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.

VANIMO Town Seventh-day Adventist Church, affectionately known as Tawa Church, mobilised 109 of its members on Sunday, May 3, 2026, for a landmark outreach visit to the Vanimo Correctional Institution Services (CIS), one of the largest single-day church visitations to the facility in recent memory.

The initiative was originally driven by the church’s Youth Department, which had planned the CIS visit as part of its outreach program. When other departments realised they had similar activities on their calendars, the decision was made to combine efforts bringing together Adventurers, Pathfinders, Adventist Community Services and other ministries under one unified mission. The result was a visit of remarkable scale and impact.