Unmet Village, in the Islands of Vanuatu, is almost entirely Catholic. It has a Catholic Mission School for both primary and secondary school students, as well as a large Catholic Church and Catholic population.
During the month of November 2018, Cornerstone Ministries travelled to the village of Unmet to conduct an evangelistic campaign in this Catholic dominated area.
This was a daunting trip for our ministry as this was not the first time we had worked in the village of Unmet. The first time was in 2004, when we sent our two Bible-workers to the village to conduct a small evangelistic program. Some of the Catholic Church members in the village were offended by the messages and set upon our team, beating them and destroying our lap top, data projector and PA system.
So nearly fifteen years later we felt the need to try this region again!
Maliza and I conducted this series of programs along with one of the original Bible-workers that was part of the first program in 2004.
The few local Seventh-day Adventist church members that live in Unmet were very busy in preparing for us to arrive. They handed out brochures, erected banners and set up a good stage area for us to preach from. We were welcomed to Unmet by an official opening ceremony conducted by the local SDA district pastor Kevin Isaiah and the local village chief who gave a short welcome speech.
That evening as our programs commenced, I was surprised to see around 150 to 200 people attend, with some of them walking for over one hour to reach the venue. I had been asked by the district pastor to use great care in my choice of words when speaking on sensitive topics, as he did not want a repeat of what happened in 2004. So I decided to present these hard-hitting truths towards the end of the series and to be very sensitive with my words.
I was brought up as a Catholic and I used this as a means of connecting with the audience, sharing with them my journey from error to truth and encouraging them to do the same. This worked very well and even though some were challenged with the facts, a number of Catholic Church members took their stand and came to the front to make a decision for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
At the end of the series twenty-five people had made a decision for baptism. Only twenty-one people were eventually baptised as four baptismal candidates were prevented by their families from attending the baptism service. The local pastor is still working with them. Once the baptisms had taken place a final appeal was made to those who had put off their decision but would like to have further baptismal studies and to be baptised in the future. Another nineteen people responded by stepping forward to indicating this was their desire.
A fellowship lunch was held at the church in the afternoon, during which some Catholic Church members approached me to express their thanks for my messages and to ask if they could have a Bible and Bible studies.
The Lord is still working in Unmet and we pray that the harvest of souls in this area will continue to grow.
In His service
Chris Kleinke
