#73 - Vanuatu work & witness
July 6, 2008 on 2:48 pm | In Uncategorized | No CommentsLOST PASSPORTS
We explain to the airport security officer at the airport at Port Vila;: “We have lost one American passport together with airline tickets - this is where we last remember seeing it!” From there we proceed to dig through the airport trash bins in the slim chance someone found it and threw it away. Makes for a good picture… missionaries digging through the trash at the airport. One challenge that we’re now facing is that there is no U.S. embassy in this Island nation of Vanuatu. Actually no U.S. diplomats here at all and this nation falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S.Embassy in Papua New Guinea, which is a long ways away. The W&W team member who is missing the passport has looked everywhere and it is gone. As we left to go back to the airport to see if we could find the passport, we had stopped the vehicle and prayed that God would help us. An hour later the passport and tickets are found back where we started. This is an exciting, but not an unusual part of W&W
KANSAS
This team has traveled about 37 hours to get here from Kansas, 13 hour layover in LAX, etc. etc…. they try to use that as their excuse for their behavior - but we tell them we think it’s because they’re from Kansas. We like them all anyway. They come from all walks of life. Most have worked very hard to make this happen! Before long each person has introduced themselves and one by one we share where God has us on this journey. No exception - God is at work! What an amazing God who goes to these lengths to do His next work in each of us. That’s my theory. A critical aspect of all this is about God at work personally in each of us. MUCH of this is about that. We can fight it or embrace it. If we embrace it, He might even be able to do something through us as well!! Starting with me I hope. Nothing could be more exciting than being thrown together with weird people like this, all on the same journey. All members of the same incredible family!! I’m the only one that’s not weird. really.
MISSION HOME/LOVE
The project we’ve targeted is building the missionary home for the Potters, two of our Nazarene missionaries
to this Pacific Island nation. Specifically, this team gets to dive into much of the tedious finishing work on the house. The requirements for everyone are simple but profound, if we are to succeed!! There is no question that this will require on everyone’s part… patience, kindness, no envy, no boasting, no pride, no rudeness, no self seeking, no-one gets to be easily angered, no-one can keep any record of wrongs, no-one can delight in evil, everyone must rejoice in the truth, everyone must protect, everyone must always trust, always hope and persevere to the end!!! That’s all… and that’s exactly what we watch happen each day. People who are not familiar with this family of God’s, would shake their head in wonder. If we understand the Gospel correctly, it is our selfless LOVE for one another that is key to reaching a lost and hurting world that is always watching.
YOUR PRAYERS
On the first day that the W&W team got to Vanuatu, we watched God answer specific prayer in relation to a passport and tickets. It really does move God’s hands. It really is powerful. Please keep praying for this team under the leadership of Eddie Fowler and their huge impact these days on the Nazarene mission work in Vanuatu. Pray for David and Sylvia Potter, who call this place home and who spend their days passionately pursuing God’s calling on their lives among the precious people of these islands! The team will be there in Vanuatu another week and then we catch up to them here in Fiji, where I’ve returned. We covet your ongoing prayers!
Blessings, Harmon
#72 - Money Meetings
June 8, 2008 on 8:36 am | In Uncategorized | No CommentsTHE DOLLAR BILL
Thank you for your prayers during these days of traveling to Cairns, Australia and focusing on one of the
most challenging aspects of Kingdom work… money. Obviously this is not just in mission work… it’s in life! Isn’t money something?? Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it. Well, it’s just not true that we “can’t live with it”, we not only must live with it, we must pursue bringing it into line with God’s design - one of my theories (I have a bunch of theories) has been that if we personally don’t take charge of it with God - it’ll take charge of us. Whoever we are, whatever we do or don’t have. Whether we are spenders or pennypinchers… how about in Kingdom work?
THINKING AHEAD
For us in the South Pacific as we try to put detailed plans on paper two years in advance at a time. We ask God for guidance in relation to money, as humanly we sometimes bounce from the extremes of either making sure that all the work, ministries, institutions, expansion plans, vision, projects and programs… are pulled down to fit within the parameters of known funding… or on the other side the extreme of wild and crazy ideas and plans, aggressively pursuing with abandon what must be God given vision by faith, disregarding wisdom which is also sometimes referred to as lack of faith!!
