BEFORE Vanimo Town Seventh-day Adventist Church preached a single sermon at Wesdeco Settlement, its members did something more practical. They graded a road.
On Sunday, June 7, ahead of a week-long evangelistic meeting under the theme “Go Sustain the Community for Jesus,” church members and community residents of all ages came together for a community service project, gravelling the road leading into the program site in Ward 03, Vanimo Urban. The work involved everyone, young and old, and by 5pm the church had prepared and served takeaway food to all who had laboured through the day.
It was a fitting beginning for a theme built entirely around sustaining the community, not just spiritually, but physically.
HEALTH AND THE WORD, NIGHT AFTER NIGHT
From June 8 to 13, the program ran nightly with guest speaker Minister Nenu Sevo, a church pastor, leading the evangelistic presentations. Attendance climbed steadily each night, with headcounts ranging from 150 to over 220, a mix of church members and Wesdeco community residents drawn together under one roof.
Each evening opened at 7pm with a health message delivered by a health officer from Vanimo General Hospital, ahead of the worship program itself. The pairing of physical health education with spiritual teaching reflected the very heart of the week’s theme, sustaining the whole person, not just the soul.
ONE SOUL, ONE SABBATH, ONE COMMUNITY MEAL
The week’s spiritual highlight came on Sabbath, when one soul was baptised, a single decision that carried the full weight of everything the week had built toward. The Sabbath program continued with a community bung lunch, bringing church members and Wesdeco residents to the same table to share a meal together.
The program concluded that Sabbath evening with an official closing ceremony. The response from the Wesdeco community was warm and appreciative, with residents openly acknowledging what the church had done to support them through the week both in body and in spirit.
For Vanimo Town SDA Church, the week at Wesdeco Settlement was proof that sustaining a community for Jesus often begins long before the first sermon is preached sometimes with nothing more than a shovel, a truckload of gravel, and a willingness to work alongside the very people the gospel is meant to reach.
