PIU Yap Ministry Team–Ransome Esah

Ransome is a 3rd year biblical studies student at PIU from Chuuk and Hawaii. Ransome’s roles on the team were to lead some of the devotions and develop and perform in the skits that were presented. He played the role of “The Good Outer-Islander” (the island version of “The Good Samaritan”) in one of the skits. But his main role on the team was to do the “background guy stuff” – talk to people, build relationships, hang out and “make them comfortable” to be with the team. Ransome will spend the rest of the summer in Hawaii working with his mom and doing youth ministry.

He agreed with many of the other team members that the most challenging part of the trip was that everyone on the team “had their own ideas about how to do things and we had to find the best way to work things out and do it.” The challenge was compounded by the cross-cultural issues with “Americans, Chuukese and Palauans” seeing things differently. But, “we always worked it out. The meetings lasted until we came to agreement.” He “learned a lot about how to work together through disagreements and go with the flow.”

One of his favorite experiences in the trip was the spiritual warfare. He had heard several of the PIU teachers talk about it in Spiritual Warfare class but “I had never experienced anything like that.” “I used to just pray and go to sleep, but on Yap I really prayed!” He also enjoyed building relationships with the Yapese youth. He “made some very close friends,” who “really opened up to us” as they “slept out in the village churches with the young people.” Ransome was also “very moved by Jesse Hartt’s testimony.” He “was encouraged by hearing that the Voices of Micronesia ministry in 2010 had led Jesse to come to PIU and showed him “how powerfully Micronesians can minister.” He was also encouraged that Jesse shared openly about how God helped him overcome shyness. The girls followed Jesse’s testimony with the song “Freedom to Serve” and Ransome saw that “God’s gift of love is really cool” and he realized how “songs can touch people’s lives.”

Ransome thought the trip was worthwhile because “there are a lot of people who want to become Christians but they don’t know how, and there are a lot of people in Yap who are Christians with no one to lead them. The youth need someone older to look up to, and college students can help by just sharing how God has worked through our struggles. You never know when someone is having the same struggle you had.”