God’s Word

Posted on October 13, 2011 by bbakss 4 Comments

The following is a story from missionary Jeremy Pinero who spreads the Gospel message through the islands of Vanuatu. The Bible tells us the our labour is not in vain in the Lord, and that is what we see here in this account of a recent event in Jeremy’s ministry. All evangelistic endeavours are worthless without the Word of God because the message it contains changes lives for eternity.

Worst case Scenario

Whenever you run a week-long youth conference, you always plan for a worst case scenario. You sit down and come up with some rough ideas of how to react. But what happens when your worst case scenario is worse than you possibly imagined and the more you try to fix it, the worse it gets. Here is how we saw God through the worse then worst case scenario.

Youth Conference in the jungles of Big Bay bush was all the young people of Luganville Baptist Church could think about as we packed the trucks and headed up the four hour bush road to a location now called Camp Jordan. The week before, we had been in the jungle cutting down trees, building huts, setting up a temporary church out of tarp, and digging toilets for the upcoming youth conference. We were combining the youth from Luganville Baptist Church, Mataloi Baptist Church and Valui Baptist Church. Over 100 young people, including leaders, were packed into our outdoor church service the first night as the speaker, Pastor Mario Favari, (Principal of Australian Baptist College) contended with insects of all kinds, as he preached under the lights with the hum of the generator in the background. Nobody seemed to care that the comforts of normal life were gone; only that we were finally there. On the first day we had a good old-fashioned altar call as we gave out the challenge for young people to place a stone on the altar to represent giving their hearts to God. At the conclusion of the service, over sixty stones were lying on our roughly-cut bench we had made for an altar.

That day the young people battled through an hour and a half of ankle-deep mud to get to the village of Mataloi. We had a massive sports day enjoyed by all. That night we sat under the preaching of Joshua Favari (youth leader from Lighthouse Baptist Church) as he preached on the armour of God. The following day, the boys set off to climb a goliath of a mountain that cast a shadow on Camp Jordan every morning. The girls remained at camp to spend a day doing crafts and activities. The mountain that I knew would be steep turned out to be steeper than even I had anticipated, as we gripped onto vines and rocks for dear life. On one spot, as I was walking alongside a cliff with some of the boys, a big dead tree overhead came crashing down. With nowhere to hide, the boys and I stood frozen. Our only option was to jump down the cliff. Just before it hit us, a bunch of jungle vines held it fast.

As we all stood on top of the mountain screaming and shouting, rejoicing that we had defeated our goliath, little did we know his big brother was hiding around the corner. After a devotional and lunch on the top of the mountain, we all made our way back down the mountain. We were all tired, some bruised and some bleeding. The cool waters of the Jordan River greeted us at the foot of the hill. As we swam across, I could see the girls swimming upstream. Cara approached with news of the day (Cara is a Bible translator from NZ working on the Big Bay language of Tiale). She told me with joy of the fourteen girls who had come to know the Lord as their Saviour that morning. She also told me that a fish they had eaten had made a bunch of the girls sick. “Fish poisoning!” I thought to myself, “Fish poisoning?” I tried to brush it off as something else. I knew there was a stomach bug going around, and was hoping that was all. Maybe it was dirty drinking water. Anything but fish poisoning! I have been to the hospital and prayed for people suffering from fish poisoning, and it is the worst kind of pain a human can bear, as they scream with stomach pain and scratch their skin to try and get relief. John Paton’s second wife died of fish poisoning. I walked toward the camp to see what symptoms people had. It seemed pretty mild and maybe just that stomach bug. But then in the middle of our song service that night, I heard the screams of a young girl coming from one of the huts. I knew straight away we had a problem. As I ran over to the hut, the young girl from Luganville Baptist Church was twisting and turning in agony, convulsing. If you had never seen it before you would think she was possessed.  As I sat beside her, holding her down with the help of Bettie (our training nurse), I prayed, seeking God for guidance. The hospital in town was four hours away on a long, bumpy, muddy road. As I decided what to do next, I noticed a sudden change in the girls who had only had minor stomach problems. Within ten minutes five girls had thrown up. Pastor Gabby approached me with his three year-old son, Zac, to see if he could help. As he was talking, Zac began to throw up too. Now we had a serious problem. It was most definitely fish poisoning.

