Prayer Update 28 October 2009

Dear Prayer partner,

DS Conference: 

Pray for our DS conference coming up in a few days.  Because of the flights in and out of the Solomon’s I need to depart on Thursday 29^th October and will return to Honiara on 10^th November.   The conference is in Malaysia from the 2-6 November.  A few days before and after the conference I’ll be staying in Australia at the Nazarene Theological College.  I plan to use this time to prepare for the upcoming district assembly.

District Assembly:

Be in prayer for our District Assembly and meetings coming up Dec 8-13.  The actual business will be conducted in one morning.  We are planning this for Saturday morning 12^th.  Our first Bible College graduation (3  students) will be held in the afternoon of the 12^th.  We have the 5 days so we can get in a lot of teaching/training.  This year our emphasis  is going to be on prayer.

Women/Youth camp:

Over the Christmas time Dec 20-27 or such the Women and youth are going to Nukukaisi village, Makira Island for a combined camp.  Nancy and I will go for this too.  Pray for us as we prepare to share at this camp.

Other Items of thanks:

Thank you for your prayers and for those who have given money for the water project.  I should have enough now to start drilling the bore hole.  Please remember us in your prayers.  I hope to have the hole drilled by Christmas.  Also I want to get some security doors installed before Christmas too.  This is a result of our recent break-in.  Trying to secure our house so we have more piece of mind.  Christmas time is a time of heightened alert and we want to be vigilant.

I want to thank those who have given money for other approved specials.  We have built some churches or are in the process of building them, replaced timber in another church, built a parsonage, helped with some Bible College student scholarships, purchased some bicycles for pastors, purchased some Coleman lanterns, and guitars to help the village churches, provided a canoe for one pastor.   Thank you for your prayers and your generosity.   I am so sorry that I have not yet visited these places to get the photos that you as donors would like to see. 

Your Partner’s in His Ministry,

George & Nancy Miller

Here are some Photo from the Fund Raiser to support the disaster efforts

This photo is Osborn Fagea the District NMI President

The Photo of Enoch, the NMI president

The guest band Echoes of Innocense.

Some of the 300 or so the attended this fund raising event. There was lightning visible in the sky but we did not get rain until after the program was over.

People droping their offering into the collection box.

A fund raiser is not complete without some food and coffee/tea

The Zion youth entertained the guest at their arrival.

Other Local Talent competition and entertainment.

The winner of the competition

Those watching thoroughly enjoyed the evening and the offering was $1461.80. Once converted to US dollars is isn't a lot but it is about a fortnight (2 week) salary for a Bachelor degreed person.

Prayer Update

Dear Prayer partner,

Tsunami

Some of you received letter about the Tsunami warning.  Before I got all the letters sent they cancelled the warning notice.  So some prayer partners didn’t get this one.

Anyway it was exciting for a time.  Today, we were in line at the bank and were the next in line to see the teller when the bank manager came out and said we are closing down the bank for Tsunami warning.  It was not long until all the businesses in town were closed.  Then the highway was full of traffic and so travel home was slow.  Praise the Lord it was a false alarm.

There have been a lot of natural disasters in the Asia Pacific region. Tsunami in Samoa, Flooding and Cyclone in Philippines, Earthquake in Indonesia, etc, etc.  I trust you are in prayer for these needs.  Also October is the month with prayer emphases to pray for those working in the 1040 window.  There are many serving under adverse conditions and many Christians are facing persecution for their faith in God.  Please stand with these brothers and sisters working to aid and bring relief to those hurting and those serving in difficult situations.

Saturday Night:

Saturday night the Solomon Island Zion Church is hosting a benefit band concert, receiving donations for Nazarene Compassionate Ministry, to go toward the relief efforts in Samoa, Philippines, and Indonesia.  Pray for those serving on the teams going into these disaster stricken areas.  Pray for Osborn Fagea, our district NMI President, as he leads this and for the success of this night.  We are not a large church and do not have many members but we want to do our part.  I’ll post the photos on my blog sometime next week.

Thank you for your prayers:

It all happened so fast and I was so shaken that I didn’t write anyone except family about our recent break-in/robbery.  It was in the wee hours of Saturday morning September 26 (4 a.m.) that a gang of masked youth (age 13-20 or so) broke our front door down.  They kicked it in with 3 good strong kicks which broke the locks.  Thank you for your prayers during that time.  I am an early riser and was laying there debating on getting up when I heard the bang that shook the whole house.  We had 12 BC students sleeping downstairs and as I was trying to imagine what on earth they dropped that made that racket, I heard two other crashes.  I got out of bed after the 3^rd bang and went out of my room in time to see them kick the hall door trying to gain entrance.  I shouted and they stopped.  Then from my locked bedroom I rang the police.  We will be purchasing some outside security doors, but armed with the pinch bars, bush knives, pipes, etc, and not caring how much noise they made, they could have torn off the siding and made a hole through the wall if they really wanted to gain entrance. 

The important thing is we are all safe, not much was stolen.  I lost one cheap CD stereo, my BP cuff, and some food from the frig.  If the Lord ever brings us to your mind, whisper a prayer for us.  This incident really shook me up, more than any of our other robberies.  The reason this shook me up was the fact that we had a house full of people and the robbers had to know that, because the Bible College students were here for two weeks up to the point of the robbery.  If we would have had female students they would have been sleeping in the front room with the hallway door unlocked.  It could have been bad and I am so thankful for his protection.

Most of these have been arrested after they broke into the Police Commissioner’s residence.  That brought out the full force of the law.

Your partners in His Ministry,

George & Nancy Miller