NEITHER / BOTH
What do we do? Well, we feel like God often leads us to a variation of both extremes at the same time. We
pray fervently for God to give us wisdom and He does exactly that, requiring the highest levels of stewardship and planing and accounting. We also pray no less fervently for God to give us God sized passion and vision that scares us to death and forces us to step way out, risky, totally requires Him and puts to shame human wisdom… and He does exactly that! This photo is taken from Mars (I didn’t take it). We serve the One who made that planet as well as this planet we reside on (see speck). Aren’t you glad He knows your name? Aren’t you glad that through the cross of Christ we know Him personally and He holds us in the palm of His hand! What an AWESOME God!!!
Don’t stop praying, He hears, He responds!! - Harmon
#71 OFF THE BEATEN PATH - Fiji
May 24, 2008 on 5:37 pm | In Uncategorized | No CommentsZERO VISIBILITY
The motor vessel Galilean II is purring like a kitten this morning. Two engines totaling 450 horse power . 5200 rpm. 24.3 nautical miles an hour. Three uneventful hours South into the Pacific since dawn. God’s
handiwork evident so clearly. The bow slicing the rhythmic swells sending spray to port and to starboard. In front of us there’s a black wall as far as you can see. I look down at the image created by the sweep of the Furuno radar. For the last hour I’ve discussed in detail, with my crew, the implications of the squall line that lies directly in front of us. We’ve been tracking the 20 mile solid cloud line by radar and calculating it’s forward movement, seeing if we could possibly outrun it? No way. No sign of lightning so we swing to cut through the front. As the torrential tropical rain slams into us, I lower the speed and visibility drops to zero. Once more I find myself very thankful for the safety equipment like an excellent radar, on this boat. In spite of this heavy squall line, the ocean conditions are good.
ONO
The startled sound from one of the passengers reminds me that they had not been aware of our proximity to the island of Ono. Navigation equipment has been tracking us correctly and I knew the mountain face of this island would suddenly appear immediately to our left out of the pouring rain. There she was. Between two islands, at a designated place, we rendezvous with the pastor and his wife who have been working in this area for many years now. Our first stop is a village on the island of Ono. Meeting with the chief, we listen again as Dr. Becky Morsch presents the fundamentals of Community Based Health Care. This is the last leg of an extensive three Pacific nation fact finding trip for us.
DRAVUNI - KADAVU
On to the island of Dravuni. Again we meet with the chief and the elders of the village. This village is where we spend the night and then on to the island of Kadavu, stopping at the first designated village and then working our way around the South side. Another village and another meeting, this last meeting takes us into the night. Finally we end up at safe anchorage and prepare for the Sunday services the next day at the ‘Lighthouse Church of the Nazarene’ here. The service is great!
PROBLEM
By Sunday night we have a problem. The wind has really kicked up and suddenly we’re looking at ‘gale force’ with potentially dangerous ocean conditions. We have to get James Johnson and Becky Morsch way down to the other side of this island chain to where there’s a dirt runway and try to fly them out so they can catch their international flights… no way am I taking the mv/Galilean II out into that ocean until things calm down. Inside the sheltered waters behind the barrier reef, we get them down island and fly them out. Conditions deteriorate - the wind starts howling.
STRANDED
Day after day we listen to the static of the weather forecast and hear by radio that the 1000 ton cargo ship has canceled it’s trip over the same section of ocean - the conditions are bad. The most difficult thing is to hold to our safety parameters, but they’ve been proven over 8 years… we hold for four very long days. Friday morning dawns hot and bright, there’s sudden calm after the storm and we head out to sea. By noon we’re safely docked and tied down at home port. Another successful trip. God has never been far away.
#70 OFF THE BEATEN PATH - Solomon Islands
May 24, 2008 on 1:18 pm | In Uncategorized | No CommentsOXYGEN
James Johnson, Becky Morsch, my daughter Danielle and I land in Honiara, Solomon Islands only long enough to grab George Miller and hop aboard another ‘puddle jumper’. I don’t know how many seats this one had, but 
I do know that EVERY seat was taken and the airplane was sealed up tight and then (before starting the engines) we sat and waited… and waited… and waited. Currently in these tropics it is what we call ’summer’. That is along the lines of being in a very humid oven set on high. The scuba diver inside of me begins calculating the total volume of air, consumption rate of the average human, etc. etc. I can’t get the numbers to work. By the time we get going we’ve long ago used up all the oxygen in the passenger compartment and everyone should be dead but we aren’t. My theory is that missionaries must not use as much oxygen as others.
