September 16. PNG Independence Day. 40th anniversary of this country’s independence. I imagine there are special celebrations going on all around the country. Not much here in the village, other than games.
After breakfast and quiet time this morning, I practiced the songs the students want to sing and went over the ladies’ lesson again.
The meeting room was quite full this morning. The children had the holiday off from school, so many of the children were here as well as other visitors. There have been new visitors every day. Many of the young girls were in the ladies’ meeting too. The ladies sang a special again this morning, and Mata gave her testimony. The ladies’ lesson today dealt with women who fear the Lord and the commandment for women to be in subjection to their own husbands. Much of the talk went to ladies whose husbands are unsaved.
The children’s teachers never did come practice their lesson for today so when we were done eating lunch, we locked the door and went for our nap. It was about 3:00 when Mike came. Some of the children were already here, but the other teachers weren’t here so the children weren’t allowed to come in yet. At 3:30, time to start, Mike’s helpers still weren’t here. Sosthenes came shortly, however, so he and Mike started the meeting.
While the children’s class was in session, I went over ladies’ meeting notes for tomorrow and added some thoughts to one part of the notes that I didn’t finish today.
After supper this evening, I practiced the song that the GCS girls want to sing tomorrow. The rest of the evening, I was busy printing, collating, stapling, and punching holes. Printed 30 copies of the ladies’ meeting notes to give out to the ladies. And for the GCS students, I printed 12 copies of the answer key for the history lessons which we didn’t get to finish in class.
And the most wonderful news of the evening is that Jaydine was saved today. Praise the Lord for another answer to prayer! The Lord has been showering us with His blessings this week, and with rain each day too.
“And there was great joy in that city.” Acts 8:8
September 17. The morning light shining through the window woke us up a little before 6:00 this morning. We had our usual Thursday breakfast of hot rice cereal. Then I had quiet time, practiced the song the GCS girls would be singing this morning, and went over the ladies’ lesson once again before the first meeting was to start. However, the first meeting did not start until after 9:30.
At 8:00, we were closed out of the meeting room because David and the youth “had work to do.” It took them quite a while to “do the work,” and we weren’t allowed out in the meeting room for the beginning of the meeting either.
After the preliminaries and a couple specials by the youth, they opened the door for us to come out. It was about 10:00. They had made a trail of greenery from our doorway to the platform. Just before we got to the platform, the ladies adorned us with leis and bilums. Then we were face to face with a banner on which was written their expression of thanks to God for sending us here with the Good News, thanks to Emmanuel Baptist Church for sending us, and thanks to us for coming. Romans 10:15 was written at the bottom of the banner. All that was enough to start the tears flowing, and then I was expected to play the keyboard as soon as I got there so the girls could sing. I was a little shaky with emotion and missed a few notes, but the Lord helped me through and the girls sang beautifully.
After that, Matthew read and explained the Scripture that was on the banner. Then I was allowed to go to my seat when Daddy got up to preach. Again the preaching was good, There was one person that we could see who responded to the invitation. The room was pretty full, even up around the pulpit so it was hard to tell if there were others or not.
After the invitation and closing prayer, they called me back up to the front, and Daddy and I had to walk back into the house on the trail of greenery while the youth sang the farewell song which the students had sung on graduation day. More tears. The song goes like this:
We shall sing farewell to you,
Our lovely one, since you go,
We feel very sad you leave us.
Some day we will be there
In heaven’s happy golden shore,
Good-bye, farewell to you.
We will never see your faces anymore,
We feel very sad you leave us.
Some day we will be there
In heaven’s happy golden shore,
Good-bye, farewell to you.
May the grace of God
Protect you till we meet again.
Good-by, farewell to you.
Thania and Lilian wrote the song and I think they did quite well writing in English.
By then it was 12:00. Everyone left to go down to the water for the baptism of Jaydine and Steve. Daddy and I had our lunch and went to nap. Ladies’ meeting was postponed until this evening, and youth meeting will be tomorrow morning. Children’s meeting will be as usual.
After our nap, Matthew came by and said that they didn’t have the baptism yet after all. The canopy they put in the water to make a baptismal pool has too many leaks, and it wasn’t filling up fast enough. They emptied it out and put it back to refill and will check it in the morning.
Ladies’ meeting was this evening. It was a good time together. The ladies were very attentive throughout the meetings, and after the lesson this evening, I gave an invitation. There were about 20 ladies who came to the altar to pray while we sang “He Cares for You.” Thirty copies of the lessons were handed out to the ladies who had requested them. We praise the Lord for working in hearts this week.
“But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.” Acts 8:12