and Mota clinics, I will most likely be assisting in as many places as I can go. My main limiting factor is transport. I have been invited to help and to do some surgical cases in Mota Lava if/when possible. The nurse there feels that if some simple surgical cases could be done in Torba, then patients could be saved the enormous expense of sending them to Santo. During my stay in Mota Lava, most of the SDA lay-ministers at the meetings were excited to learn of my desire to help their communities with medical work. It came as a surprise to us to realize just how needy these other islands are. Even Vanua Lava has many areas of need. (We had incorrectly assumed that because the capital is on Vanua Lava, that the needs there would be few-but that is not the case!) Our hope is that we will be able to provide help to all the islands of Torba, including the Torres. Hence the felt need for an aircraft in addition to our banana boat-not only for medical work but for the progress of the church also. While discussing an aircraft Pr Douw said that an aircraft for the work in Vanuatu could prove to be a great benefit to the church. This is because of the extremely high prices of internal flights and because of the scarcity of flights between certain islands which make his work and the work of the mission in Vila very difficult. In fact he knows of marriages and baptisms that have been postponed for months and even years in outer islands in Vanuatu due to difficulties in getting around islands. There are times and occasions when banana boat is the cheapest and best way to get between islands, especially on short trips up to 30 miles, and in reasonable weather. But an aircraft is much more suitable for trips up to 100 or 150 miles, especially when the South East Trade winds prevail, and the waves are too big to use a boat.

Another benefit of attending the meetings was 3 unplanned trips to other islands. Before the meetings began, I was asked if I could assist with picking up 3 lay ministers from Vanua Lava island-which I agreed to, as long as fuel was supplied. With an assistant I took the boat accross a fairly rough ocean to pick them up and had the opportunity to briefly visit Sola-the capital of Torba. After the meetings I was asked to take a boat load of church members back to Ureparapara which was a long 3 hour trip away. Again I agreed to help, if fuel could be supplied, which is was-at great personal sacrifice. (Fuel here is costs 3 or 4 times US or Australian prices, where daily wages are about 10% of an Australian or American wage.) But as the time drew near to take these people-which included children and a small baby, the weather worsened and the waves became too rough. We could not go the day we had planned. But the next day we set out and were able to deliver these people to their extremely remote island home. It took three hours to get there, and the sea was rough. We were surfing a lot of the way. Some of the women and children were vomiting nearly all the way there. I was glad to visit this island-a massive volcano with the side blown out, creating a huge bay. I met the island nurse who is interested in the SDA church, and helped her with a patient who had recently suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. Also after seeing a boy with a skin lesion that needs removing, I also made plans to return for some minor surgery as I did not bring any instruments. (When will I learn to take a medical/surgical/dental etc kit everywhere I go...?!)

The return trip from Ureparapara island to Mota Lava was extremely rough. The currents and turbulence in the waters just outside the bay of Ureparapara were the worst I have yet experienced. We made very slow progress as we were heading into the waves and crashing down on the water every time. The sound of the boat hitting the water was unnerving. Eventually we reached the reef islands-a ring of very beautiful uninhabited islands, were we had to stop to fix a fuel line problem. The short delay was interesting but set us back in time and by the time we reached Mota Lava it was 7:30pm and very dark. The only light we could see was the luminous phosphorus in the ocean surf beside and behind the boat, and a very dim silhouette of Mota Lava which was barely visible. It had taken us nearly 6 hours to return. The folks back at Mota Lava were evidently worried as many stood on the beach with torches and flashlights awaiting our arrival. We were thankful for the small lights which helped us to avoid the reef on our return. [We now have plans to put a headlight on our banana boat.] After this trip the bad weather prevailed and we called off an invitation to take a family of new SDAs back to their island home which is Mota...