NOT NOWHERE
Gizo is a place on earth just like the name sounds. It’s is a very long ways from nowhere and the entire island where the runway is, is nothing but a runway and a tiny empty brick room called ‘Airport Terminal’, and 200 liter drums of airplane fuel out on the ground so that the airplane can try to get back to wherever it came from. Then you climb into small fiberglass or dugout boats to go anywhere from the runway island… which is what we do.
By evening we’ve traveled by boat, way, way beyond Gizo, deep into remote Solomon Islands to a place called Vilorae. It’s not on the map. Any map. There’s a Nazarene church there and they are waiting for us… As we approach from sea, you would have thought King Solomon and his entourage have arrived!! They’ve decorated everything with cut flowers (countless wild orchids) and plants with a palm archway where there’s a crowd of people dancing and singing and presenting us each with handmade woven hats and leading us to where we will stay and the huge evening meal they’ve prepared. Gracious people - very gracious, giving people. Baths and showers at Vilorae, look like a spring fed stream in the mangroves, which is flooded at high tide - it works great. Bathrooms there are not… as in a fair amount of the 3rd world. So very much you and I take for granted.
TRANSFORMED
The testimony of the transforming power of the Gospel in the life of a man by the name of ‘Zoti’ from here, will remain vivid in my mind for a long time. Mostly because it is not primarily given by him. It is given by his wife who prayed for him for 35 years, who was struck by lightning and then touched by God’s miraculous power. It is given by his brother. It is given by his daughter and it is given by his son in law. This was one evil, violent man… obviously deeply transformed by Christ as witnessed by all who knew him. This is evidence of God’s Holy Spirit manifested in the life of someone.
CBHC
Dr. Becky Morsch continues presenting the concepts and ideas involved with CBHC as we meet with the people here and then work our way further by boat to a place called ‘Iri-iri-pasa-pasa’ (’Bitter Well’), also not 
on any map. Once more the people overwhelm us with hospitality that simply gives their best and offers literally all they have to us, their guests. The traditional hut where we sleep is high off the ground. Meals by now have included lobster, fish, clams and crab… though the staple is ‘laplap’, which can be difficult to describe and eat. During the services, the people responded eagerly to God’s word and we find ourselves continuously in another service, which isn’t unusual because places like this are so far off the beaten path, they don’t want to miss out on what they see as an oportunity.
ADRIFT
Eventually we’re heading back to Gizo. Twice we find ourselves adrift with engine problems. Twice I find myself wishing for one of our boats with motors that work (supporting Nazarene Maritime Ministries is a good thing <www.fijiboat.org> ). After a quick makeshift overhaul with pliers and a screwdriver, the motor eventually coughs to life, sputters and pushes us hesitantly on amidst the 990 islands that make up this Island nation… looking for the one with a runway on it.
HOT SHOWER
Very successful trip! A couple hours flying time back to Honiara and the priceless hot shower and waiting hospitality at the Millers house with internet access and time to regroup before heading out to Fiji and the next watery horizon. Throughout all of this, we are deeply grateful to all of you who have held us in prayer as we have pursued God’s leading and watched with awe, evidence of His presence and power, His purpose and direction.
Your prayers move His hands, thank you - Harmon
#69 OFF THE BEATEN PATH - Vanuatu
May 15, 2008 on 10:19 am | In Uncategorized | No CommentsBEYOND
Beyond tourist traps, beyond places frequented by white faces, beyond comforts and things like bathrooms and showers, beyond TV and telephones, hot water and roads… much of May has been out there. Places with names like Anawa, Vilorea, Iriiripasapasa, Dravuni, Vabea, Wairoro.
