Like the Red Sea, the crowd parted to let us pass.

Hello Family and Friends,

This week carried familiar themes—teaching Seminary and Succeed in School (SIS) classes, preparing healthy snacks to be distributed at these SIS classes, attending ward council and church meetings, ministering, cooking meals, and generally doing what Seminary & Institute missionaries do here in Port Vila. If you’ve been following our letters, you already have a sense of that rhythm. Still, a few highlights stood out to me that I’d like to share.

SIS snack preparation, a weekly event!!!
Me preparing some sandwiches for the participants.

The Parting of the Crowds – Miracles do happen

On Friday, Darleen and I headed to Etas to teach SIS as part of our effort to revive the program there. As you know, we bring a healthy snack for the kids, funded by humanitarian donations—a real blessing since many come straight from school without much to eat.

This time, though, Darleen gave in to their repeated requests for cookies. She baked oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies, plus brought milk. (We’ll call the oatmeal version “semi-healthy” while ignoring the sugar. 😊)

She finished baking around 2:40 p.m.—just 20 minutes before our 3 p.m. class, with Etas typically taking anywhere between 30-45 minutes on Friday’s. As we began to exit our apartment I said we will never make it on time, even if it was a normal day, but it wasn’t a normal day. Let me tell you why. On Friday there was a planned big celebration for the upcoming soccer World Cup that will be held in North America. They had a planned parade in downtown that was heading to the park that would pass right were we needed to go. And the parade was scheduled to go at 3pm, right before we were to drive through the area of the crowds. I was pretty confident the traffic was going to add at least 30-40 minutes to our trip.

Some of the people enjoying preparing to
celebrate the World Cup.

Well Darleen says to me, “Moses was able to part the Red Sea, He can surely help part the people so we can make it to our SIS class at 3pm!!”. I turned to her and said, “I don’t think so”. Then I realized I was showing a ‘no faith’ moment and not being as trusting with what God can truly do. So, I quickly repented and said, “you are right”. We went off to the ward building with me trying to have faith the cars and people, that would be on the road, would part and let us pass. As we got to the main area, close to our Stake Center (still 20-25 minutes from our destination), we already saw a lot of individuals walking down the sidewalks displaying their team spirit for their respective team (e.g. Brazil, Spain, Argentina, France – all the favorite flags we saw). So, I felt we should get off this main route and go a different route that took us towards a side street and away from the upcoming park.

Some of the cars heading to the parade in front of
us as we made our way to the Etas SIS class on Friday

Making a long story short, we were able to make it to the SIS class 4 minutes after 3pm. We would have made it on time but the last 2 miles a bus driver decided to take up both sides of the road going what felt like 10 mph and I couldn’t pass him to make it.

It was still a small but powerful miracle. I’m learning to trust Darleen’s faith more and more, and I came away with a stronger testimony that the Lord truly works in the details of our lives. I could pass it off to coincidence, but after 9 months on this island, that would be the first time ever we have driven that route in that amount of time.

Reviving SIS in Etas

As Darleen mentioned last week, we’ve been working to restart SIS in Etas after attendance dropped when the teacher stopped showing up. Friday’s class was encouraging Darleen’s younger group (ages 11–14) had 15 students, while my older group (ages 15–18) had 9. The youth are excited, their confidence is growing, and their learning is increasing in just a short time.

Etas SIS class younger class with Darleen
teaching them on Friday

One memorable moment from last weeks SIS class was that I was teaching in a separate room at the Etas Ward, while Darleen was a few classes over. All of a sudden, I hear a huge amount of yelling going on in her class. She was having the students recreate Joshua blowing his horns and having them acting out being the Israelites who scream as the walls of Jericho came down. I thought the walls of the church building were going to fall that day. They loved it and had smiles all around when I had to go and investigate what they were doing.

The Etas SIS older class that I've been teaching
this past Friday.

We are grateful to see success in Etas and now we just need to work on getting dedicated (or re-dedicated) teachers to be there for these students. The church in Vanuatu truly needs the members to continue to step up, while we help with the training and ongoing questions. That is our goal. We want to be able to not only focus our time on SIS but get more time traveling to the 15+ seminary teacher’s classes to help strengthen them. While we are teaching so much, that becomes impossible to do.

Starting SIS in Erakor

We also launched SIS in the Erakor Branch this week, meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30–6:30 p.m. We have been trying to expand the SIS program to at least 3 other units on this island but have struggled to get things moving with teachers being called in the Stake. A few weeks ago, Darleen said we need to be like Joshua and the people who passed over the River Jordan only after going into the water. She said, we need to just get it started and let the Lord help to get teachers found that can take over for us. So we arranged to ‘dip our feet in the river’ in Erakor and see how it goes.

Our first class on Tuesday saw 2 younger youth (11-14 yr. old) and 2 older youth (15-18 yr. old) in attendance. Darleen taught the younger group in Reading & Writing, while I taught the older group. On Thursday the two young men I had in my class on Tuesday didn’t show back up, but Darleen’s group had expanded to 6 youth plus a future teacher showing up to observe her teaching. I was a little sad I didn’t have any of the older class members show back up, but I told Darleen I think they were not there for the class on Tuesday, they were actually just at the church building to use the internet that the building has (Starlink). We tend to get members and non-members congregating at the buildings to take advantage of the internet.

