Captain's Log #7
November, 2000

OF CURFEWS
Nighttime movement in Fiji ceased in the wake of the turmoil at the time of my last report. The freedom we had just celebrated, from curfew restrictions as we re-launched the JESUS Film team - was suddenly taken away with the attempted takeover of the military barracks within sight of where we live, as eight people died and very many more were wounded. You can only imagine what these things can do to the greatest of ideas and plans. Cindy and I met with the District Superintendent and his wife along with our JESUS Film team to regroup. I reminded them that we were not alone. We pulled out the growing list of 'Plank Holders', people who had signed on to pray for us, people we trust with life. I reminded these Fijian Nazarenes that we had committed to pray for those who would pray for us and maybe we should take our attention off of our own problems for a while and together read through the prayer requests. When I finished, the DS asked if we could pray right then and so we did. Well over an hour later, the windows of heaven had long opened up and God had reminded us in no uncertain terms of the great personal family of Nazarenes around the world that we belong to.

THE JESUS FILM
"Until the curfew changes, our hands are tied at least in this part of Fiji", I told them. "We will just have to pray." A person would have thought that the curfew could go on indefinitely - but guess what? Yesterday it was moved to midnight, imagine that! - so we're starting the JESUS Film showings again tomorrow night and the next (Monday and Tuesday) at Navua, west of here. Please pray that God would do a great work and use the JESUS Film once more and also use the crusades that we are incorporating the Film into!

OF BOATS
Somewhere out in the Pacific right now there is a very large container ship, a freighter known as the 'Direct Eagle'. She is huge. The containers, both 20 and 40 feet long, are piled high. They are the things that 18 wheelers are made of and they are stacked one on top of the other way up into the sky, far too many wide and high to calculate and count, looking like little matchboxes, belittled by that which carries them on its back to another world. The freighter is like a massive, moving giant, slowly rising and falling to meet the endless swells caused by the gravitational forces of the earth and her moon on the greatest body of water known to man. This freighter is of significance, because if by some ability you could find and watch this freighter, you would see that placed on two container skids, aft and on the port side, high on it's open deck, is the motor vessel 'GALILEAN'. Never has this freighter ever before journeyed in a blanket of prayer like the one she now rides in. If all goes well, two weeks from Wednesday (more or less) they will stop here in Fiji, on their way to New Zealand and Australia, just long enough to leave behind some of their cargo and the vessel we have been waiting for.

AND BREAKERS
When you run out of things to pray for, remember that as we unload the 'Galilean', we are now in the middle of 'Cyclone Season' for the South Pacific and even this last week found ourselves under a 'Tsunami' watch for this part of Fiji because of an earthquake to our west that measured 8 on the Richter scale.

AND BABIES
Today, in a Nazarene church here that was packed to overflowing, I held a little baby girl and I prayed for her and I was reminded that God is not dead, He is alive and He is aggressively about the business of building His Kingdom and if we would just see it, Satan has already lost. This particular church was in crises only three months back. They had lost their pastor and I remember that I had preached to a handful of people back then on Gideon and what God wants to do with a few. Today, the baby dedication was great and it followed the Bible study, but it was certainly not allowed to distract from the worship time or the Lord's Supper or the main message or the wedding or the church dinner. No one wanted to leave and I thought, "I have been asking people to pray - they have been!"
 
Please pray also for the Johnsons who have been pouring themselves out during their furlough, we are really looking forward to their return to Fiji in a few weeks. Also would you pray for the Bartles in the middle of intensive doctoral studies and translations, as they continue preparing for their assignment here, which begins next year.
 
Harmon and Cindy Schmelzenbach

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