Solomon Islands District Newsletter (Volume 5, Issue 10)

Solomon Islands District

NEWSLETTER October 2022

Volume 5, Issue 10

PNG Southern Region Congress

Major Robert and Vanessa, along with Aux Capt Wency and Fostina, travelled to Port Moresby to attend the PNG Southern Region Congress that hosted a visit from the World Leaders of The Salvation Army, General Brian & Commissioner Rosalie Peddle. The Congress commenced on Thursday, 27th October with Offer’s Councils, where Officers from South Central Division, South East Division, Gulf District, Solomon Islands District came together for two sessions of worship, teaching and fellowship. The first public Congress meeting ‘Celebrating the Southern Way’ was on Friday evening, which featured a night of praise and worship, cultural items, and a message by the General. On Saturday morning, Salvationists from around the Southern Region gathered at THQ for a March of Witness around Boroko, followed by an Open Air at Centre Point. The Koki Corps Brass Band, along with a

combined Timbrel Brigade, led a procession of hundreds of enthusiastic uniformed Soldiers that snaked around the streets of Boroko, offering the public an impressive sight. The real impression, though, was the presentation of God’s Word though song, drama, testimony and a salvation message. In the evening, the Children and Youth were featured in a Praise & Worship meeting, presenting some very creative items that included cultural dances, timbrels and an amazing silhouette performance. The final public meeting on Sunday

Inside this issue:

morning was a Holiness Meeting, which attracted the largest crowd for the weekend.

Like with the previous events, the pre-worship had people up dancing and singing with great passion and cultural pride. Koki Corps Band and a Divisional Worship Team supported the congregational singing, with the Cadets presenting a skit for the children’s segment and a combined Sunday Schools reading the Scripture before the General gave his final message. One of the highlights of the Holiness Meeting was the mass enrolment of 84 Senior Soldiers and 67 Junior Soldiers from all over the Southern Region. The other highlight was the public acknowledgement of Aux Capt Wency and Fostina as the first non-commissioned Officers of the Solomon Islands by the Territorial Commander, with the General praying a prayer of blessing over them both.

Mission Support Project—Sewing Machines

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Bike for Rauai & Ngalifalisi Churches

2

Ecumenical Sunday School Rally

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Reusable Sanity Kits for Sun Valley Community

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Woodford International School

3

Food Relief for Mbubu Aeroplane Community

3

Personal Reflection

4

Special points of interest:  Life Skills  Village Transport  Child Evangelism  Student Engagement  Women’s Health

 Emergency Services

Mission Support Project—Sewing Machines When planning this Mission Support Project, quotes for six hand-crank sewing machines were obtained from the only supplier and repairer of Singer sewing machines in Honiara. Unfortunately, this store was one of the many businesses

burned down during the riots last year, which significantly delayed the purchase and implementation of this project. This month, the sewing machines were finally sourced from another supplier at nearly double the cost, meaning that only four could be purchased. Nevertheless, these four sewing machines, along with sewing starter kits containing cottons, buttons, zippers, scissors and rolls of material will be distributed to four active Salvation Army Home Leagues at village churches to make clothing that can be sold at village markets to generate income to support local mission and ministry initiatives. These sewing machines will

also equip village-based Learning Spaces to teach life skills to women and girls. As reported in August, the Honiara Corps Home League is already making products out of recycled rice bags that have been sold locally and in Australia to raise money to support women’s ministries in Honiara. Major Vanessa will be working with the Home League leaders from the village churches over the next two months to assist setting up the social enterprise side of this Mission Support Project and to explore what type of products can be made from the starter kits, utilizing existing knowledge, skills and market opportunities.

Bike for Rauai & Ngalifalisi Churches Around 13 years ago, Major Robert was gifted with a brand new Merida mountain bike from a cycling group he rode with from Edge Church in Adelaide, South Australia. After many years of wonderful adventures, it was a great joy for Major Robert to pay this kindness forward by donating his bike to The Salvation Army church in Rauai, West Kwara’ae to enable easier commuting between Rauai and the neighbouring congregation at Ngalifalisi, Fataleka. The commute between these two villages is approximately five kilometres, following the Kware’e River and the North Road.

The bike was handed over to John and Dixon in Honiara and they were given a crash course in bike maintenance and a riding lesson on how to use the gears.