Mota island was long ago a center for Anglican missionaries in the Pacific, and the Anglican church has overwhelmingly dominated this small island for decades. This is the only island where the chief system has almost dissolved-chiefs now are mostly answerable to the anglican priests only, who have taken over the role of the paramount chief. The result has been a very oppressive religion which has excluded Seventh-day Adventists and other Christians from entering. Persecution has inevitably followed. But very recently a man from Mota and his wife were baptized as Seventh-day Adventists-only two weeks before the district meeting. He happens to be a direct descendent of the first Melanesian clergyman in history-who also became a well known Anglican leader on Mota-so the baptism of this great-great-grandson is of great significance, and required a considerable amount of courage on his part. His convictions regarding the Sabbath have held him to his decision, and he believes that others from Mota will also be baptized. This man and other family members actually came in dug out canoes accross more than 10 miles of open ocean (can you believe this?) to attend the district meetings-as they had no other way to get there. After the meetings I had been asked to take them back from Mota Lava to Mota, (including their newborn baby) but we had cancelled the trip...The weather was too rough and we were afraid that if we delayed too long we would be stuck in Mota Lava, and therefore would be unable to get ourselves back to Gaua. In June and July winds tend to be very strong in Torba, as the South East Trade winds come back on the scene, making boating much more difficult.

However, as we waited for a good day to return to Gaua, we received news by teleradio that the Mota man's father was very ill, back on Mota island. That afternoon the bad weather subsided, and we could see that the Lord wanted me to take these people home. Again at great sacrifice, someone provided the fuel. So we set out and arrived in good time-the water was not too bad. But anchorage is extremely difficult on this island, even for small boats, and is only possible when waves are small. (This explains why ships hardly ever visit this very remote island.) You have to literally leap onto sharp coral from the boat. Then comes a treacherously slippery hike/climb up a steep muddy cliff face. After what turned out to be a much further hike than anticipated, I found myself in a muddy village in the midst of tropical jungle surrounded by more than a hundred people-nearly all of whom wanted medical help. This time I had my medical kit with me. But because we were due to leave for Gaua the following morning, I was only able to see the difficult and serious cases and even then I saw too many. After seeing them and pulling teeth again (thankYou Lord-I didnt know it was possible to pull teeth so quickly!) I was approached by an elderly couple who thanked me with tears for visiting and ensured that I would promise to return. The elderly lady kissed me on both cheeks-a very special sign in this culture of her love and warmth toward me. I set out without eating the special meal they had prepared-it was just getting too late. They gave me an island take-away instead-cooked bananas wrapped in banana leaf plus two coconuts. By the time we got down the slippery pathway (I fell only once, losing the coconuts I was carrying) and along the sharpest coral I have ever walked on, it was already dark. Amazingly, my skin was still intact when the time I reached the boat-I was sure I would cut myself once on the coral. With two assistants we set out in the remnants of the twilight of the evening. I then realized how crazy it was to be setting out on the ocean at that time but fortunately the Lord had made the ocean amazingly calm-almost waveless-and with my GPS set and a very dim silhouette of Mota Lava on the horizon, we sped at full speed across the 10 mile stretch back to Mota Lava (hoping we wouldnt hit a piece of driftwood or some other object floating in the ocean!) Again with the help of friendly torches and flashlights on the beach, we were able to find our way back into safe harbours.

