Making a List and Checking It Twice...

Sunrise over Efate

No, we're not thinking of celebrating Christmas in July! 😁But, we are making a list. With only 3 1/2 months till we bid farewell to our home of 18 years, our minds have been full of many things needing to be done before we leave. Some of the items on our list are training meetings where we spend time helping others be ready to take on our responsibilities. We're so thankful for the people who have committed to taking on those roles! Though they have much to learn, they come with skills and knowledge that makes the learning easier. They also have an eagerness to learn and willingness to give their time. We're praising God for our SPNTC administrative team!

Some of the items on our list are things we're really glad to be checking off the list! Things like registering our Toyota RAV4 for the last time and the last time to face the process of renewing our residency visa. The process to accomplish these tasks seems to change every year and involves many attempts to finally get them checked off. 

Our list includes some "lasts" that are difficult because they mean letting go of something that we've really enjoyed and found very fulfilling. David is nearing the end of his last SPNTC class, and Sylvia finished teaching her class last month. As difficult as it has been to be prepared and ready to teach each class, the opportunity to be connected with our pastors, church leaders, and faculty as their teachers has brought so much joy across the years. It has been exciting to see several of our graduates move on to become teachers who are eager to make a difference in the lives of their students. 

In the midst of checking off things from our list, things that are fairly familiar, we are having to learn some brand new things which then get added to our list to pass along to others. We appreciate your prayers as we get familiar with GNECsis - the Global Nazarene Education Consortium system of recording students, classes, and grades for SPNTC. This system has been under development by people in the Nazarene Church to help small schools like SPNTC with record keeping without the cost of expensive software. We have been joining other SPNTC principals and registrars from Samoa and Fiji and another Bible college representative from Portugal via Zoom to be trained by Kindra Bible from her office in the USA. It's a huge jump from the Microsoft Word and Excel documents that have kept our records for the last 15 years here in Vanuatu. Please pray for us as we figure out the tasks and procedures for entering our information and train our SPNTC registrar and new principal, Rev. Jenny Isaac.

Our GNECsis training takes place on Zoom across many time zones.

Meriam joined students from Samoa via Zoom.

In our last newsletter we mentioned that the CALD program from Nazarene Theological College in Brisbane, Australia, was set to begin for Nazarenes in Vanuatu. Rev. Meriam Naunga has completed her first 25 hour intensive and is now working to complete her assignments in the first CALD class, Introduction to Pastoral Theology. She is finding it to be very challenging with all the lectures and discussions in English, as well as the reading assignments. She is learning to submit assignments online that she first writes in Bislama and then translates to English. Thank you for your prayers for Rev. Meriam as she pursues this training, and pray that other Nazarene graduates will join her.

Pastor David and Rev. Meriam Naunga

"See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" 

Isaiah 43:19