Bible Baptist Church’s burden to reach the islanders of
the South Pacific nations with the Gospel began in 2014 with a Youth Missions
trip to Samoa. The realization that there are numerous island nations scattered
across the vast Pacific Ocean, a survey trip to French Polynesia later than
same year, and several trips to Fiji and the Solomon Islands between 2016 and
2018 helped develop the vision for an active ministry, based in Fiji.
In 2018, the Lord led Brother Jeremiah Sargent (a former senior pastor of the church) back to Oak Harbor. Brother Sargent took the oversight of the "South Pacific Baptist Outreach," and served in Fiji from September 2018 to May 2021. During this time, Gospel ministries were established among the Fijians and other foreign nationals; Bible Institute classes were conducted to train men for the ministry; Gospel, discipleship, and doctrinal materials were translated into Fijian, then published and distributed; and a television program called “Transformed by Truth” was aired three times weekly on a local television station, reaching our beyond Fiji to numerous countries in the region and beyond. (See: www.facebook.com/transformedbytruthtv.) Men from Bible Baptist Church have also spent time in Fiji with Brother Sargent.
The COVID pandemic effectively closed the nation of Fiji (as well as most other South Pacific nations), dampening down the ministry from Oak Harbor. However, Fijian men who received ministry training from Brother Sargent are preparing to start missions on three of Fiji’s islands. God continues to work, by His grace!
Brother Loy Hower and his wife, Tess, will relocate in mid-2024 to focus their energy on translation printing, distribution of Gospel literature, group Bible studies, and personal one-on-one training with the goal of planting a Bible-believing Baptist church in the town of Navua, Fiji.
They key to reaching people with the Gospel is prayer; would you partner with us to pray?
“Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his
praise in the islands” — Isaiah 42:12..