The following morning we arose at 2:30am-to singing. The youth boys from Gaua were singing as they were unable to sleep. They were homesick after almost a week's delay and wanted to get home. We tried to sleep again, but couldnt, and by 5:30 we were all in the boat and setting out for Gaua with Philip the Evangelist, and the boys. The water didnt look as good as the day before, but we had decided we were going and it seemed to be the day that the Lord has chosen for us to go. We knew that for the moment, we had finished our work on Mota Lava. We set out on our 40 mile trip to Gaua and when we had passed Vanua Lava island, we came out onto rougher seas on the open ocean. It was then that we experienced some engine (fuel line) problems again which we thought at first were spark plug problems. After several attempts at cleaning the spark plugs, one of the engines died again, and I said to minister Philip that we must now decide to either go back 5 miles to Sola or try to go 15 miles forward to Gaua on one engine. A feeling of anxiety struck the group on board. Just then the second engine died as well, and we were now adrift on the open ocean! "This is bad" I thought-imagining what headlines it could make. Although the water was not too choppy, the wind was about 20 knots and the swells were at times reaching 3 meters-large enough to tip us over if a wave hit us from the side. There was also a strong current pushing us downwind (towards Australia-2000 miles away!), and we were completely unable to see Gaua island-due to unusually poor visibility. If we had not had the GPS we would have felt hopelessly lost. Later the GPS revealed that we had been blown off course over a mile by the current, waves and winds, while trying to fix the engine. But in the midst of a momentary prayer, the Lord showed me that our engine problem had to be a fuel problem-since it was now affecting both engines, which were being fed from one tank. Quickly I changed the fuel lines to the back up tanks, and we praised God as we heard the engines fire up. Again we were on our way, and from that point the engines never missed a beat. (We have now figured out what was causing our fuel line problem-two poor quality fuel line joins which were leaking air.) We arrived in Gaua in the midst of a blinding rainstorm, guided by GPS exactly to our destination. How joyful we were to be back on solid ground, though all soaked to the bones! The locals on Gaua were amazed to see us arrive from Mota Lava over such big waves and in such poor visibility. But since then the waves have been mostly worse. If we had not returned that day we may have had to fly home instead-at great expense.

Soon the news was out that we were back on Gaua island, and a stream of patients started coming for treatment to our home here near Small Water. Its not ideal to see patients at your home-we prefer to go to villages and run planned clinics, but we certainly find it hard to turn sick people away when they come to us. In addition to seeing them, pressure has been on us to keep up with producing lessons for our students. We are pleasantly surprised at how keen they are, and chide ourselves whenever we fail to keep up with their needs to learn. It seems that their hunger for knowledge deserves to be replenished. Last Sabbath 3 students came to church and one made a decision for baptism, to our surprise and joy. One of our biggest problems here is shortage of power. Our small solar panel system is constantly on the stretch to supply the power needed to keep our old printer going, especially on rainy days. We can see that we need a newer and faster printer, as the old one takes too long and it connect to our new laptop which lacks the old LPT parallel port. We need a new printer which can connect to a USB port. We are praying for God's guidance in this area.

One of our biggest challenges with is the tides. Many islands in Torba are at least partially surrounded by coral reefs, enclosing large lagoons. Some islands are completely surrounded by coral. Almost the entire eastern and north eastern edge of Gaua is enclosed in lagoons. These lagoons are very shallow at low tide, making transportation by boat accross lagoons impossible. But when the tides are high, the lagoons provide a safe passage for small boats around the island as they are sheltered from the waves of the open ocean-a real blessing especially between June and October when the South East trade winds are blowing and the waves are bigger. Larger boats and yachts are seriously limited by these lagoons even at high tides, but a banana boat is just small enough to skim over the top of the coral. Scheduling our lives around the tides has been a new experience for us, and we have now learned exactly what height the water must be for us to get around. Tides at this time of year are extreme and change very rapidly, making it very easy to get stranded. Often we have to pass outside the lagoon on the open ocean and then crawl accross the last portion of the lagoon in shallow drive. We have also discovered that tides are extremely complicated things, affected not only by the moon but multiple other factors. But with the help of a friend, we have now obtained software on our laptop to assist us in deciding/planning ahead when we will be able to take the boat to church or do some other trip around the island. Usually we take the boat to church every 2nd week. The other weeks, due to low tides, we have to walk for over and hour to get to church along the only road in Gaua, which is a super-slippery track full of potholes, rocks and puddles. At other times, when I am traveling alone, I use our small honda 110cc motorcycle and slip and slide all the way, frequently slipping off the road into the bushes! The road is so rough in places that I do wonder how long the motorcyle (and my spine) will stay in one piece! This motorcyle is being used to the absolute maximum of its physical limits in every way. There is only one other motorcycle on the island, owned by an environmental officer from the Vanuatu Government. He seems to have abstained from using his motorcyle since he fell off on two different occasions and burned his leg badly on the exhaust. But I thank God that I have only come off once (so far!), very gently sliding onto my side. I am thankful that noone was watching either-falling off your motorcyle on full display would be embarrassing as well as dangerous! I have come close to falling off many times. ThankYou Father for your protecting angels! We are praying about a getting a 4 wheeler motorcycle, which would enable all three of us to get around Gaua together when tides are low.