KID/JUMPING/YELLING
This kid should not have had a pilots uniform on… but then it wasn’t a very big plane taking off from Tanna in the southern Vanuatu island chain… already a long ways from Port Vila. Our team of missionaries crammed into this, another ‘puddle jumper’ then craned to see out, yelling to each other above the engine sound. Deep tropical mountains rose high filling our view with dense jungles as they whipped passed the windows. The pilot worked his way up and onto course… banking to starboard and leaving Tanna behind. Eventually way off into the vast Pacific, the tiny island of Anawa slid into view with it’s single coral covered runway and our first destination.
This would be the first time Nazarene missionaries set foot on this island… yet amazingly, beyond our principle reason we were also here for the dedication of the first Nazarene church, a beautiful building, built by hand without things like cement, iron, glass, etc. For the miraculous story of how God planted this church, you will soon be able to access it on our new SOUTHPACIFICFAMILY web site (not yet - but almost).
CBHC - INCREDIBLE MINISTRY TOOL
Our principle reason was in bringing Dr. Becky Morsch. This would be an exploratory trip for CBHC (Community Based Heath Care) into this part of the South Pacific. Before our time is over, we would spend very many hours walking this island, we would meet with the chiefs and leaders of the six villages that know this island as their home. Over and over ‘Dr. Becky’ would conduct interviews with community
representatives, searching out the types of information needed and all the while we are treated as royalty. A humbling thing as people who have what we think of as so little… give away their very, very best to us! Becky’s passion in using CBHC to minister to people out here in a way no-one has done before, is another ministry that will be linked to and tracked through our upcoming web site.
MOVING GOD’S HANDS
Pray for Becky Morsch and the decisions being made right now in relation to the people of Anawa in Vanuatu as it relates to CBHC and the Church of the Nazarene. Pray for the new ‘pastors’ Paul and Keithly and their challenge in this place as they work with the leaders of these people including the leader of the JohnFrom Cult (a story for another time) pictured in some of our photos. Pray for missionaries Peter and Jenny Isaac whom God used to reach this island. Pray for missionaries David and Sylvia Potter as they celebrate God bringing priceless returns like this to the investment of their lives into the islands of Vanuatu. Pray for the Johnsons as they continue to offer great Field leadership over this part of the world. Pray for us as we continue going where God leads.
Our God Reigns! Harmon
#68 SINGAPORE
April 30, 2008 on 11:34 am | In Uncategorized | No CommentsASIA PACIFIC REGIONAL HQ
Amazing time in Singapore! God has provided great leadership for the Asia Pacific Region with Verne and
Natalie Ward together with a super administrative team. Their passion for taking Christ to the lost here where God has sent us, is contagious. Our time with them was priceless! To be able to go to Singapore, Cindy and I managed to trick the Johnsons in Australia into taking our two children for two weeks… please be in prayer for the Johnson’s recovery. We believe that even successfully raising seven children did not adequately prepare them for Danielle and Quinton:) Our time in Singapore was filled to the brim. Missionaries from all corners of this Region thrown together with the Regional team… makes for one UNIQUE collection of people. Each one called of God, each one with obvious strengths and weakness, each one challenged to dig deeper, stand firmer, pray harder, believe stronger, trust God further… and know without a shadow of doubt that in these last days He really is building His Kingdom to the ends of the earth and the Gates of Hell will not prevail as we respond like never before to His charge!
AMAZING RACE
Among countless activities, at one point missionaries were thrown into multiple teams of three, making sure no spouses were together. These teams were each given seven sealed envelopes and sent out on an ‘Amazing Race’… only this race included breaking through barriers with strangers, talking to anybody and everybody, finding out who they were, where they came from, what they believed, hopefully talking to them about a God who decided He would rather die than live without them! Getting our photo’s taken with them. Finding out
some local secret that we needed to know to get to the next place. This was done on the buses, the trains and along the walkways and businesses through the City of Singapore. All of the teams including the one that Cindy was on… lost! My team won!!… later I was told that that was “Not The Point Harmon!” Very well thought out and greatly used of God. Why not try it in your town as a missions exercise??
TALENT
Our last three days in Singapore, focused on stewardship, including time with Doug Carter. God is a giver. He calls us to follow Him. Are we givers or not?
