The Journey of Good Samaritans
Thanks to my father’s service in the South Pacific during World War II, I was fascinated with the region for much of my life. This fascination increased even more during my seminary years and beyond as I began to read novels such as Mutiny on the Bounty and other writings on Tahiti and French Polynesia. But the beautiful responsibilities of family and career prevented any possibility of a visit… until 2016. Our daughter Alex was between her junior and senior years of high school and she was studying French. We planned a father-daughter trip where she could practice French and because of terrorism danger at the time in France, we chose Tahiti, making a trip to the islands of Tahiti and Moorea.
As we drove around Tahiti, God began to lead, not with dreams or visions, but with a realization that this beautiful country was broken and in dire need of sound biblical teaching. On our drive, I saw something remarkable: many beautiful church buildings of the cults. In the first town: a Mormon Church, a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall, and a Seventh-Day Adventist Church. This repeated itself throughout the island. The prevalence and dominance of the cults, stemming from a horrendous void of sound biblical teaching in this place, made me think, “I could be useful here.”
When we returned home, I began to search for Christian ministries in Tahiti, and what I found did not surprise me. There were no Bible training ministries in French Polynesia, and few outside missions at all. This small nation was almost a complete blank spot on the Great Commission missionary map. Next, I sought local partners, churches, and individuals who might be like-minded and could help us launch a part-time Bible ministry. This was challenging, but the Lord was faithful and connected us to the church we now attend, and many crucial partners with whom we work week by week.
First came four short-term mission trips, the first of which was with Dan Hawkins of Village Ministries International and Titus Kennedy. On that fact-finding trip, we were encouraged by what we saw, and we planned more short-term trips for the months and years ahead. Yet, the Lord had a different plan, and upon our return, I was diagnosed with a relapse of leukemia. So instead of returning to Tahiti, we prayed and submitted to the Lord’s plan for the next 15 months of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. Throughout my hospital stay, I kept a Tahiti travel poster on the wall of my room to remind me that ministry awaited a successful outcome, and, once again, the Lord was faithful as I returned to full strength.
We took two more short-term trips, one discouraging and the other encouraging enough to call us to relocate to French Polynesia. Full-time immigration to a popular tourist destination is an incredible gauntlet run, and all in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Somehow, thanks several times to the direct intervention of the Lord, it all went through and in September 2021 we found ourselves in the midst of a locked-down and curfewed island nation, curious when we could leave our little rental home to begin our work.
In a few months, we found ourselves working with Operation Christmas Child, helping launch the first-ever event in French Polynesia. And from that, flowed virtually everything else. As I mentioned in a recent newsletter, “It is accurate to say that almost every connection and every current ministry that we have here derives from our humble service with Operation Christmas Child and their gracious national directors, Edualdo and Aline Cicero. By God’s gracious direction, we happened to be on Tahiti in November of 2020, on a short-term mission trip, when we were invited to the initial vision and planning meeting at the Cicero’s home. We prayed then for God to use us and the program to spread the Gospel to the more than 60,000 children of French Polynesia. He answered those prayers in powerful ways, and “coincidentally,” through that service began connecting us to people, islands, and other ministries.”
Today we are very busy with our Bible Institute of Polynesia, our two English clubs, regular Bible study in our home and on the neighbor island of Moorea, and Bible conferences on a growing number of islands. We are truly blessed and praying that we are making a difference as Good Samaritans in a beautiful, very broken land, thanks to the Lord’s abundant grace.
Serving the Savior,
Mark and René, French Polynesia