Once again, we have seen that our most serious obstacles in these remote islands are transportation and communication. Opportunities for missionary work abound-especially in connection with medical ministry which opens more doors than we can go through. What holds us back is being able to make it happen because of these obstacles in getting around and in communicating. But the Lord is revealing to us how we can overcome these difficulties. Please pray for us as we continue to go forward as the Lord opens the way for the upbuilding of His kingdom among the people of Torba province. In particular, we ask you to pray concerning our need for an aircraft, a 4 wheeler motorcycle, and that our opportunities for printing and other media/broadcasting will be multiplied.

Following our return to Gaua, minister Philip and the church members of Gaua SDA church company have resumed the church building project. Gaua church, which is now the second most significant SDA church in Torba Province after the Mota Lava church, has been selected as the site for next years annual district meeting. So the pressure is now on to complete the Gaua church and to prepare for the meetings-a huge undertaking for the membership, since it also involves building much guest accomodation and renovating the ministers residence, which is currently in bad shape. At the moment, they have materials to build and are now collecting sand again to lay the slab floor and start on the walls-in the midst of a evangelistic cruscade! We have been given a breakdown of their needs which are as follows:

We are very thankful to say that the Gaua SDA church, though sometimes a little overwhelmed by the prices of building materials here and the huge amount of work they have to do to purchase them, are pressing together and doing what they can to move forward. Given that it takes a whole family several full days to cut a ton of copra which is sold for about US$120 or AU$150, the money needed to build this church is significant to these people, involving many, many man-hours of hard physical labor. (A major health problem in these islands is damage to intervertebral discs due to carrying large sacks of copra-young men and women included.) We are praying that God will impress our friends overseas to help out where possible, knowing that God has people out there who would be abundantly blessed themselves by giving-for God gives to those who give. If you want to take the risk of giving and receiving, please contact us!

Back in Gaua we have been surprised to find that our simple Health Educator course was being keenly missed by keen students while we were away in Mota Lava, especially as we were unable to print sufficient lessons for them prior to leaving due to cloudy weather (solar power systems are very weather dependent). Once again we were impressed that there is probably no other place on the entire planet where you will find students more keen to learn. (Fortunately we have now prepared many lessons for the time we will be away in Australia.) We now have several other students who want to join our course. The Lord seems to have impressed us to do this course as primarily a correspondence style program, where students complete lessons at home and come for lessons to our home where they work for an hour for each lesson. Later we expect to run occasional hands-on workshops and classes for them using visual aids, which they crave. We now see that the flexibility of this teaching method is especially well-adapted to these young people, who live in various scattered locations up and down the east coast of Gaua, and who would find attending regular classes very impractical-requiring an hour's (or more) walk from their homes. Many youth carry heavy burdens at home, with washing or cutting copra, and their families would be deprived of their helping hands at home if they were to go away from home to attend our course, also adding a financial burden on the poor families. But our course is just the right style of program for them and more are joining all the time. If we can, we will also introduce an adult literacy program for those who would love to learn but have been deprived of schooling because of poverty and hardships at home. (I was informed by an adult literacy teacher in Santo that 50% of youth in many other islands are illiterate, mainly due to poverty.) Because they are able to start our program at any time and work for their education rather than paying fees, we are finding this an excellent way of reaching these young people-to our surprise and joy. We had not anticipated these difficulties in teaching, but evidently the Lord impressed us to choose this style of teaching in advance to help us to avoid disappointment and frustration. We thank God for blessing us in this way. Among our many needs now are DVD videos to show these students on all kinds of health, creation science and Bible topics. If you can help by sending us a DVD video, please contact us.

