Vanuatu: Bible Instruction and Fieldworkers

Type: Ecclesia Development and Preaching

Funding Need: $10,000 USD annually

Spreading the gospel in the villages on Tanna

There are brethren on five of Vanuatu’s 80+ islands; mostly on Efate, which hosts the capital city, Port Vila, and Tanna. When we first visited Tanna in 2005 we met a brother, Michael Job, who worked alone as a volunteer teacher in a dilapidated school we later adopted as a project. We asked Michael why he continued to teach the students without pay and he said they needed to develop, adding: “How can they read their Bibles and understand them if they never learn to read?” We began to provide resources for Michael. Bible studies are a school lesson from year 7, now with a Christadelphian curriculum, and they love the classes. In re-building the school we collaborated with the locals and made friends. They really appreciate what Bethezer is doing for their community and invite us to advertise the gospel in the surrounding villages.

Bible studies at the Christadelphian school

Life in Vanuatu is sometimes very uncomfortable. The volunteer cottages that Bethezer built last year on Tanna, with WCF funding assistance, go a long way to solving the accommodation problem; but we still need assistance in attracting volunteers, especially longer-term volunteers. Long-term volunteers could teach the Bible Studies curriculum at Kapalpal, and support the brethren there. We have willing volunteers who are limited financially and so have not yet come.

Local baptisms in Vanuatu

Vanuatu is an expensive place because everything is imported; there is virtually no local manufacturing, and transportation is expensive. We estimate ~$14/day for food, gas and generator fuel; so an estimated cost for a couple coming to Tanna for three months from Australia is ~$2 500 per person. We hope to provide funding for two visiting couples per year, with a third couple funded from other sources; to cover the nine months of the school year.

The work that we are doing here is exciting and is beginning to bear fruit. We trust that God will provide the increase that the planting of His seed brings. We ask for your support in making this possible, with a bottom line annual cost of $10 000 to support two volunteer couples as Bible teachers at the Kapalpal school. 

Request authors: Bre Terry & Karen Nutter (Brisbane, Aus) & John Pople (San Francisco, USA)