Memoirs of the Revival in the South Pacific

Rev. J.S. Pasterkamp

Description

Awarded with the ‘Companion of the Star of Melanesia’ for their distinguished service to the islands of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, the late Rev. John Pasterkamp shares his firsthand account of the revival which transformed the islands of Melanesia with thousands of people coming to faith and over 400 churches being planted.
From the wilderness of Australia’s Cape York peninsula, to tropical Papua New Guinea, Rev. Pasterkamp will take you on a journey of surviving tribal wars, malaria infested swamplands, demonised witchdoctors and merciless jungles all for the sake of the gospel.
His firsthand accounts of healings, deliverance and radical salvation that impacted every spectrum of society - from workers on rural plantations to government officials.
This autobiography talks about the price paid in raw courage, dedication and self-sacrifice to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ and see revival come, transforming nations.

Sujets

• Inspirational
• Philosophie et théologie
• God
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris AU
• Date de parution: 27 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669831594
• Langue: English

Extrait

MEMOIRS OF THE REVIVAL IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
 
HOW GOD LIT A FIRE AND CHANGED NATIONS
 
 
 
 
REV. J.S. PASTERKAMP
 
 
 
Copyright © 2023 by Rev. J.S. Pasterkamp.
 

Library of Congress Control Number:
2022916100
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-3161-7

Softcover
978-1-6698-3160-0

eBook
978-1-6698-3159-4
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Rev. date: 01/27/2023
 
 
 