‘When each of us stand before God, He will not be asking us about our sin because that’s covered with the Blood of Christ. No!… the subject will be stewardship. He will call us to account for that which He entrusted to us. The talents. The time. The resources. The money. The things He placed into our hands during this lifetime. Did we bury them? Did we hold on tightly to it all and call it wisdom? Were we sporadic or cyclical in how we handled it all…. or did we learn to sow wherever He prompted, even extravagantly? Did we invest, trusting Him, where moth and rust could never destroy, where thieves could never break in and steal?? On that day will we gain His approval… “Well Done”??’
What an awesome way to live!!
Harmon
67 - 100 YEARS OF TECHNOLOGY
April 15, 2008 on 6:37 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments OffNEW WEB SITE
Please pray for us as we continue to work hard toward the final countdown of launching our new expansive web site for this mission-field! This is going to be an awesome tool, tying together our Nazarene work in six Island nations - every missionary - who they are and what they do - all the blogs - you name it. Our goal is to bring the people, ministries, cultures, countries, projects, passions, burdens and vision of what God is doing in and through us… from way out here across this vast expanse of the South Pacific… real time (or at least very close to real-time) right into your home or church or office.
MORE THAN THAT
But more, we have some ridiculous ideas of what we want to see happen with the Melanesia and South Pacific Fields. We really do want to bridge the gap with you. We want to recognize that this Kingdom really is all about ‘FAMILY’!! It is about the genuine relationships between all of us, because of Christ. You really are part of our family, and we really are part of yours. Technology today is a tool that can do what could have never been imagined - not so long ago.
ONE YEAR
There is documentation of my great-grandfather, as a missionary, sending a letter with various concerns, from Swaziland to our Headquarters in K.C.
A response was sent off to him within less than 2 weeks from receiving his letter. He received the reply back in Swaziland, almost exactly one year to the day from when he had send his letter.
LESS THAN A SECOND
These days, through our lap tops we do video conferencing across the ocean and around the world, real-time! You move your lips and I see them move and hear your voice… 
Amazing.
66- Kadavu Island
March 26, 2008 on 8:17 am | In Uncategorized | Comments Off
The work along this island chain has been significant over the more than seven years since I first saw the empty horizon blur slightly and as I concentrated, a slight hump between water and clouds slid into focus and from an endless ocean, the islands of Kadavu pushed their way into my life. Our Easter focus this year includes a full seder feast and celebration of Passover late into the night with 20 something people at our home an hour west of the capital of Fiji… then out to the Islands of Kadavu.
A ‘missions’ trip for the Nazarenes from one of our churches on the island of Viti Levu results in a combined Easter service at the settlement of Vunisea, Kadavu where our latest work on this island is happening. Pray for Pastor Aseri and his wife La. Their vision for these islands has stood the test of time now for over 6 years as our missionaries away from their home island to this place. God is blessing their faithfulness. The effect of their lives has now been felt from West of Vunisea all the way to Dravuni in the East, running mostly the full length of these islands. God’s presence was very evident in Kadavu as we celebrated the victory of the Empty Tomb this Easter Sunday!!
65- Kingdom of Tonga
March 16, 2008 on 2:10 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments Off
are speckled with hundreds of islands and endless coral reefs.Before long, Quinton (my 12 year old) and I are disembarking and stepping back into a different time and a very different place. This is the Kingdom of Tonga! The days ahead are filled with meetings with our Field Strategy Coordinator, James Johnson and the Nazarene missionaries here from Korea, the Kims. God has brought them here with a passion for reaching out to the handicapped of these islands. Pray for them as they are becoming the hands and feet of Jesus to these hurting people.
We climb into a smaller plane and head out to the distant Tongan island of Vavau, where we’ll be for a couple days. It takes longer to reach that island than getting to Tonga from Fiji. On Vavau, we meet up with Sione, together with NCM partnering with him for some time in a ministry of compassion and rehabilitation to hardened and hurting prisoners, deported back to these islands. The heart of Christ… ”I was in prison and you did not visit me” (Mat.25:43) compels us as we represent our Lord and the greater Body we belong to… these are your ministries out here.
