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Adam’s Story from the South Pacific
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Adam’s Story from the South Pacific
The first missionaries who arrived in the South Pacific region 200 years ago were stunned by the beautiful green landscapes and women with long, black hair. But they were also appalled by the immorality, human sacrifices and idolatry that they found. Thanks to the hard work of these pioneer missionaries, there are now probably less than thirty ethnic groups in this part of the world where there is little contact with the gospel. And today, the Pacific Islanders are taking the gospel a step further. We ask God to help us help them reach these remaining groups.
When Jacob Abufa’asia returned to his home in 1904, the gospel had first come to his area of the South Pacific. He was a Christian convert through the work of the Queensland Kanaka Mission. This Mission worked among the indentured South Sea Islander workers on the Queensland sugar plantations. The gospel spread rapidly among the people on the coast, but the highlanders remained untouched.
Because of the dramatic changes in his life, it was as if Abufa’asia had been badly infected with a disease – Christianity – and he wished to spread it to others so they would be carriers of the disease also. Abufa’asia finally died peacefully at an old age but the fruit of his labor continued and the spread of that disease – Christianity – infected so many young lives. I know because I was one of them: My name is Adam.
Life in many parts of the Solomon Islands remains centered around communally-owned land and is sustained through subsistence agriculture and fisheries. We continued the work Abufa’asia began to carry this gospel to the needy, lost pagan people of the Kwaio Highlands. They live on the Central Malaita Island of the Solomons, in a mountain slope tropical forest region. They are hunters and agriculturalists, cultivating sweet potatoes and following a traditional, tribal religion.
The Kwaio highlanders are probably one of the few indigenous people groups in the Solomon Islands. They are still less than 2% evangelized with work going on for only the past ten years.
In 1993, the thirty established churches of East Kwaio formed a mission board and I was appointed its coordinator. The highland region was divided into seven zones or camping centers which were built close to where the pagans lived. We went there and brought them bales of clothing, cooking pots, eating utensils, food items, rice, fish, etc. We did this on a particular day and invited the pagan priests, with their families, to come to meet us at the camping centers. We met with them from 6pm to 6am. We sang and did dramas, gave testimonies, showed the JESUS film, preached and gave out the gifts we had brought. Often they would cry bitterly and ask us to come and build a church in their village and to send them missionaries. We have built several churches now and God is doing a mighty thing amongst them.
About forty to seventy have turned to the Lord each year— and, as of 2005, a total of about 770 since 1993. The total population of the Kwaio is 13,249 according to a 1999 survey and we estimate there are still another 2,000 to reach in the highlands as they are still living in grass huts in the interior. We ask you for prayer in our mission’s efforts to reach the Kwaio with the Gospel.
The South Pacific is the region with the lowest number of Least-Reached People Groups of all the twelve regions of the world. There may be less than thirty groups in all, but many parts of the Pacific islands are in a post-Christian stage, much like the Church in Europe. Still, God has begun reviving His Church in places like Fiji. May 14, 2006 is the 400th anniversary of the declaration made by Pedro Ferdandez de Quiros when he prophesied that this unknown land to the South of where he was standing would be “terra australis de Espiritu Santo,” or “the southlands of the Holy Spirit.” Pray that God indeed causes His revival fires to sweep through all the Pacific Islands and around the globe, transforming peoples and their nations as it goes! Pray for the remaining Least-Reached Peoples of the South Pacific as well…
RENEWAL
Ask God to bring the fulfillment of this 400 year-old prophetic proclamation that the Church of the South Pacific rises up in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit to boldly proclaim the good news. Proclaiming not only to the remaining Least-Reached Groups of this region, but around the globe!
RESOURCEFULNESS
Pray that God causes people from the Body of Christ to work with His divine creativity and in unity of the Spirit to overcome every barrier to the gospel among every people group.
RISING GENERATION
Plead for the fulfillment of Malachi that the son of righteousness rises with healing in his wings, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to their fathers. Pray that generational blessings of faith and courage are passed to the young so they can reach their generation for Jesus. RAPID Pray for the Word of God to spread rapidly and be honored as it is proclaimed before those around them by faithful men and women, especially among the remaining Least-Reached Peoples.
REMAINDER
Pray for the remainder of Least-Reached Groups in the South Pacific to be reached and to join hands with God, one another, and believers around the globe to reach and transform the remaining groups with the kingdom of God.