I happened to ask if they were there for the SIS class, and they said “yes”. That is a typical answer on this island, so they may not have known what they truly were saying yes to. Both are talking about serving a mission (18 and 19 years old, respectively), but I sensed when we introduced ourselves that they were thinking I was there to do a missionary preparation meeting with them. Still, we are thrilled to get this program started in this Branch, and even happier that we had students and a teacher in attendance. We are excited for this week’s upcoming lessons as we should have 1-2 more teachers showing up, another miracle we hoped for when we said lets have faith and dip just start. We expect to continue to see more students attending as the word trickles down to the Branch members that we are holding the meeting. Even with our efforts to get it announced for the past few weeks before the start date, it takes time to get down to the members to come.

Zone Conference with Elder Wakolo

Wednesday brought a special blessing: Elder Taniela B. Wakolo, General Authority Seventy and counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency, visited our zone conference after traveling to other islands in the mission the week before. Elder Wakolo will become Area President in August, following Elder Peter Meurs’ release to emeritus status at the April General Conference. We were all eager to hear from him during this gathering.

Darleen and some of the
other senior missionaries
photo bombing the photo

For those unfamiliar, a mission president typically holds zone conferences every 6–8 weeks in each zone (missions are divided into zones for organization). These meetings bring missionaries together for training and encouragement. Having a General Authority instruct us made this zone conference especially meaningful.

The photo of the two Efate zones prior to
the start of the conference. Posing with Elder & Sister
Wakolo, President & Sister Ball (Mission President),
and the 60 or so missionaries

Darleen was asked to organize the lunch near the end of the zone conference. She had prepared well in advance. Last week she cooked up a homemade sloppy joe mix with 20 pounds of hamburger, which we froze to simplify the work this week. She also baked four trays of brownies for the 60+ missionaries expected. A few weeks earlier she had assigned tasks to the senior missionaries—water, tables and decorations, extra desserts, fruit, and veggie trays—so the load was shared. Everyone contributed wonderfully, and the lunch turned out even better than expected.

Our senior missionaries all helping out during lunch

Even more uplifting was the message Elder Wakolo and his wife shared. His teaching on the Savior’s Atonement, especially its deep connection to the Book of Mormon, gave us renewed strength and gratitude. I love seeing leaders come among the members, offering encouragement and spiritual power in the places where we live and serve. They truly give all they can to further the Lord’s work.

The missionaries enjoying the lunch we prepared.

For me, my small 18‑month mission feels so brief compared to the years Elder and Sister Wakolo are dedicating to the people of the Pacific. Their example inspires me to give my very best in the time I have.

Sister Krisman, our Sister-in-law
Amanda's (Darleen's brothers wife) niece

Seminary in Eton

Because of the Erakor Branch SIS class now going on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, we had to move the seminary class in Eton unit to Monday. We had a great class with the 8 students that attended on that Monday. We didn’t have to round them up like we have in the past as several came walking into the building ready to participate in seminary. It was great to see. We also found out that Sister Sara taught last Tuesday and committed to teaching again this week. We have mentioned previously that we could use prayers for her, and it appears they are working. God’s tender mercies come in His timing, not ours, and they appear to be there working on Sara.

A Wedding Celebration

On Friday we attended the wedding of a young woman who had served as Supervisor for the Seminary and Institute programs here on Efate. She had faced some struggles earlier in the year and was released, but we were glad to hear she was marrying and rearranged our morning to be there.

Darleen admitted afterward she wasn’t sure how to feel—tears came at moments you wouldn’t expect from the bride. Her new husband is not a member, but they announced that he would be baptized the very next day. We were hopeful this would mark a wonderful beginning for them as a couple.

The new couple with some of their family
on each side.

Saturday morning we drove back to the branch to attend his baptism. About a mile from the building we saw the sister missionaries walking and stopped to talk. They told us the baptism had been postponed. Evidently, some of his friends had come over the night before with alcohol, which led to an argument. Given the circumstances, we understood why the baptism was delayed.

We are praying for her happiness and for him to truly gain a testimony of the gospel. Our hope is that he will desire to change his life and embrace the blessings that come with living it. Sadly, too often here the men fall into idleness and spend evenings drinking, while many of the women become the breadwinners for their families. We sincerely hope this cycle can be broken with this new family union.

Family & Birthday

We want to wish our grandson Zac a very happy 15th birthday! He’s growing up far too quickly. We told all our grandkids that while we’re on our mission they aren’t allowed to get any older—but clearly they aren’t listening. 😊

Zac at his 2 year old birthday. He's
grown a lot since then. Happy 15th
Birthday Zac.

We miss them dearly, but we’re grateful for the blessing of technology. With FaceTime and video calls, we can still share in their lives and feel a little closer, even from across the ocean.

This week our children and all twelve grandchildren will be together at the lake for a week. We’ll miss being there with them, but we look forward to hearing the stories and memories they’ll make as they carry on traditions we loved so much when we were home.

Oh, one last note, we had mentioned a few weeks ago that the missionaries on the island of Malekula had the police take away their cars for no real reasons, other than they said they were not using them for transporting people, and that the size of the Land Cruisers deemed them as 8 passenger cars. They said they needed to be over 21 to drive them, which most of our missionaries are not. Well, after several weeks of our vehicle senior missionary visiting with the Chief of Police they finally allowed the missionaries to have the vehicles back. A big blessing. Thanks for all who had them in your prayers. Definitely they were needed to get them out of Malekula car prison.

These are some of the highlights from our past week. Enjoy!

Nana & Papa, Mom & Dad, Darleen & Mark, Sista Lovelace & Elda Lovelace

Additional photos from the week: