Phillip is a cousin to Sam Tabaua, who lives in Etas and was baptized back in January. Sam felt an immediate need to share the Good News of Jesus Christ among his family. Before long, Sam had helped me set up a study with Phillip.

Typical of many people here in Vanuatu, Phillip had bounced around from denomination to denomination looking for a place where he could feel at home. He mentioned how he saw people claim speaking in tongues and various miraculous gifts and how that he felt it was not right. He eventually joined the Mormon church and was a member for about two years. Phillip stopped attending the Mormon church because they continued putting pressure on him to get married. You see, Mormon’s teach that one must be married in this life so one may be married to his spouse in the next so they can make celestial children. With such a strange doctrine, coupled with the pressure they placed on him to get married, Phillip was uncomfortable and ceased attending the Mormon church.

About 1 month after Phillip’s decision to no longer be a part of the Mormon church, we met and began to study. This took place in January, 2006. Several of our studies touched on many topics that the Mormon church teaches differently than the Bible. As Phillip began to see the difference between the Mormon church and the church that is in the Bible, he began to realize he was outside of the body of Christ, which is the church (Eph. 5:23). I studied with him for over 4 months, but knew he still had something preventing him from turning to Christ and His church. As I sat down and talked with Phillip and had a real heart-to-heart discussion, he opened up and said how he didn’t want to be baptized out of fear that we would also force him to get married. I assured Patrick that this was NOT the case and that it was his choice if he wanted to remain single or get married. As we studied through this topic, I began to see Phillip realizing how really, nothing was preventing him from being baptized. Phillip echoed the Ethiopian eunuch and on May 3rd said, “what hinders me from being baptized?”

I baptized Phillip into Christ on that day and since then, he has hit the ground running. In fact, I was out of town for two weeks just after he was baptized and imagine my surprise and delight when, upon my return, I found out Phillip had lead singing at the Etas church of Christ. He had truly hit the ground running and was really fired up about serving the Lord. May we, too, be fired up about serving the Lord by learning from Phillip’s example.

Please pray for Phillip as he is a young Christian and has much to learn. Please also pray for the Christians in Etas as they encourage Phillip in his daily walk with the Lord.

AB