I met Marina about the time her husband, Timothy, was baptized in April 2006. It wasn’t long after that I started wondering if she would be interested in studying with me. However, she wasn’t around much and I didn’t know very much about her. I talked with Leimawa and found out that Marina and her family were members of the Assembly of God and seemed to be quite strong in it.

As the months went by I started seeing her more and she came to our house a few times with other women from Etas. It was through these visits that I got to know her well enough that it seemed she might be interested in studying the Bible. To begin with, I had Leimawa ask her if she would want to study. Many times in the Vanuatu culture it is very difficult to get an honest answer from people. Instead of disappointing you, people tend to give “please the missionary” answers. I wanted to know if she was truly interested in studying to make sure she wouldn’t be studying just to keep from telling me no. Much to my delight (and Leimawa’s) she said that she was interested in studying. That didn’t surprise me too much considering that her husband and some of her close friends were members of Christ’s church.

We began studying in September 2006, taking a three month break during the time of our furlough back to the US. She had a growing interest in the studies but for several months she still worshipped with AOG. As we began getting deeper into our studies, she started alternating between worshipping with AOG and with Christ’s church. And then In March she began worshipping only with Christ’s church.

Marina is a kind of woman that has a strong will – not in a bad way, though. It is just that she is different from many Ni-Van women that simply follow their husbands when it comes to making spiritual decisions. With Marina, her faith is her own. After studying with her and talking with her, I truly believe that she was baptized not to follow Timothy, but because she knew what she needed to do. She saw that what I was teaching her and what she was seeing in worship was straight from the Bible, not what she experienced within AOG with the teachings of men.

The night she was baptized Aaron asked her when she wanted to have it done, thinking that she might opt for the next day since it was already dark outside and getting late in the evening. But, Marina didn’t care. She knew she was outside the body of Christ. And she insisted that she be baptized that night. So, on Wednesday, April 25, 2007, Marina Timothy was baptized into Christ!

CB