Pacific Yacht Ministries has recently invited me to be volunteer team dr for a group they will be sending to Torres islands later this year. I am thankful for the invitation and look forward to two weeks in Torres later this year. In one sense, Torres is the most needy area of the Torba islands. I have a soft spot for these islands, following a week I spent with PYM last year in Torres. This gives me a good excuse to give that time to working in this area, and I am really looking forward to it. We have been asked to visit all the Torres islands this time. I am anticipating many blessings...

Before coming up to Torba province we read a small booklet about adjustment stages which missionaries often go through during their first year in a strange and new environment. Stage 1 is the Excitement or Novelty Stage, when the missionary goes through many new and interesting experiences as he finds himself in a new culture. This stage is often a pleasant experience. Stage 2 is the Reality-Check Stage, when the missionary discovers that there are some undeniable problems with the new environment, and he finds himself struggling to cope-a difficult time. Stage 3 is the Adaptation Stage, when the missionary either (a) adapts poorly and goes into 'just coping' mode, or (b) adapts well and finds workable solutions to the difficulties of his new environment. We feel we have been through stages 1 and 2 and are now in stage 3b! We are thankful to say that it seems that we are adapting well and are finding workable solutions to the difficulties of our environment. We praise God for preparing us through many experiences over the last 10 years for the work we are now involved in. We feel that we must be quite an adaptable family! Our desire is adapt even more fully to the work we are involved in, and to become all that it is possible to become, with God's help. We covet your prayers.

At the time of posting this update on our website, we are making our way back to Australia for a month. From previous experiences we know that it is especially during the first 6 to 12 months of a mission project that a missionary goes through the biggest adjustments. This is why we planned this visit to Australia well in advance. Our desire is to get some much needed items shipped to Vanuatu, to share the story of God's leading in the islands Torba in various churches, and to encourage our fellow church members in Australia to support the Gaua SDA church building project.

As we were preparing to leave, I wanted to leave a little gift to show our appreciation to the Dorcas leader for all her hard work in coordinating the meals for us. I had my little devotional book with me, called "Daily Bread". It was a copy that my Mum had given me just before leaving Australia, and I usually carry it with me when I go places. I have marked it, and written little comments etc. inside, so that when I am put on the spot to tell a story or something, I have something to give me ideas. I struggled with the idea of giving Rita, the Dorcas leader, my special little book. But then the thought came to me, 'Freely you have received, freely give.' So I wrote a little note inside the cover and gave it to her as my little token of thanks. After all, these ladies had done so much and given so much to make me feel welcome. I felt like I really don't understand what sacrificial giving is all about yet, as these people do. I am just a beginner in this! When I returned home, I received a package from my Mum with another 4 copies of Daily Bread inside, along with some other teaching aids. Then about a week later, I received another package from Daily Bread with the 5 copies I had requested they send for me to distribute. God certainly keeps His Word when He promises that when we cast our 'daily bread' upon the waters (or give to friends separated by water) it will return to us again!

As I travel from place to place, I see new plants that I don't have in my garden, and I often ask for cuttings. I came back from Motalava with big bucket full of cuttings I had gathered during our two weeks there. As I was very busy on my return, I kept thinking about those cuttings in the bucket of water, just waiting to be transplated to the rich volcanic soil in my garden. It wasn't until the last two days before we left Gaua on our way to Australia, that I actually got around to planting them out. Unfortunately by then, some of the plants had died, and others were looking quite sick after ten days sitting in a bucket of water. It made me realise that people are just like little plants. When someone comes to you for help, or shows an interest in spiritual things, you can't make them wait until you are ready to help them. If you don't surround them with the fertile soil of love and encouragement, you may regret seeing their interest slowly die, just like I witnessed with some of my cuttings. When a branch is cut off from the main tree, it has no life in or of itself. It must be quickly placed in the soil and nourished with sunshine and rain until it can develop it's own roots and receive nourishment from the soil. So it is with people who are cut off from Jesus. We must see their need of nurture and encouragement until they can gain the needed spiritual nourishment for themselves by being rooted and grounded in Christ. I hope and pray that I will be quick to see the spiritual needs of others and not delay in trying to help meet those needs.

