Ministry in Susanville

The main reason for me to be in Susanville this past weekend was to attend a Palauan conference there. Palauans from all over Northern California and Oregon gathered for the weekend. In addition, with a new Chuukese congregation being recently formed there, there was a small group of Chuukese attending the conference. My role was to teach a two-session seminar on Bible study methods on Saturday morning and afternoon and then preach for the conference session on Saturday night. It was great to see so many old friends, PIU and Emmaus alumni, and friends from the Susanville Baptist Church all gathered for a great weekend of fellowship. I was thankful that Jake invited me to be part of it.

The first day there I had some time to fellowship with pastors Jake Ngirablosch and John Murdock. We had lunch together at the hotel and spent some time discussing how we can cooperate in ministry with the Micronesians on the US Mainland and help the work in Micronesia too. There seems to be a minor revival happening among the US Micronesians and they are in great need of training and discipleship. Friday evening I met with Hugh Jamison to talk about the furniture project he is doing for our dorms on our Guam campus. The project will provide new beds, dressers and desks for all of our dorm rooms. Hugh is in the process of raising the money for the project. We appreciate that very much.

Saturday morning and afternoon was spent teaching the seminar. There were about 50 enthusiastic people there to learn Bible study methods. I took the material that I use in the seminary class I am currently teaching and summarized it for this session. I enjoyed the good participation as we "trained our microscopes and telescopes" on several different passages of scripture and discussed the basic principles of hermeneutics. Most of the participants in the class are already teaching Bible studies in their home fellowships and were very happy to get the teaching and examples. In addition, the seminar raised the interest in several of the participants to take PIU on line courses. It is possible that we will have 10 or more new on line students applying to the PIU Biblical studies programs.

The evening program was a time of testimonies, singing and fellowship. A couple choirs from the different fellowships shared songs, including the youth choir from Portland (left). I preached on the story of Samson urging the group to be faithful to their calling and see God do great things through them. I was also encouraged to see the Chuukese group share a song. The Chuukese fellowship started partly as a result of our VOM team coming to Susanville last summer. VOM member Keiny Aisek stayed on there after the summer to pastor the Susanville Chuukese group. That group has been growing steadily since last summer and now, Keiny has planted a new church fellowship in Reno. God has been working in a great way in that community and I know Keiny would value your prayers as he gets married this coming Saturday in Portland and continues his pastoral work there in Susanville and Reno.

I am thankful that I can be part of what God is doing in Susanville among the Micronesian communities there.  It is great to see guys that I taught almost 30 years ago continuing to walk with the Lord and see their faithful families. It is also great to see the impact that the 1st Baptist Church of Susanville is having on the work in Micronesia. We are looking forward (and praying for god's provision to make it happen) to having the VOM 2011 team back in Susanville doing ministry there again this coming summer.