An evangelistic campaign with a community service component was held in Honiara, Solomon Islands in July.
Led by Gary Webster, director of the Institute of Public Evangelism, the three-week campaign attracted around 7000 attendees during the week with numbers swelling to 10,000 on the weekends. A further 50,000 people attended the weekend services remotely through downlink sites. As a result of the campaign, at least 944 people were baptized with the final tally still being confirmed.
A field school was also conducted during the campaign, where approximately 60 pastors and evangelists received training. “Part of their work was to go visiting during the afternoon, classes in the mornings and in the evenings [attend] the campaign,” Webster said.
“This is the third field school they’ve had in the last year. All of them have yielded some really good results,” he added.
Photo: Adventist Record
Photo: Adventist Record
Photo: Adventist Record
Photo: Adventist Record
Photo: Adventist Record
For the final nine days of the campaign, church members from the Greater Sydney and North New South Wales conferences joined in a fly’n’build initiative and led Vacation Bible School (VBS) activities for the children.
The volunteers worked on two Betikama Adventist College staff houses, re-cladding the exterior walls, demolishing two bathrooms, painting the entire exterior, installing four new doors, adding mosquito screens to the windows, and removing rotten framing.
The five-day VBS program catered to 240 children and included training for local women to host and run similar programs in their churches. The volunteers also assisted in making more than 2,400 children’s crafts and singing songs during the Sabbath afternoon program.
“The kids’ program was excellent because that was a training program, teaching the Solomon Islanders how to do VBS,” Webster explained.
He concluded, “Lots of Solomon Islander ladies and some young people were involved in helping out, so they learned what to do.”
The original article was published on the South Pacific Division news site, Adventist Record.