64- God at work at a Hindu funeral
March 10, 2008 on 1:45 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments Off
Three days ago our neighbors called us from the gate - Cindy and I helped two of the women get ‘Ajji’, the grandmother of the community, over to the clinic that is called a ‘hospital’ near the river. She was not doing well, but there’s nothing they can do so they send her back home. Yesterday morning, shortly after dawn - they called us again. Something is wrong. “Come, please come, the whole family come… Ajji is dead.”
Role back 2 & 1/2 years - God directs us very specifically to move here and call this place ‘home’ - no outsiders here - very Hindu community with a major Hindu Temple immediately below our house to the right and another one a couple hundred yards down the dirt road. 99% of the entire community is Hindu, these are our neighbors now. The kids do not know strangers and quickly the barriers begin to come down for the kids. Soccer balls get worn out and Hindustani starts getting learned. The kids fall in love with the people who make up the families around us… no ulterior motives. Real relationships, genuine feelings. Cindy starts making cakes for any excuse she hears about and the women of the area fall in love with her and she falls in love with them… same thing happens. These are precious people, becoming more and more precious. Their lives are as complex as ours. Their feelings run no less strong. The government falls in another coup and crime starts to climb. As a result the police ask for help from the community and 80 to 100 men gather and I’m the only outsider. Amazingly they vote me onto the ‘Community Committee’ that will represent them. God gives us a deep respect for them as He grows our love. The men are proud and their beliefs are far more than just religion. It is their culture, their identity. It is all that they and their fore-fathers have ever known. It is their one and only frame of reference. Combine this with the fact that most everything they have ever seen or heard of ‘Christianity’… they hate… with good cause.
But the Kingdom of God is about relationships and the love of God is powerful… it took Him to an executioners cross the other day. Our job is never to judge, but to love.
Speed up to this last Sunday morning early. They bring us into their humble home and their hearts are broken - the air is filled with wailing and sobbing and suddenly our hearts are broken as well. These are not some strange Hindu people anymore, who look strange, act strange, dress strange, eat strange, sound strange… no somewhere along the line of the last two years we made the mistake of actually falling in love with these people and now it is costing us. The faces are individual human beings, with personalities and life to live. Our hearts are aching. We not only feel their pain, we are filled with our own pain. I watch two of the women, housewives who live close to us. One is holding on tightly to Cindy, the other to Danielle. They are sobbing like their world has now come to an end because it has. Through the sobbing and broken English, I hear… ”… you… made… the… cakes… for… Ajji… ”.
The old man, the patriarch of the area, calls me over to where he’s been sitting on a wooden bench, looking at the floor in silence. He looks up to me standing there. I have no idea what to say. Slowly he shakes his head and I can barely hear his broken English as one tear breaks free and works it’s way down his wrinkled cheek. “Ajji… Ajji… Ajji is gone… forever…” The woman he has lived out more than 50 years with, has left him.
The oldest son, maybe 50 years old, calls me to the side. “Brother… can you please help us?” ”of course”. We cancel our plans for ‘going’ to church this sunday morning. I tell Cindy we’ll be working on ‘being’ the church instead. I take the Church truck to the Hindu Temple and haul 3 loads of corrugated iron, then ‘borrow’ to them about 100 cinder blocks, all for the purpose of their very Hindu customs. A huge shed is built around 2 sides of the house and by night-time there are literally hundreds of people that have come from everywhere. The chanting and mourning is about all you can hear.
The next morning the Hindu funeral starts with the Hindu priest in charge. The incense fills the air and the religious customs are complex and there is great mourning and pain and it goes on and on and then the Hindu priest has another man doing something and he turns and works his way through the crowded people seated on the mats, over to where I stand to one side with most of men. “Brother”, he says to me. “The family is asking if you could please say a few words for them and also offer a prayer to the God?” … ”of course”.
Two of the different brothers have already talked to me. “Please, when all the people are here
during the funeral, can you please say a few words for the family and also offer a prayer?” I ask one of the brothers; “is it OK when I say a few words, if I speak just a little about the love of God for the family and these people… I have no desire to offend?”… ”of course brother, of course!”
By their insistence, amazingly I find myself in the center of a huge crowd of hurting Hindu people, asked by them to speak to them and pray for them. I am standing at the feet of the casket of their grandmother. I really am trusting God who loves these people so very, very much, to give me the right words… He does exactly that
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