News from Milne Bay

First of all I want to say a big thank you for those of you who responded to my request for financial support, we pray God’s blessing on you for your for you very real help and obedience to the Holy Spirit.

The same goes for the intercessors, we do face a very real battle here in the heavenlies as we face considerable adversity and one of you really blessed me with her testimony of a 21 day fast for us and the prophetic vision, which I will now relate.

I praise God for His faithfulness for He gave me 2 open visions. The first was after a few days, the Lord shows me a huge man upholding a collapsed bridge. He stood in the centre with the bridge above him, and each of hands underneath placed either side of the broken although it was still impassable it was not destroyed completely and just needed the middle section to be rebuilt.

A few days after that, the Lord showed me the heavens and they were very dark and brooding, black in places, really heavy and oppressed, and very aggressive in movement. I started to intercede and finally felt a breakthrough although small. One spot in the centre of the sky started to lighten, the blackness started to separate and slowly the light became lighter and lighter as it pushed through the dense cloud covering. And then it broke, the heavens parted in a perfect rounded hole and the Light burst forth, streaming down, it brilliance was awesome, covering everywhere. Praise God.

I have to say that I really identify with this vision because that is exactly what it has been like although God has encouraged us with success in ministering to others and showing us the bigger picture of His plan. We keep pressing in without losing our joy, at least not for any length of time. The Wigglesworth prophecy of the SW Pacific as a starting point of the last great move of God precipitating the Lord’s return is confirmed to me by the intensity of the adversity contrasted by the encouragement of the Spirit in us and in the Church everywhere here. There is no indifference here to spiritual things or to the Lord Himself but the single greatest need is teaching, which we are working to meet.

It is still very hot here with the temperature in the mid 30’s but it is getting cooler as the Sun moves North towards the Summer months in the Northern Hemisphere.

This last sixty days have proven very trying financially, health and general opposition. These things always work out for the good of course as it says in Rom 8:28 and I am fully confident in my God that I am in the right place at the right time. The finances dried up last month and I sent a general email to a few of you and I want to send a heartfelt thanks to those of you who so generously responded. I was able to book my next trip into and out of PNG

in accordance with the requirement of my visa for me to leave and come back every 60days.

Atilomwan is very economical in that it uses about 3.8 ltrs per hour and I would like to rig her with a couple of sails as this will save a lot of money when we get good wind. The engine is tired though and I desperately need to give it an overhaul soon. The name Atilomwan is Misiman for ‘heart of mercy’

After arriving at Bwasa and working through some of the milling program to get the timbers cut for Makelon’s boat Kehagu. I prepared for my trip to Misima some 105nm East of us. You may remember that I formed some connections there and I am keen to develop them. Especially with United Charismatic Mission with whom we have much in common. On Tuesday the 3rd March only to encounter a breakdown when we were 10nm east of Normanby in a NE wind of about 15knts. The oil pipe banjo bolt had collapse spilling oil everywhere and rendering the engine useless. I rigged up a ‘jury rig’ with the sun awning and so was able to make slow passage towards Dawson Island which has a radio (apparently) it was some 30 miles to leeward of us and the weather offered no hope that the wind would remain NE – in fact at nights it would come around to the SW which would blow us back the way we had come. I asked Sanope to steer while I spent some time in prayer and God showed me in a small vision how to solve the problem by way of sweating a piece of hose over the banjo union and the other end over the fitting place on the cylinder head and it worked.

I was not confident of an open sea journey with such a repair so we made for East Cape and the lads brought her back to Bwasa from there. I caught a PMV (open truck) to Alotau and also caught a bug, which sapped my energy and wrecked my appetite for the next month; nonetheless I managed to get a boat to Misima and spent a very good two weeks with the people there. I have been asked to go and minister there in May, which I am hoping to do. When you are in a place like PNG you will often find that you are the man on the spot when a serious problem occurs. When it does occur local people run to you as the missionary to solve the problem and this happened while I was a Bagalina again. A little girl was crying agonizingly and the aidpost chap had given some medicine, we prayed for her and the pain died down but in the late afternoon I was called to her only to find that she had acute appendicitis, which looked as though it might burst. So I took off like the wind to get a dinghy to take her to Bwagoia where she would be cared for and even flown to Alotau. I ran to Leag, the scene of the drama with Melteli last Christmas day, and negotiated a deal with Gus for some Zoom (2 stroke fuel) and just managed to get the little girl off safely. It is a liability we have to meet and have no choice in the matter and do it willingly and urgently but it still costs money. I felt really exhausted after that and the next day we went to Ebora.

