Josephine Charlie has been visiting our worship services for about a year now. She is the sister of Carol, one of our members. Not long after Carol was converted Josephine began visiting worship. On different occasions Mike and I, both, attempted to encourage her to study. However, she just wasn’t ready.

In October 2008, I approached Josephine after worship one Sunday and tried to encourage her, again, to study with me. For weeks she had been coming to worship, bringing her five children to Bible class, also. She repeatedly expressed great interest in the women’s activities and often was the “instigator” for getting fellowships organized. From repeated conversations, I knew she was interested in being a part of the church, but had yet to study to find out what the Bible says about how to become a part of Christ’s church. It was after this discussion with her in October that she agreed to study with me.

We began studying on Wednesday mornings about 8:30am. Aaron was good enough to watch Melia during this time so I could be free to study with Josephine. I also took advantage of Fiona’s (another Christian in Port Vila) day off work and encouraged her to join me on these studies. She agreed to join me and was very valuable in helping to build a solid relationship with Josephine. I also asked Fiona to lead two of our studies and it took surprisingly little encouragement to get her to do it. I gave her a copy of the outline to review at home and both times she did a great job presenting our study! I was so proud of this accomplishment - a big step toward training the local Christians to evangelize and teach their own countrymen!

Josephine proved to be a dedicated student of the Word, asking well-thought out questions and reviewing her previous studies if we had a to miss a week in studying. When it came time for her to make a decision - she did not make it hastily (which left me wondering a bit what the outcome would be). However, we had discussed several times the importance of waiting to be baptized until you are sure you are ready to make a life-long commitment. And once she did decide to be baptized, on March 20, it was evident that her decision was not just a physical act, but one she made with her full heart!

CB