It was Friday morning. The dawn’s first rays filtered through the coconut palms. A rooster crowed in the distance. A woman carrying buckets for her family’s daily water sauntered down the dirt path to the well. Ganuba clambered down the rickety ladder of his thatch-roofed house wearing his bright-yellow rubber boots and carrying a bilum (string bag) of sago and coconuts—his food for the day. He retrieved his water jug and canoe paddle from under his house and headed down to the water’s edge. “It’s going to be a hot day,” he thought as he stepped into his dugout canoe and pushed out into the lagoon, standing in the stern and paddling in the Gogodala fashion. He thought of the eight hours it would take to get to Widama. He hoped to finish the majority of his trip before the afternoon sun became too hot.

It had been 10 years since Ganuba’s baptism into the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and now he was a Kotale Church elder. His assignment today was to visit a new congregation at Widama. This was his first visit with the group since April when ten of them were baptized at a camp meeting in Kotale. This small group drew from two villages, Widama and Awaba, and had been meeting in Widama every Sabbath for several years. We took time to study with them, but they had to wait for baptism since ordained pastors don’t come to this area very often.

At about four in the afternoon, Ganuba’s canoe slid onto the muddy bank in Widama. He found the village empty. Most of the villagers were evidently out fishing or making sago. He managed to find Haggy, one of the newly baptized men. Haggy told him there was trouble in the group. Since the baptism, some tension had arisen, and two leaders were at odds with each other. One leader was baptized and had the baptized members with him. The other leader, on whose land the new group was meeting for Sabbath worships, was hesitant about baptism and didn’t want to change the name of the group to Seventh-day Adventist. Because of the rift, the group had decided not to meet this Sabbath.

Haggy and Ganuba went to visit Awaba village where the majority of the baptized members lived. Ganuba encouraged them to start a church in Awaba. They embraced the idea, and they have met for the last 17 Sabbaths in a member’s home.
When Ganuba came back to Kotale, he was beaming with excitement at God’s leading. He exclaimed, “There is still enough interest in Widama that a new church is likely to happen there. God used a seemingly negative situation to expand His kingdom.”

While Ganuba isn’t happy about the split in the group, he hasn’t given up praying for the Widama group. Neither have we. We might just get two churches for the price of one. Praise the Lord!

• Twitter