We made a quick head count. Sixteen was the number told. I sat with Simon Murcott (a missionary helper from NZ who is working in Vanuatu) and decided what to do, his daughter being one of the victims. We decided to load the worst girls onto the trucks and get medical treatment from the hospital in town. As we began to load the trucks, three girls were now unconscious. Josh Favari sat in the back of my truck with them and I told him to bang on the side of the truck if any of them stopped breathing so we could start CPR. Two trucks, fully loaded, headed out of Camp Jordan. My truck, the Hilux, was being driven by Simon, and I drove the Ford F250 (a monster of a truck). As I drove around a corner, I saw the Hilux had slid right off the road into a ditch. It was surrounded by trees and vines. I could see Pastor Gabby desperately trying to free the Hilux as his own son’s life hung in the balance.

The moment the F250 hit the same patch of mud, it began to slide off the road too. The more it slid, the closer it got to the Hilux ahead. I managed to get out of the F250 and into the Hilux. Every time it moved, it was pushed further into the jungle. I could hear the crunching of metal along the side of the Hilux, but I didn’t care since the girls’ lives were more important. I slushed my way back to the F250 and set up the winch. Surely this would work. We pulled the winch to a tree and began pulling. The angle of the road was too steep. The more we pulled, the more the F250 slid towards the Hilux. We set up the winch again, this time around the tree and back to my Hilux. Simon hopped back in the driver’s seat and gave the truck all it had as the winch was pulled. ‘Completely stuck’ are the only words to describe it. The 1 ton Hilux was pulling a 4 ton F250. By this time, things were beginning to look hopeless. The girls were getting worse and time was against us. I told my armour bearer, Jonathan Meads, he would have to run the 10 km back to camp to tell the men at camp to bring another truck. With that, he shot off into the dark.

As I walked over to my Hilux, I pulled Pastor Gabby aside; he was covered in sweat. I said to Pastor Gabby and Richard (who also had a young boy who was sick), “Men, you need to dig deep and cut a new road for this truck, or we will be sleeping the night out here.” Already tired and weary from clearing the truck free of the jungle, they began swinging their machettes like never before. I walked back to the F250 to continue working the winch. The more we moved it, the more it became horizontal with the road. No matter what we did it was following the same path as the truck before it, straight into the jungle. Pastor Gabby ran over and told me the truck might make it, so I ran to my Hilux and said a prayer as I pushed it into gear. With scraping and scratching metal, it was free, but something else was wrong now. I hopped out of the truck to find the right rear tyre had completely come off the rim. I wanted to cry, but instead pulled the jack out and began the process of changing the wheel. Simon took over as I ran back to the F250. Now that the Hilux was free, we could get the F250 to follow. As I pulled the winch, it suddenly stopped – it’s not supposed to do that! I walked to the front of the truck only to find the cables in a tangled mess. Joshua, who had been nursing the sick, hopped out to help as we played tug-of-war with the cables. With no gloves on our hands, bits of loose cable were sinking into our hands. Our only choice was to remove our shirts and use them as hand protection. As we tugged and pulled, it was useless. I stood there like a deer staring into the lights of an on-coming truck. Then, a light down the road appeared. It was the boys from camp. Ten of them came running over to help. They pulled and shoved and the cable came free and the truck came out. Now we had three trucks and a bunch of strong boys to help. The new truck also brought more girls who were sick. The Hilux headed off as we followed slowly behind. Two hours had passed since we left Camp Jordan – two hours to cover fifteen minutes of road! I made the decision to reroute our destination to a local clinic only twenty minutes up the road, as they might have the life-giving medical help that we needed. I feared that after four hours of driving, we might lose some souls. There was one spot a little way ahead that I knew to be really bad for becoming bogged. As we hit the spot, I tried to get momentum to get through it. Out of no where, we hit something. I almost collided with the steering wheel as my damaged shoulder seized up. Those who were still able let out a scream. We reversed as I yelled to the boys, “We’re stuck on something!” They jumped into the knee-deep mud and started to check everywhere. Nothing. So we tried the same thing again. The boys got sticks and started to break the mud, checking everywhere for the cause. We attached the winch to a good-sized tree, but as we pulled, the truck remained stuck and the tree came tumbling down. We chose a bigger tree, but as we prepared the cable controls, they pulled right out of the winch. Fifty different little coloured wires had come apart. The winch was done. So, we reversed the truck one last time. As the pain in my shoulder became unbearable, again, the truck slammed to a halt. I opened the door, frustrated as the boys yelled, “Try it again!” I yelled back at them, “It’s stuck! You try it”.