Ebora is a very poor community on the Western point of the island and while I was there I contracted malaria, which like the devil himself strikes you when you are down. However my God is my healer as He has written in His word and indeed Pastor Colleen cared for me and spoke healing scriptures over my shaking body.

The people here are so poor that many have their clothes hanging in rags so I am hopeful at some point of stirring up folk in churches in UK and Australia to collect summer clothing to send here for us to distribute. The ‘wash’ is a pipe, which collects water from a spring in the hills put there, ironically, by the gold mine some years ago. It is quite a travesty that Westerners are so caught up with green issues and global warming and paying for ineffective conferences only emitting more ‘hot air’ and costing millions to ‘raise awareness’ while people here are dying for a range of sickness, disease and poverty.

The mine in question was the nearest thing to help from the west but it came spoiling the environment of these people. The usual triumvirate of: Greedy (globalized) company; Money hungry government and corrupted landowners guarantee the operation and despoliation of the place. Who cares? Well we do so

please ask God how you will be able to help us.

When I come to the UK perhaps later this year, God will open ways for me to minister in churches who have a heart for missions. So if you would like me to speak in your church then let me know and we can make a program. Small charities like ours are far more efficient at using money because it gets used on the spot but I would always emphasise to our supporters to give by faith and to delight yourselves in Him because such giving reflects how much you really trust Him in life and love Him in reality; it also releases the power of God in every covenant area of your life, not only finance. When you give by faith it is like you saying to the Lord “I really love you and what I am now doing reflects that I trust you in all the needs areas of my own life”

Still my visit to Misima was encouraging and I was especially encouraged by the United Church (Methodists) who are really crossing the denominational lines with 32 of their number registering to attend Rhema School of Ministry in Alotau which starts in July. This is a very real reflection of the desire that people have here to know the Word of God and to proactively apply it to life.

After Ronnie Tomilesi’s visit (senior pastor of the UCM) I went back to Alotau on Aurora still dizzy from the combined effects of flu/malaria and when I got back the staff at the Masurina Lodge told me that I had lost weight! It seems that a lot of people have suffered this weird flu of late and I am glad to say that I am on my way out of it.

Strait away I managed to find another boat for Bwasa to collect my things for the ‘bounce’ to Aus and back and I managed to put a few more things in place to develop the place to make it financial.

Once a bit of trade is going on it will facilitate the setting up of the Bible training centre to which God originally has called me to do along with the boat building. A lot of money is needed and I am looking to the Lord to guide me creatively to produce it on the ground since nothing sufficient for this is coming from overseas yet.

Some potentially good news is that the slaving away I did on the AUSaid grant may produce some fruit as they have asked us to present a full application for a grant. Anyway the next session is a few weeks of work when I get back but I do it by faith and expect that God will favour us with finance to get the capital equipment to develop the two places financially. Chris favours a financial incentive method with individuals earning as stakeholders rather than wage earners whereas we at Bwasa are utilizing the family structure to carry out the work and pay key people from within that and reward others via the Bada (headman). This way I get to reduce my profile as the dim-dim and occupy a more observer role but everyone really knows why I am there. In this way I expect the ‘resource centre’ to be autonomous so I can devote more of my energies to ministry matters.

Of course AusAID grants do not feed your resident missionary and he continually looks to God. I prefer to look into His face rather than get so busy that I only have time to look at His hand for what I need. If you are going through hardship know that I am also going through it and that we can all be confident that He will NEVER let us down. Have a read of Ps 37 and be seriously encouraged about just how very good and faithful the Lord is. His word is settled forever in Heaven and so we need not be anxious.

One of the greatest encouragements is the knowledge that being here in the field is exactly where God wants me to be. The harvest is all around me and I know full well that when the Adversary throws stuff at me that I merely have to know who I am in Christ and not give up. Joshua 1:8 says “be strong and of a

good courage” The great military victories of history have always been preceded by great battles. Since I know the outcome in the promises of God, victory is assured.