Since the majority of my time in Vanuatu has been spent in Gaua, I was mostly aware of the needs of the children only in that location. But now that I have had a chance to meet with other ladies from the various islands, I have become much more aware of the bigger needs that exist in Torba. Some of these islands have only just been opened up to Adventism, and these new little companies have no materials at all for the children. I am hoping that at the next district meeting we can have a Sabbath School workshop to train those who would like to know how to teach children. I also want to collect paper, glue, scissors, pictures, colouring pencils and other items so that the ladies will have a chance to make some song aids etc.for their children's Sabbath Schools. Also, if anyone has old children's Sabbath School pamphlets (even the old ones from the 3-year cycle are good), or any Adventurer's workbooks, old vacation Bible school materials sitting around in church cupboards gathering dust, please think about the idea of donating them to us. We can put all these items to good use, either in Gaua or on other remote islands where the teachers often don't even have a pamphlet to teach from. Many of the parents here can't afford to buy the Sabbath school pamphlets, as they are about $9.00 US each pamphlet. Multiply that by 4 for the four quarters in the year. Then double or triple that, since most families have around 6 children and would need pamphlets for at least 2 or 3 different age groups, and you can see that it is way over their budget - if they even had a budget to begin with! I heard from the ABC director in Port Vila, that we have an SDA church membership of over 15,000 here in Vanuatu. Of that 15,000 only 2,000 or less are ordering lessons. Of the 2,000 lessons purchased, only about 60 of them are for children. Something is wrong here, and we need to pray about these discouraging statistics. Perhaps if the materials produced were more simple and didn't cost so much, more people could be encouraged to purchase them. But how can we go around telling people they should be buying pamphlets for their kids when they just don't have that sort of money? I don't know exactly what the best solution for the problem is, but I am asking you to join me in your prayers that the little children whom Jesus called to Him, will not go away unblessed. If we don't make the effort to train our children to love God's Word, what hope do we have for future generations?

We have found it easy to witness in Vanuatu. I have been inspired by the some youth who live close to us. One of our students is called John Fox. He heard about our course and applied to become a student. He wrote on the application form that his religion is SDA. But when we asked him in person, he told us that his religion is actually "Sabbath Revival"-a group of Sabbath-keeping Evangelicals. We have discovered that there are two large families of Sabbath Revival Christians in John's village, Barevit. Barevit is close to our home-only about 15 minutes walk from us. On the same day that he brought his application form, we invited him to the prayer meeting which was at our home. He invited his family to the prayer meeting and some of them came. Since then he has kept coming to the prayer meeting and about a month ago we invited him to church. He said he enjoyed it. Then we had to go to Mota Lava for two weeks. He wasnt able to come with us. But then when he came to get his lesson last week we invited him to church again. He did come to church, with his his aunt Emma (about the same age as he is!) and his cousin Ken, who is an SDA visiting from Port Vila. They said they really enjoyed it and Emma said she wants to come again, and wants to be baptized in the SDA church.

Building Materials Needed over Next 2 Months	Vanuatu Vatus	US$	AU$
42 Timbers 4X2 5meters	VUV 58,800	$534.50	$715.33
34 Timbers 6X2 5meters	VUV 71,400	$649.03	$868.61
33 Roofing Iron 15ft	VUV 116,325	$1,057.40	$1,415.15
21 Roofing Cap 10ft	VUV 40,950	$372.24	$498.18
125 bags Cement	VUV 105,000	$954.46	$1,277.37
8 Window Frames & Louvres	VUV 18,720	$170.17	$227.74
192 Pieces Glass for Louvres	VUV 34,560	$314.15	$420.44
Freight of Building Materials Santo to Gaua	VUV 20,000	$181.80	$243.31
TOTAL NEEDED TO COMPLETE GAUA SDA CHURCH	VUV 465,755	US$4,234	AU$5,667