A summary of the Vanuatu Mission Trip that took place over the July holidays, 6th - 18th June 2019.

Vanuatu Mission Trip

6th -18th June 2019

The Vanuatu Mission Trip during the recent July school holidays began with the flight to Port Vila in Vanuatu being delayed by 14 hours. Consequently, the team missed the connecting flight to the island of Espiritu Santo in Northern Vanuatu, which meant that we were unable to attend church on the Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we also missed one day at a local primary school on Monday. Although this was frustrating, we all knew that God had everything under control and the mission successfully began on day three. We were hosted by the lovely Pastor Silas and his delightful wife Lois who invited us to stay in their Church- the Luganville Apostolic Church, where we all slept comfortably marae style in the church hall.

Our mission work began on day 3 of our trip, visiting the Santo Bush Mission farm where we had the opportunity to listen to Pastor Tueni Wan’s testimony of how he was called to Vanuatu, mentioning the highs and lows and lessons learned from being obedient to God’s calling. We also helped harvest the peanut crop and were given the task of painting fence posts with used engine oil to preserve them for another year!

In the following days we spent time at Sarakata Primary School teaching children from a Biblical perspective. We taught the children memory verses, played games with them sang Christian songs and performed plays which illustrated parables from the Bible. We were well received, and the students and staff were very welcoming towards us. We attended a several midweek fellowships at local churches where we had opportunities to share the good news of Jesus and worship with fellow Christians.

In between our mission work we also able to visit local tourist attractions and to snorkel in the sea at Million Dollar Point over the coral reefs inhabited by many tropical fish and visit beautiful beaches- Champagne Beach and Lonnoc Bay, and swim in crystal-clear Riri Riri blue lagoon, marveling at God’s creation in the Tropics. We spent 6 days in total on Espiritu Santo. After a one-hour flight south and we arrived in Port Vila on Efate Island.

In Port Vila, we had the opportunity to visit Victory Church where our host Zebedee Tanga is the pastor. We had the pleasure of attending Victory Church for a service on the Sunday morning where our team worshipped, preached, prayed, sang songs and shared testimonies during the service in a building that was little more than a corrugated roof ‘lean to.’ The following day we spent a day visiting Nguna Island with pastor Zebedee and his team taking a boat to this remote island community to meet the local school children and have lunch at a small village meeting the local people.

Over the next few days we spent time at a local primary school in the Black Sands Slum Community of Port Vila, called Victory School of Hope, which is a Christian School set up by Pastor Zebedee and his Church. We had the opportunity to teach all the children from Kindergarten through to Year 7. We had a lovely time there teaching, playing games and singing with them, encouraging them in their Christian walk with Jesus.

The final night of our mission was spent at a local resort on Erakor Island where Scottish missionaries originally set up a mission station back in the mid 1800’s. Here we shared a buffet with Pastor Zebedee and his wife- a fitting end to a wonderful trip with such good company.

Richie Bryce
Teacher Liaison for the Vanuatu Mission Trip 2019