New Hebrides by C. H. PARKER

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jun 3, 1915

New Hebrides

By C. H. PARKER

C. H. PARKER

ATCHIN.— Two months have come and gone since our return to this field. They have been busy days, though it is the hottest time of the year and the most dangerous for fever. The Lord has especially blessed us as workers, and our health and strength have been kept in even balance. For this we thank our dear Heavenly Father.

We began our school work again on January 25. The attendance has been small, but has increased, and we trust to see it increase from week to week. For this we need your most earnest prayers. The attendance on the Sabbath and at other weekly services has been good. A number of women have begun to come,

and Mrs. Parker has a meeting for them each Sabbath.

Almost every afternoon we visit among the villages, and treat all the sick that we can find. The number of treatments for February is about one thousand. We have some bad cases of cuts, tears, and crushes. The Red Cross outfit, which our Victoria-Tasmania young people donated to the work here, has been a great help. Thus hands from the homeland are being stretched across the rolling expanse of waters, and applying the healing balm to the sicknesses of this people.

We have many evidences that the Lord is working upon the hearts of this people, but the devil is not standing idly by while the work of the Lord is gaining power in these lives. Just three weeks ago three towns were facing each other’s muskets. Early in the morning we heard the war beat of the tom-toms of two villages. The Lord prevented actual bloodshed, but it caused a very bad spirit to exist. The trouble arose over the long spell of dry weather which we have been having. One of the towns had claimed they had a medicine man who had power over the winds, the rain, and the sun. This man was dead, but the other towns thought some man of this town had inherited the power from the medicine man, and that he was keeping the rain from falling. So they thought they would make a finish of it.

We got most of the people of the three towns to come to the mission and talk their troubles over together in a friendly spirit. I had the privilege of putting before them the only true God and his prerogative alone to give and withhold rain. I told them the story of Elijah, Ahab, and the Baal prophets, and that when the hearts of the people turned back to the true God, the Lord gave them rain in abundance.

Their talk was quite excited and dramatic at first, but finally they were all sitting down with one another and shaking hands, and then they were friends again. They said esu koatsin (finished forever), and went back to their homes laughing.

The Lord knows what is best for his work here, and it takes the cloud as well as the sunshine to make the rising grain appear. With Paul we can say, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

We need your continual prayers, brethren and sisters, that the Victory of Israel shall be an abiding presence in our work here.