Captain's Log #41
August, 2004

FLOOD UPDATE

WELCOME HOME
To our colleagues, the Johnsons who have just returned to the South Pacific from 'home assignment' in the States (after a couple decades, where is home?) ...   welcome back to your home and family here in Fiji, we missed you!

KENTUCKY TO KADAVU
We stood in the Nadi airport saying goodbye. People watching probably figured this had to be some serious close family that was being ripped apart. They would have been right - but I doubt that anyone watching could have guessed that we only met 2 weeks ago. God does this. He does this through comfort zones being trashed, through strangers sleeping under one tin roof and 14 mosquito nets for 2 weeks straight, out on a distant island. He does this through earth shaking snoring like Elephants stampeding in your ear, through hard work, through His Love. He does this through tuff times and smashed thumbs, through seeing tragedies that someone else is dealing with and realizing we are not alone, through seeing that beyond it all is a common eternal purpose that transcends everything else, through aching muscles and strange foods and 'His Church' really being built. He does this through something called Work & Witness.

TEA DRINK'N TOM
Our thanks to Tom, the leader of this Work & Witness team for bringing your great family from across Kentucky to become part of our family for these days and for their willingness to be instrumental in moving the Kingdom forward out here. For Verlin and Ben, Dave and Wanda, for Joann, Mark, Clay and Karen...   and all of us would say that we would have been in big trouble without Keith. Thanks also for making part of our family, Scott from California (or is it Oregon or Australia) - "Scott - wherever you are out there, you have a bunch of people that think the world of you and love you loads - you are part of our family!"

POLICE RAIDS
Also part of our family is 'Ajju', who has been daily involved in these ministries for a number of years now and whom this team of Americans got to know. Years ago Ajju had been part of a gang of 12 guys whose lives were steeped in drugs and drinking. His house was known as a party house where this gang met. Their leader was one of Ajju's close friends, a man by the name of Roko who had known Christ years before but had long turned his back on God. The drug paraphernalia was a permanent part of Ajju's house but they were good at hiding it all fast. "One day", Ajju told me, "the police raided my house six times, but (he says smiling) they found nothing every time".  "Before breakfast we would already be drinking or high on drugs". The cycles became predictable and the bondage deeper and darker.

ACCEPTING CHRIST WHILE ON DRUGS???
"One time when we were all high on drugs we began talking about life, the problems, the struggles and emptiness!", Ajju recalls. "Our leader, Roko, said the problem was that we were all sinners, separated from God and we could never know God or have real purpose and peace in our condition - God sent His son Jesus to pay the punishment for our sins if we would let Him!" Recalling what happened, Ajju shakes his head and realizes how amazing it all was. In a room full of guys spaced out on drugs and alcohol, Roko, the leader of the druggies somehow ends up leading Ajju and his brother to Christ!!  Himself at the time still refusing to turn back to God.

LOST NAZARENE MANUAL
"What now?" Ajju asked Roko. Roko responded; "You have to find a good Christian church where your new relationship with God can grow". "What about over here or over there?" Ajju asked...   "No - a long time ago I was sent a book by some people overseas...  " Roko recalled, "Let me see if I can find that book, because the church it described would be a great church for you if there is such a church in Fiji!"   Roko, this leader of practicing drug addicts and drunks, found the book and of all things it was an old manual for the Church of the Nazarene that somehow had been posted to him in the South Pacific by someone years ago. Ajju and his youngest brother searched and found our church and joined and never looked back.

BEAUTY FROM ASHES
Years ago Ajju buried his father, last year he buried one of his two brothers - traces of 15 diifferent drugs found in his brother's body, his brother in law is wanted for murder one...  the list goes on, there's been plenty of pain and reason for despair, but for Ajju... the opposite is now true. I have never known him to not be a great encouragement and radiant with hope, because he stands solid on the Rock of Christ Jesus, and where there was no hope before, God has brought great hope! The God who saved Ajju is the same God who delivered Ajju of all his bondage and addictions on that very same day. Where there was no purpose and direction and meaning before, now there is purpose and direction and meaning, with eternal significance!

ARRANGED MARRIAGES
Both of the predominant cultures of Fiji commonly practice arranged marriages, as do many cultures of the world today. My engineer, who has been married about 25 years had never seen his bride before he saw her at the altar the day they were married. He tells me that when the wedding ceremony began he remembers being scared to death, trying to look out of the corner of his eye to see if his wife-to-be had the usual number of eyes and ears, arms and legs and so forth. These days Ajju faces some complications as his family tries to arrange his marriage, (they brought 3 girls by these last few weeks) from backgrounds of Muslim and Hinduism now mixed with Christianity. Please specifically pray for Ajju, that the God of All Creation, who redeems us from a place of no hope and adopts us into His eternal family...  this God who ignited the sun and set it in place, who decided He would rather die than live without us, He can even handle our love life!

Ajju's younger brother is in our Bible School full time and Ajju's former drug gang leader, Roko, did turn back to Christ and more recently married a young lady that Ajju had led to the Lord and now he teaches Bible classes. We serve a God who can transform us. He came to set the captives free and who is not scared to deal with our mess. This is the message we believe and proclaim.

OUR GOD REIGNS!
Harmon

p.s. while gone with this W&W team, our home was burglerized. We thank the Lord they only got away with a case of computer disks and our camera. Thank you for your partnership in prayer!

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