A sweet memory from Stu Cameron, CEO and Superintendent of Wesley Mission, Sydney
A friend emailed me this photo a couple of days ago. It’s a picture of a fibro house located in Munda in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. It has a name – Robina House – and with it, a story of God’s faithfulness.
Back in 2008 I was two years into my role as Lead Minister of what was then called Robina-Surfers Paradise Uniting Church, now, Newlife Church. The GFC was causing havoc. Economic uncertainty and anxiety on the Gold Coast (a boom/bust economy) was palpable. We were considering the implications for our church if giving crashed. We would have to cut our cloth, be prudent, play it a bit safe – cut staff even.
October that year we hosted the Global Leadership Summit (GLS) for the first time. On the second day I remember that as I was listening to a talk from Gary Haugen, with the background noise of anxiety about the future swirling through my mind, God spoke very clearly to me, ‘Now’s not the time to step back, but step up.’ I can even remember where I was sitting, and that I was was looking out the window to the water as these words came clearly to mind.
At that time we were kicking off a new mission partnership with the United Church of the Solomon Islands. I’d not long before visited with other leaders. A real need that was obvious was for accommodation in Munda for visiting nurses and doctors working in the church run hospital and nurses school. Such accomodation would also be a revenue generator.
We thought building such a house, working alongside local tradesmen and using locally sourced materials, would cost around $30k. And so, with the clear direction from God to ‘step up’, I went to our elders the following week with the proposal to launch a one-off appeal to build the house. The elders, God bless them, gave unequivocal support, even while the economic future was so uncertain.
That Sunday, one week after hearing God say, ‘Step up’, we launched a $30k appeal. It might not seem like a lot now, but Newlife was a much smaller church then, I was a freshly minted pastor and times were tough. It really felt like a step of faith.
The Monday after we launched the appeal, a couple from our church asked to see me. They came into my office and, without many words, handed me a personal cheque for $30k. We’d raised our target in one day with one donation! There may have been a few tears.
Over coming weeks we saw many more gifts come in, in the end totalling $80k. At the same time, our regular tithes and offerings grew significantly as well. In the end, two years later, the house was built. And it cost $80k! Turns out we had grossly underestimated material costs in the Solomons. But God knew. And God provided.
14 years later, hundreds of visitors have stayed in Robina House and many thousands of dollars of revenue has been generated. When my friend sent me this photo from the page of a Solomon Islander’s Instagram feed, my heart skipped as I was reminded just how good and faithful God is. Whenever I have heard his call to step up, step forward or take a leap of faith and I have obeyed – he has always met me on the other side.
God is just so very, very good.