Zone Visit Highlights

This is the second Zone Visit that Guam Bethel has had in the nearly two years we've been here. Prior to the visit missionaries, translators and construction servants were flown into Guam from Chuuk, Marshall Islands, Pohnpei, Kosrae and other Micronesian islands. These invited guests were housed by families from Guam's eight congregations.

David Sinclair came as Zone Overseer—a representative from Brooklyn Bethel. The invited guests received instruction and encouragement from the Zone Overseer as well as members of Guam Bethel in special sessions.

On Sunday, all were invited to the UOG Field House for a special meeting. After a summary of The Watchtower article for the week, Barrack Bowman, a member of the branch committee, gave us a Country Report for Micronesia and interviewed a missionary, a translator and a construction servant. There are 26 missionaries in Micronesia. 16 are in the field while others work as translators. We also have 12 special pioneers including 2 young single sisters—one from Saipan and the other from Pohnpei working together in Kosrae. Also scattered throughout the congregations in Micronesia are 88 need-greaters (including Aaron and I).

We have 6 teams of translators representing 6 Micronesian languages. The Marshallese team is in Majuro working hard in their newly built facilities and the Chuukese team is currently in transit in Guam awaiting the completion of their facilities in Moen. What a blessing it is for many to have practical guidance from the Bible in their own language! For example, a major issue in the islands is incest. As is true around the world, the problem is often swept under the rug—not talked about. Recently an article was translated and published to help equip parents to protect their children and to prevent such things from happening to them.

Their are 2 construction teams. Team 1 is currently working in Ebeye. They had to construct barracks first to house themselves (saved lots of money) and now they are working on a new Kingdom Hall. A local religious leader was so impressed by how men, women and children worked together to demolish the old Kingdom Hall that he called his congregation together to do the same. The church was demolished but they've made little progress in rebuilding it. Dave and Chelsea are part of Team 2 in Chuuk and are working on the translation/missionary home and offices. The congregation is renting space for their Kingdom Hall over a market which is more accessible than the old Kingdom Hall. The next project for Team 1 and the congregations of Guam is a Kingdom Hall on the south part of the island. Aaron gets to work on the site plans.

During the interview with the brother in translation we learned about the cooperative process used. 3 people work on an article individually first and then they get together to work through it sentence by sentence until they are happy with the results. We also learned that translators around the world are networked via internet to help them in their work.

The construction servant told us that the footings and columns for the new Kingdom Hall in Ebeye have been poured—the concrete hand mixed. Young brothers are being trained on the job, having no construction training at all. They are also getting involved with the local congregation, learning the local language and growing spiritually. Acquiring construction materials is difficult, especially rock and sand. There are many young ones in the congregation, too young to be useful on the construction site, who want to help with the project. Each Saturday a group of young ones and other congregation members go out to shovel sand from the beach into a truck that will be hauled to the site. Sand costs $200 a ton to be delivered in bags. Each Saturday 5 tons of sand is dug and sifted by eager young ones who want to help build their Kingdom Hall. The brother concluded his comments by saying "It is impossible to out-give Jehovah!" but he is happy to give everything he has.

The missionary told us about a bible student who was abandoned by his family when he was young (common in Micronesia). He wanted to read the chapter in What Does the Bible Really Teach? about how to have a happy family life. When the missionary arrived the young man had 9 friends with him. They were preparing food. Despite being busy the young man wanted to discuss the chapter. They stepped aside from the group to have their discussion but the group wanted to listen too. A little intimidating! The next time he came for a Bible study, 7 of the mans friends were there to join in. Then there were 4 on the next visit. 1 of the 4 gave Bible literature to his father who has begun studying the Bible too.

All three expressed the joy and blessing they enjoy in their assignments—be it missionary work, construction or translation.

David Sinclair followed the Country Report with his talk entitled Do We Really Need to Live Under God's Kingdom? He outlines six ways to show that we want to live under the Kingdom—by our 1) speech, 2) appearance, 3) balanced viewpoint of recreation, 4) not being distracted by materialism and 4) preaching and teaching work. His talk was full of encouraging experiences from around the world. Really made a person feel our worldwide brotherhood.

There were 1063 in attendance at the field house and 500 from around Micronesia tied in via internet.