On my first visit to Western Solomon Islands I presented a message on sharing our faith with others. I’ll never forget the response from local church leaders: “Pastor we do not know who to share the message with–all the villages we know are Adventists.” I knew there were a lot of Adventists in the area but didn’t realise we had saturated the place. On another occasion in Papua New Guinea’s Eastern Highlands, a lay leader said, “Pastor, everyone in this province has heard of the Sabbath—Jesus must come soon.” Her comments reflected Jesus’ words that the gospel will go to the whole world and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14). This is true but our problem is the size of our world. Most of us define our world by what we see in our own backyard—it is always limiting.
The South Pacific Division (SPD) recently held our year-end executive meetings outside our territory for the first time in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Why? SPD is the most successful division as far as evangelism is concerned. 1 in 55 people within our territory (of about 46 million people) are Seventh-day Adventists. The SPD is participating in the General Conference Mission ReFocus initiative and helping reach the hardest people groups in the world. SPD adopted the Southern Asia Pacific Division, in particularly three Unions—East and West Indonesia and Southeastern Asia. In these territories Buddhism and Islam are the main religions and the ratio of Adventists to the population ranges from 1:2000 to 1:10,000–a huge mission field just to the north of us.
The SPD executive went to Thailand to experience mission firsthand. Each of us participated in 3-5 mission visits. We went to local churches on Sabbath, sharing worship in mountain villages and city churches. During the week, we visited churches, schools, an orphanage and a safe house for girls (rescued from being trafficked). We gave gifts, played games, listened to history, saw what God was doing and so much more. Most morning and evening worships were testimonies of local church leaders who shared the joys and challenges of reaching out to their people. The executive told me, “We now understand the challenge of mission in Southeast Asia. Our eyes were opened to the familial bonds, cultural/country loyalties, circular world view and needs of the majority Buddhist population.”
Many committed to pray for God to renew mission there. Although only a small taste of cross-cultural mission, the seeds sown will bring more support from SPD to the area for God’s end-time disciple-making movement. As we listen to and love people—we will see a great harvest and rejoice just as much as we have with God’s work in PNG this year.