Xlibris
AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: [phone] ([phone] from outside Australia)
www.Xlibris.com.au
826202
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 ‘Pray for that Boy with The Red Hair!’
Chapter 2 Tell Me Your Company, and I will Tell You Who You Are
Chapter 3 A Horse Named Reus (Giant) and a Horse Named Ico
Chapter 4 Coby
Chapter 5 Going ‘Down Under’
Chapter 6 Thursday Island
Chapter 7 Daru
Chapter 8 A Few Months in Australia
Chapter 9 Rabaul
Chapter 10 Siwai
Chapter 11 Rabaul – We Start!
Chapter 12 The Plantations
Chapter 13 Siwai
Chapter 14 Coby’s First Trip into Siwai, and Her Very Special Experience
Chapter 15 The Story of David Pookaro
Chapter 16 Kavieng and . . . Back to Siwai
Chapter 17 Australia – The Lord Turns Our Lives Upside Down
Chapter 18 Tari in The Highlands
Chapter 19 The Solomon Islands
Chapter 20 A Few More Months in Rabaul and Then . . .
Chapter 21 Kiwai Island
Chapter 22 David Wallis
Chapter 23 Kavieng
Chapter 24 ‘Yu Mas Tanim Bel!’
Chapter 25 Two Very Precious People
Chapter 26 We Are Moving to Bougainville!
Chapter 27 The Capital – Port Moresby
Chapter 28 ‘In My Name shall They Cast Out Evil Spirits’
Chapter 29 Rascals
Chapter 30 The Bible School
Chapter 31 Much Blessing, Many Miracles, and Breakthroughs
CHAPTER 1
‘Pray for that Boy with The Red Hair!’
F ILLED WITH EXPECTATIONS, I sat down to listen to my brother’s new gramophone recording. What I heard on that Sunday evening in 1961 would change my life, and the course of my life, completely.
I received my love for popular classical music from my mother and my elder brother Klaas. Sometimes he took me to concerts which I really enjoyed. Klaas was married and lived in close proximity to my parents. Whenever he bought a new gramophone recording, he would come by to let us hear it. When I came home that Sunday evening during the 1961 summer, Klaas told us that he had bought this recording and that we should really listen to it. I expected beautiful classical music, but that was not what I heard at all. It was something completely different.
Klaas worked in a city some sixty kilometres north from where he lived. A young man at his work had given his life to Jesus in an evangelistic service at a Pentecostal church. He shared his testimony with my brother, who was greatly impacted by it. He also took my brother to other evangelistic services, and he was so impressed by it all that he had bought the recording. On that recording were testimonies of people who had found Jesus or had been healed by Him. It also contained a short message: ‘Jesus is the way to God.’ I did not understand it all, but it grabbed me. I had never heard anything like this, but it was real. I felt it. I knew it!
My parents had five children. I was the fourth. My father was born and bred on Urk, a little island, which later became part of the mainland after it was reclaimed from the sea, Dutch style.
As a young man, he had moved from the island to the town of Zaandam, not far from Amsterdam. Having been raised as a nominal Christian, he was quite legalistic and conservative, as most people on the island were. He brought a fair share of this into our family. As a young boy, I absolutely believed in God, but many aspects of the church were meaningless to me. I had observed quite a few people who went to church on Sunday but did not behave like Christians during the week. I thought it was all very hypocritical. Nevertheless, there were some aspects of church life that I felt attracted to. Like a youth pastor, who originally came from Indonesia, he really made an impression on me. When he spoke about Jesus, it was like he knew Him. Years later, I visited him. He had become a minister in a Dutch Reformed church. At that time, I realised again that this pastor knew Jesus intimately. Somehow I had felt this when I was young.
Every Sunday we had to go to church. Obeying caused less trouble than refusing, so I would go. When Klaas got married, he almost immediately stopped this weekly church visit. In a way, I was jealous, and I was looking forward to leaving my parental home and to be able to decide for myself whether or not I would go to church. Actually I had already made my decision: I would no longer go.
Then came that Sunday evening and the gramophone recording that would change everything. Klaas had not made a personal decision for Jesus yet, but he had been greatly impacted by what he had seen and heard. There would be a service in Amsterdam the following Friday. He asked me if I wanted to come with him, and I did. The service was conducted by the Pentecostal movement called Streams of Power led mainly by the Hoekendijk family. It was held in a Lutheran church building in the south of Amsterdam. I remember a few things very well: the joy, the enthusiasm, the happy and beautiful singing, and the organ playing. It was impressive. Communion was celebrated that evening. I had experienced communion in our church but had not understood much of it. Usually it was a very serious business, but here it was different.
The preacher handed everyone the bread personally, which was new for me. I sat and watched. When he came to someone he did not know, he would ask that person if he or she was a child of God. When that person said no, a short conversation followed in the middle of the service, while everyone could hear what was being said. If that person wanted to become a child of God, the preacher would pray, and that person was asked to repeat his words in prayer, audible to everyone. I was getting tense. He did not know me, so the chance of him asking me if I was a child of God was high, and I did not know whether I was. Or rather, I knew for sure that I was not, for I had experienced this quite strongly some weeks before.
I was an enthusiastic member of the lifeguard rescue team, and I was in training to be a youth instructor. During an exercise, I nearly drowned. While I was stuck underwater, the thought flashed through my mind: Now I have to appear before God, and I am not ready at all. I was terrified. Luckily, it ended well, and I am still here, but the fact that things were not right between God and me had become very clear.
And here was the possibility looming that the preacher would ask me if I was a child of God. I quickly figured out what my options were. I could not leave because Klaas was with me, and he clearly had no desire to leave. If I were to leave, I had to get out of my seat, and there were people on both sides of me. Everyone would see, and what would happen then? Suppose someone spoke to me. So leaving was not an option, but I had never participated in a communion service because I had not publicly professed my faith in the church, which is a prerequisite for celebrating communion in our denomination, the Dutch Reformed Church. Why this was a prerequisite was unclear to me. The speaker came closer. I had to quickly choose an option. I chose one and hoped it would go well. He gave the bread to Klaas and obviously knew that he had accepted Jesus, which he had done the week before.
Then it was my turn. I broke out in a sweat. The speaker looked at me intently and asked, ‘Are you a child of God?’ I had my answer ready and said, ‘I think so!’ Then he gave me the bread and put his hand on my head and began to speak. I will never forget this one line: ‘At a young age I will call you, and at a young age you will serve Me.’ I now understand that this was a prophecy, but at the time I had no idea what that meant. However, I did know that these were words from God to me. They touched something very deep inside me, because even as a child, I did have the thought: I want to be a missionary. I was ashamed of that thought, however, because I did not really know what it meant and did not understand how that thought came to me. The only thing I vaguely remember is that at Sunday school, two women had shared something about missions. The story was about dark-skinned people and a tropical warm country. I also knew that the Reformed Church had a college to train missionaries. I also knew the words of Jesus, that the gospel should be preached in all the world. But when I had to choose my further education at high school, I did not dare to say that I wanted to be a missionary, so I chose a profession which I thought was similar, namely that of a teacher. In that same month, September, I would go to college to become a teacher. It was my intention to become a high school teacher. So when the preach