Captain's Log #47
December, 2005

Last Night's Email

"Three babies died during the night last night, one will die sometime today, one woman was brought in DOA from stabbing wounds…"  These words taken from an email I received last night 30th Nov. 2005, from James Johnson from Papua New Guinea.

1,000 Churches

I hope this Captain's Log changes and expands your view and so also your prayers and passion for what God is doing through you and the Church of the Nazarene in the South Pacific. The restructuring of the work here, under the new Regional leadership of Rev. Vern Ward, is effecting us all. Our awareness and connection to the work extends now as far west as PNG with the recent appointment of James Johnson over an area that now incorporates all of the South Pacific Islands, including Papua New Guinea.

I asked Jim, "How many Nazarene churches do we have in PNG alone?"

"We don’t really know," he answered, "I'm just finding out - maybe around one thousand! Then there's the Nurses' Training College, the Bible School and of course the Hospital at Kudjip."

Kudjip Nazarene Hospital

My hope is that you know all about our great men and woman pouring out their lives at your Nazarene Hospital at Kudjip in Papua New Guinea here in the South Pacific – if you don't, then surely it's time, because this is one of the great places down here where God is really at work.

The missionaries at the hospital live on the Kudjip station and are pretty much confined to the station most of the time. The doctors work 70+ hours a week trying to treat more patients than humanly possible. AIDS is increasing at a rate which will make it the highest in the world within 10 years. They don't have the financial resources to hire local doctors as they are fully self funded just like Nazarene Maritime Ministries. They operate a 100 bed hospital but have treated 50,000 people in outpatients and admitted 4300 and have seen 643 patients pray to receive salvation this last year. They are an outstanding group of missionaries. We need doctors who will volunteer to come and help! Surprisingly, there are very few Nazarene doctors who volunteer to come and give a month of their service. We need some doctors and surgeons called to be missionaries even if they have to be volunteers.

Help Needed!

Most of these words I've plagiarized out of Jim's email sent to me last night as we prepare for strategy meetings in Australia later this month. Maybe you know of a Christian doctor or maybe you are one yourself, whom God could use volunteering for a few weeks every year or two in one of our greatest needs here in the South Pacific? My understanding is that what we need is a predictable rotation of volunteer doctors to help for maybe a month at a time. Check out our Kudjip Hospital website http://www.kudjipnazarenehospital.org/

Greatly Improved

Lastly just a quick update to let you know that because of your faithful support for Nazarene Maritime Ministries, the mv/Galilean2 has now been repowered with twin '‘state of the art' 225hp Verado engines, integrated power steering and digital throttle and shift controls – I have already put 29 hours of running time on the new engines in the last few days and walked away from two different, nine to eleven hour open ocean runs, unexhausted and ready to keep going!! I never thought that was possible as I combined break-in sea trials with urgent ministry needs because of Fiji's 1st ever Nazarene Bible School graduation this weekend… Wow thank you! You have helped bring people in from distant islands for what is going to be an awesome weekend of celebrating the forward momentum of this Kingdom work!

Harmon

Schmelzenbach Deptuation Dates:
June 15 - September 15, 2007

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The FIJIBoat Project / Nazarene Maritime Ministries is completely funded by designated donations and is a "10% Special Project" approved by the World Mission Division, Church of the Nazarene.

A Big Thank-you to those of you who support Nazarene Maritime Ministries regularly! To be a part of this ongoing ministry you can send support to:
FIJIBoat Project / Activity Fund ID # AFS 1219
General Treasurer, Church of the Nazarene
6401 The Paseo
Kansas City, MO 64131
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