Before leaving Honiara, they added a

rear mudguard to protect their uniforms from the wet and dirty conditions in Malaita. The village was very excited when the bike arrived at Rauai and it was put to immediate use for a ministry trip to Ngalifalisi New Opening.

Connecting these two congregations in such a way offers timely leadership and ministry support at a time when Ngalifalisi has been struggling. The provision of a bike is a very simple and cost effective solution to rural transport needs, reducing long walks and costly public truck fares to travel relatively short distances.

Ecumenical Sunday School Rally Around 70 young people from Honiara Corps Sunday School and Youth Group attended the annual Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) Sunday School Rally for East Honiara in Burns Creek Settlement.

This event brought together 500-600 young people from a variety of churches around East Honiara at St. Michael House of Prayer for All Nations. The theme for this year was ‘Let the Children Trust in Jesus’, based on Proverbs 3:5-6 - “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Each church

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represented at the event marched into the opening service where they engaged in a vibrant time of worship and were encouraged by a powerful message from the host church pastor. After lunch, each Sunday School and Youth Group presented items to celebrate their faith and culture. The Salvation Army group presented a song and dance, which they also performed the next day to their own congregation at Honiara Corps.

Following their items, the young people divided into study groups where they participated in Sunday School lessons, led by leaders from the different churches.

Elizabeth Tolilalo from The Salvation Army had the privilege of leading some of the children in the Sunday School group she led to a first-time faith commitment in Jesus Christ.

Solomon Islands District

Reusable Sanitary Kits for Sun Valley East The Salvation Army, through the Reusable Sanitary Kit Group (RSKG), was so excited this month to have four students from Woodford International School come to one of the Tuesday sewing sessions. The four students were working on a Women’s Health project and were very interested in how the pads and shields were made and the contents of the sanitary kits. They were so interested that they even had a go at sewing some of the shields, which is not an easy task as the shields are shaped like a winged pad. Not only did they try sewing the shields but also the bags that contain the kits. The students helped to pack the kits so that they could then hand them out to the local community where they were

going to present a talk during the following week. The students shared with the RSKG a segment of their presentation, which was well done! This provided the members an opportunity to give some feedback to the students about how to make their presentation a little more interactive and interesting. Both the boys and girls participated in the day, which was great to see, as very few young boys are taught about the menstrual cycle. After the visit to the village, the students were required to present their findings at the Woodford International School Exhibition Night and to the school community during a morning assembly. The highlight for Major Vanessa was watching the students interact with

the school community and educate them on how to use the pads as well as informing them on what not to use and how to look after themselves. Through this student engagement, the RSKG now has an order of kits for December to deliver to a remote village in the Western Province.

Woodford International School (Report by Millie Russell) Women’s Health Project – Year 5 “My name is Millie Russell and I am in year 5 at Woodford International School.

As part of our work this year our group (consisting of four year five students including myself, two boys and one girl) decided to do Women’s Health. As part of the project we met with relevant community organisations, such as the Family Support Centre, UNFPA and The Salvation Army to discuss women’s health. We learnt about issues that affect women like domestic violence and breast cancer. We became very interested in re-suable pads for women and met with

The Salvation Army and the Reusable Pads Sewing group to discuss how we might be able to help distribute pads to local communities. A teacher at our school suggested we could distribute

pads to the Sun Valley East Honiara community. We arranged to take 50 reusable pads to the community. I was very nervous about presenting to the community where about 35 women and children attended.

Our group talked about the reusable pads, what was in the pack and how to put them on. We even demonstrated on a teddy bear. It was rewarding to be able to talk to women about the pads and give them the packs, we also had two boys in our group who attended and really helped to be brave and normalise the discussion.”

Food Relief for Mbubu Aeroplane Community At the end of the wet season, earlier this year, heavy rain and flooding destroyed the food crops from Mbubu Aeroplane Community along the Lunga River. This loss was exacerbated by extended

Volume 5, Issue 10

COVID-19 curfews in Honiara. After an unsuccessful request to the Honiara City Council for assistance, due to lack of funds, one of the community leaders contacted The Salvation Army requesting assistance, because he had heard of the relief provided to Burns Creek after Cyclone Harold in 2020. The District team assessed the situation and applied for disaster relief funds through THQ to respond to this request. Lengthy delays in receiving these funds frustrated an already challenging situation but the promise of support gave the community hope. As soon as the funds arrived, Aux

Capt Wency Ramo’oroa and District SAES Coordinator Festus Ganiomea set to work to purchase and deliver much anticipated relief, which consisted of rice (586 kg), tuna (293 tins), seeds (100+ packets of tomatoes, cabbage, capsicum, cucumber, beans, lettuce, corn). These seeds were chosen by the community as faster growing plants which would produce a quicker harvest. In total, 293 people, representing 49 families, were very grateful for this assistance from The Salvation Army. The community leaders were gracious throughout the process and generous in their appreciation.

