Look at what the Lord has done! The thought ran through my head the whole day as we dedicated a new Gogodala church in Uladu village. It was a day to celebrate many years of work and faithfulness by several people.
It began with Bani, who gave his heart to Jesus and became a member of the Adventist church while serving a prison term. After his release, he longed to share his newfound faith with his friends and family back home in Uladu. For thirteen years, he shared with anyone who would listen and also faithfully gathered his family to worship God every Sabbath. Initially, most were not interested, but he did not give up! Instead, he kept teaching that little group—over and over—the things he had learned from the Bible while in prison.
About three years ago, Salama and Aston, Bani’s nephew and son, accepted the challenge to become fishers of men. Even though they felt inadequate, they began sharing the few things they had learned from Bani with others. As more people learned, more began to share, and the group grew. Soon about 120 were interested, and many began attending church on Sabbath.
Over the last few years, the Uladu group met under a tarp stretched over bamboo poles. It was not the best place to worship, but it was all they had. Several people in the village called their shelter a haus krai, the Pidgin word for mourning house. They thought the Adventists would come and go, and that they would not last long. But the young men doggedly persevered.
At each step, God was leading. In the early days of the Uladu group, I met Dogono. I was not sure how interested he was, but he kept faithfully attending. When the group began talking about building a church and where to locate it, he was the first to volunteer his land. It was a perfect spot in a busy part of the village.
Happily, God blessed our project with a generous donation to build churches for the Gogodala. We set up a partnership with our local groups where they would provide the wood for the boards and do the labor, and we would provide corrugated iron for roofing, a water tank, gutters and nails. They were thrilled and got to work gathering logs right away.
When the time came to begin building, Salama’s close friend Kevin, a carpenter, heard about their building project. He told Salama, “I will build your church!” and gave his time and labor. Many young men from the village also happily helped dig holes for posts, saw and nail boards, install the roof and paint. These volunteers worked on almost every other part of the building process. All this help came because the young men in the church had been spending time with the young men in the village, talking to them about the Bible and helping them when they could.
Dedication day came. Despite rain all weekend (with mud everywhere), we estimate that more than 500 people attended the church dedication. Many were just curious to see how Adventists do things. Every Gogodala Adventist group (a total of seven now) sent from one to five canoes full of people to attend the program. They did not want to miss out on the blessing.
It was a day full of singing, speeches, dedication of 12 new church leaders, 22 baptisms and plenty of good fellowship. The day was such a blessing to the people of Uladu that when the members started taking the stage down, the villagers made the request, “Can you leave the stage up and do a longer program? One day for a church dedication is too short. We enjoyed all the singing and preaching and want to learn more.”
Lest you get the wrong impression, it has not been a perfect process. I have learned that cross-cultural church planting is messy and much more like a zig-zag than a straight line. However, it is one of the most rewarding things we have done. It took a lot of prayer, teaching, coaching, many, many long conversations, lots of encouragement, conflict management and vision casting. But that is what discipleship is, and the Lord worked through all the messiness. Now there is one more Gogodala village with a permanent Seventh-day Adventist church where God’s people can worship Him each Sabbath, and one more appointment we have to share the gospel, this time with the villagers of Uladu.
