A legacy of hope in Gizo

September 11

Way back in the 1890s, a young Englishman by the name of Griffith Jones captained ships crossing the Atlantic between the east coast of America and England. On one occasion, just as his ship left a port in the United States to head back to the United Kingdom, he noticed a pamphlet fluttering in the breeze on the deck of his ship.

He picked up the pamphlet, entitled “Present Truth”. As a result of reading that pamphlet, he became a Seventh-day Adventist. Jones returned to the United States and, after studying for one year at an Adventist college in Texas, was invited to captain a ship and serve as a missionary in the South Pacific.

After spending some time in Singapore, he sailed further east and eventually, in 1914, arrived at the island of Gizo in the western Solomon Islands. Despite huge cultural and language barriers, he established a Seventh-day Adventist church there.

It was my recent privilege to spend almost three weeks on the island of Gizo, partnering with the local church members to share the story of Jesus with the broader local community. Each night for 14 consecutive nights, we ran an outdoor program on the lawns of the church grounds using four large screens. Despite rain, wind and competing with some high-profile World Cup soccer matches, people came.

Less than one per cent of people on the island own a car, but fortunately a hundred and one per cent of the population own an umbrella! The local church members organised for two trucks to travel through the streets of the village each night to bring people to the program and return them to their homes afterwards.

At the conclusion of the program, 24 people were baptised and a further 25 requested Bible studies. One of the things that so impressed me was the prayer life of individual church members and the church corporately. I was consistently reminded of the statement, “Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.” To hear Solomon Island church members pray was to hear a person opening their heart to a friend. It was genuine and authentic.

One afternoon, I received a knock on the door of the room where I was staying. On answering the door, I was met by a very distressed local man in his mid-forties. We began to chat. He was very open and honest with me—a former Adventist who had wandered away. He confided that he smoked, drank, chewed betel nut, was obese, and was a prime candidate for diabetes and the possible amputation of a limb, leaving him unable to provide for his family and facing premature death. I was able to assure him that Jesus is most interested in his future, not his past.

Let us always remember that we are called to “bring hope”.—Mal Green, elder, North Perth Adventist Church, Western Australia. This article first appeared in Connect Magazine.