John G. Paton and his wife Mary, who would soon give birth to their first child, landed at Port Resolution in 1858. They were not the first missionaries to serve in the Port Resolution area of Tanna and they were certainly not the last. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Presbyterian
Words of Eternal Life
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‘A – a – ants,’ the class chants, diligently repeating after the teacher. Along with the photocopy of the alphabet and its corresponding sounds, the students each have a copy of John’s Gospel in front of them; a book they very much hope to be able to read one day after completing the three modules of their literacy course. ‘It will only be through reading it for themselves that they will really change,’ the mission worker explained to me. After watching for a while, I had the feeling that it will be a long process. But when they have come as far as they have, there must be hope. Continue reading
Circumventing Circumcision
Three students on field experience from Southern Islands Presbytery Bible College were practicing pastoral visitation, going from household to household praying for people’s needs. They entered one house where the upcoming circumcision of their son was weighing heavily on the people’s minds. The students brought the matter before the Lord and moved on. Later that day the family discovered that their son had been miraculously circumcised.
Six further ‘miracle circumcisions’ took place within about a month at that location, which is one of our mission fields. But these weren’t the first circumcisions of this kind to take place on Tanna. The first took place in 2000 when it was prophesied that miraculous circumcisions would take place across the island and radiate out from here around the world. Continue reading
The Number of Fear
A mission worker called for assistance at his mission field due to SDAs ‘making trouble.’ I only heard about it at the last minute but did what I could to get there after what had already been a long day.
It seemed that the ‘trouble’ was to do with the number of the beast from Revelation 13:18 and the mission worker had called a week long workshop to work through the issue and other issues relating to the SDAs. He had called for the assistance of a pastor, and since I was the mission director and the only pastor with transport, the job fell to me. Continue reading
From the Prayer Letter
Ready, Settle, Go!
We are very much in a ‘settling in’ period. After a little waiting and much getting ready, we have made in to Tanna and are now through the first term of the college year. Yet in every way we feel very new here and are doing what we can to settle in physically and culturally. Continue reading
Talking About Tanna 