Pastor Colleen is now on the LWM team together with Daroa and I. Recently I went to do our now quite regular broadcasts on Sunday evening from Alotau on Radio Milne Bay the Voice of Kula. From Alotau NBC we are able to reach all of the Milne Bay Province and even most of Papua New the session is only for one hour Colleen on air but in this hour about seven of us are able to make contributions of teaching and prayer. The fruit borne

by this broadcast is outstanding. Pastor Douglas often prays and teaches in Suau language others pray in Dobu and Colleen prays and gives exhortation in Misima. As a consequence we have had phone-ins of people turning from crime; being healed and many getting saved and backsliders being restored. Many young people are touched by the Holy Spirit during this time. The staff at the radio station are quite keen for us to present the Basic Concepts Course adapted for radio which we will do when the opportunity arises and I am hoping to utilise local ministry to help me in the teaching and also to be able to send out

the handouts for the course to pastors in the rural areas before going on air.

The latest situation for us is that the Sigialu’s in Bwasa are concentrating on shifting the new keel, which weighs about half a ton and fitting it to the boat. Invariably this means that the timber-milling project has been put on hold at a time, which is hard for us. Transport to Bwasa is difficult at the best of times and I have been unable to secure a boat. (Atilomwan needs a new injector pump) Last week two potential places fell through at the last minute, which is a regular occurrence in Milne Bay. If you are used to a regularised life then life here would drive you nuts! Great grace is needed to overcome the frustration of continually changing timetables and bungled red-tape. However sometimes it works the other way like having the radio station so freely available. In England they bear the dubious honour of being the only English-speaking people to actually ban the Christian message on the airwaves in that it is actually illegal to preach the gospel on the terrestrial radio. (courtesy of both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, allegedly both are Christians) Some other countries where it is permitted, they have to pay large sums to broadcast, so we are favoured indeed. One might say ‘swings and roundabouts’ and this is one where we are on the ‘up’ as it were so we ought to use it the more.

Thanks to those of you who have been praying for us – please continue to intercede for us, the Adversary is certainly not happy for us being here and doing, or working towards doing, the Father’s will here.

Daroa needs release from his security job, which he does to provide for his family. However he is a great evangelist and it is a sad thing for me to see him not doing what God has so clearly anointed him to be doing. Colleen has had great success in Bagilina on Misima teaching 30 children’s ministry workers.

She is in Alotau at the moment and will be involved also at Bwasa.

At this point in time I am constantly looking on the waterfront for a boat to take us to Bwasa and I imagine that I will have make the twelve mile walk to South Duau and get a ‘dinghy’ to East Cape next week to make my next flight to Cairns on the 4th June where I arrive at 8.40 in the evening when everything is closed up. Then back again at 04.45 to get the flight to Port Moresby on the 6th June. A good thing when I go to Cairns is that I can work on broadband and catch up with your emails that are hard otherwise to do from Milne Bay, especially when I am away from Alotau when even dial-up is not

available.

Prayer subjects: Intercessors! Please pray for the fulfilment of Rom 16:20 In all the practical affairs of life it only too easy to forget that it is a spiritual warfare that we must wage. We will overcome in every area but for the present the Enemy has been attacking like a flood in the areas of finance and transport (especially to get Atilomwan operating will give us true independence and freedom from the hit and miss seeking of boats in Sanderson Bay.) Prolonged absence from Bwasa occasioned by my being in Alotau transport and admin, has produced problems, which I need to attend to. We need favour to minister teaching to the Sigialu’s and also for wisdom in dealing with business issues. Favour too with our application for the AusAID grant. Heather’s visa and for both her, Daroa & Jessie, Colleen and me, we need finances. Pray that God will open the windows of heaven for us. Give thanks too for Chris Abel who has been so supportive over the last year with me coming in an out of Alotau and staying at the Lodge, pray for him and his family for the new birth and

favour in business. (Matt 10:40-42)

We have been beset around by attacks from the Enemy ranging from the engine problems on Atilomwan to land disputes in Duau, sickness from insect bites, dearth of finances, passport and visa probs, to name a few. I won’t go into details except to ask that when you pray, do so in the spirit and let the Holy Ghost guide you fervently. He knows the situation in detail and He has given me Ps 18 and Joel to study. Don’t be like many less well informed Christians who erroneously interpret adversity as ‘God trying to get through with a negative message’ because this is not supported in scripture. We have to press in there is no choice acceptable to me except to believe God fully and joyfully trust in His provision and deliverance.

Every blessing to you all

Guy