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Support Needs:  Building funds for new Officer Quarters: You can support by donating funds to contribute to the construction of Officer Quarters at our village churches in the provinces.  Purchase of furnishings for Officer Quarters: You can support by donating funds to purchase furniture and appliances for Quarters at each of our village churches.

The Salvation Army Solomon Islands District Officers - Majors Robert & Vanessa Evans PO Box 323 Honiara, Solomon Islands

 Purchase of additional equipment for SAES: You can support by donating funds to purchase a deep freezer to store food for Emergency Services and Disaster Relief.

Please contact Major Robert Evans at robert.evans@png.salvationarmy.org for more information if you are able to help with any of these needs.

Phone: (677) 30344 Fax: (677) 30344 Mobile: (677) 749 4524 Email: solomon.islands@png.salvationarmy.org Website: www.png.salvationarmy.org

Personal Reflection…

When we heard that we were required to be at THQ for the General’s Visit we were very excited and looked forward to attending the program and anticipating to see and experience greater things that God is going to do in our lives during the program. While we were very excited about the news of going to PNG, we did have some doubts in our preparations which gave us less hope whether or not we will be able to attend the program because our visas were not ready. Even on the last working day of that week before we flew on Sunday to Port Moresby, I was waiting for an email from THQ confirming the approval of our visas. However, at about 5:00pm I received a message from our District Officer advising that our visas were finally granted.

Praise God. Anyway, the rest is history. The program had three parts to it. The first part was a Welcome program at the Airport, the second was the Officer’s Councils and third was the Congress.

Aux Capt Fostina had a great experience during the program. She was well received by the Officers, including our Territorial Leaders, and they encouraged her a lot in her ministry. Their hospitality and kind gestures made her feel at home and feel that she is part of a wider loving and caring Army. She was quite surprised by the infrastructure in PNG, including THQ. But most of all, she was deeply moved and encouraged by the messages shared by the General and Commissioner and also the skits by other groups during the program.

As a newly emerging member and leader in The Salvation Army, those messages have

motivated her to see and evaluate herself, especially her spiritual wellbeing. She also acknowledged that even though her understanding of English is very low, she seemed to grasp most of what had been said. She was also blessed and privileged to meet with General Brian and Commissioner Rosalie Peddle in person.

So, both of us are new in this space. This is our first time to attend what is called Officer’s Councils and Congress. We did not know what Officer’s Councils was all about and what the congress looked like in The Salvation Army context. However, attending the program during the weekend gave us more insight into The Salvation Army programs. We are so thrilled with what we have seen and experienced during the weekend. We also feel that God has spoken to us during the weekend through what we have seen, heard and felt.

During the weekend, we met some officers and cadets and they were very generous to us by encouraging us in our ministry and especially about life at the Officer’s Training College (OTC); something that shed some hope for Aux Capt Fostina, as she is in a preparation stage for our journey to the OTC. Nothing more is so enjoyable than being in the presence of the Lord with those who share the same values, faith and are on the same journey. We learned a lot during the weekend about many things.

Some of the things were very new to us while other things are an encouragement of what we have already seen. This opens our eyes to see the bigger picture of the wider

Salvation Army. For us, we come from a country where some people know little about The Salvation Army and others know nothing about The Salvation Army. So our participation through the congress will help us to lead the Army in our own country.

We experienced some challenges during our stay for this program. But in the midst of those challenges, God has spoken to us powerfully to live a life of servant leadership and to accept those challenges as an encouragement on our journey of faith. Above all, we are very grateful to God for His unconditional love and faithfulness upon our lives as He leads us down this pathway of our Christian Journey. We give God all the glory, honour and praise for great things He has done.

Amen.

Aux Capt Wency & Fostina Ramo’oroa