The driver of the third truck, Matt Meads came running over. “The radiator just blew!” he yelled. I couldn’t believe his words. I had to sit down or I was going to fall over. As I sat on a branch, it snapped and I fell in the mud. Now, with the two trucks off, I looked to Jono, my armour bearer, and said, “You think you can run back for a fourth truck?” “Yep, sure” he said as he ran into the dark, now a 15 km trek back to Camp Jordan. Joshua sat beside me and said, “I think we should pray.” I said, “For what?! The only miracle that could get this F250 out of here would be a military helicopter!” Joshua looked at me and said, “We could pray for the girls.” So we walked from truck to truck, praying individually for each girl. Then, I remembered the river ran close by, so we sent a group of boys to fetch water for the truck whose radiator had blown. As they went for the water, we decided to carry the worst girls to the truck that might make it. The water finally came and the truck headed off. The boys had laid banana leaves for a bed for the night, as others looked through the jungle for food. Most of the girls on the F250 were now sleeping, and that’s always a good sign. When the fourth truck finally arrived with more boys, we decided to carry the girls who were starting to feel better back to the truck to return to Camp Jordan. There were still eight girls in bad shape, one even biting herself, as they were moaning in agony. We then carried these girls one km to the truck that was not bogged.

As I thought about sleeping in the jungle, it started to rain. One of the young ladies was still lying unconscious in the back of my truck. I had to get out of there. But how? I walked around my truck looking for this imaginary wall that I was slamming into. I approached the back of my truck, and suddenly I stepped on something. Under the mud, a massive tree stump was slamming right into the rear axle. My impossible miracle had just been found! I called to the boys who were still awake. They chopped it up with an axe, we gave it one more try and the truck was free. I couldn’t believe it. As we neared the clinic, another truck returned so I swapped drivers with Matt Meads, as my right arm couldn’t hold the wheel anymore. When we finally made it to the clinic, we still had to carry the injured half a kilometer in knee-deep mud as the road was now unusable. I was greeted by the smiles of Nurse Susan and her husband. Every single room of their four-room clinic was filled with our people. I cleaned myself and went to their aid, helping wherever I could. Bekki Piper (a young lady from Australia who is helping in the work), also ran around carrying people to the bathroom and massaging the girls’ aching feet. Several girls were sleeping on the veranda floor as there was no space in the rooms. The nurse told me that had we not come to the clinic, and tried to get to town instead, two or three of our girls would be dead, as one of them had slipped into a coma for a short time. It was now four am. I looked over all the people that were either sleeping or tending to the sick I notice Matt Meads was sitting beside a young man named Jeska, whom I had specifically prayed for at the beginning of camp. They were praying and as they closed their prayer, Matt jumped up and  approached me to say, “Jeska just received Christ as his Saviour!” Those words echoed through my head as I thought of the night we had just experienced. Was it worth the twenty minute journey that had taken over five hours? Was it worth the pain and trauma we had experienced? Was it worth it all for just one soul? Yes it was! As the Angels in heaven rejoiced, the battle had been won.

All lives were spared that night. As I lay on the cement floor, with a cement bag for a pillow, a smile came over my face as I thought, “The worst of the worst-case scenario is the best-case scenario with God.” The following day as we returned to Camp Jordan, with all our girls except four who were still receiving medication, the young people cheered for joy as the truck drove up. Goliath’s big brother had been defeated. The next night, over twenty hands were raised for salvation and the altar was filled with young people in tears, rededicating their lives to God. You can’t plan for a worse than worst-case scenario, but you can plan on God leading you through it if it ever does happen. “Casting all your cares upon Him for He careth for you.” “If God be for us, who can be against us?” What is the salvation of one soul worth to you ?