I secretly observed the Sabbath

Issai Bobby

I am from Salamaua, in Morobe Province.

When I was three months old, my parents who were Lutheran took me to the local church pastor for my baptism and I was baptised by sprinkling.

I grew up in this church with my family, worshipping every Sunday and believed that this was the true day of worship. When I was 19 years old I started attending worships programs in another denomination and realised that God was not part of my life and a great desire to know God and true
worship began to burn in my heart.

A protestant friend gave me a Bible and I began to read it, but I left that church and went back to worship with my parents, while continuing to study the Bible. Many questions arose in my mind about baptism of immersion and about the Sabbath.

I was married when I was 19 but my wife wasn't interested in my study of the Bible. As I continued alone, I discovered many Bible truths that led me to start keeping the Bible Sabbath. I didn't know anything about the Seventh-day Adventist Church but I secretly kept the Sabbath and continued to study the Bible. However, I did not want to keep the Sabbath secretly because there was a great desire to share.

It was not long before I found myself sharing the Sabbath truth and immersion baptism with ten people, including my wife. They too believed the great Bible truths and started observing the Sabbath. It was no longer a secret because the whole village knew that this little group of people who always gathered in my home every Saturday were worshipping and studying. So they started complaining and demanded that we stop immediately, but I continued every Sabbath.

The whole village was furious and severely persecuted us. They beat us up and spat on us but God gave us patience and peace, and added more people to our group until we had 20 members.

We did not stop and their persecution became stronger and more violent. We were summoned to stand before their church council where they questioned us about our beliefs and strongly demanded that I should stop sharing my beliefs with the villagers. I was forced to go to another village and share the truth with them. Again our number rose to 30.

This made the leaders so angry that they brought me to the head Bishop of Evangelical Lutheran church of Papua New Guinea. He told his local leaders and pastors to remove our names from the Lutheran church, and that we should no longer be involved in the worship activities of their church. We were glad that we were given freedom to worship on our own but how could I find any church group that was observing the Sabbath and their pastor. That was my big worry.

At that time I didn't know the existence of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Papua New Guinea, let alone the local Adventist church. So I left these new believers back home, and went to search for any church that worshipped on Sabbath. I went by boat on a 70 mile journey to Lae. There, I found a congregation on Sabbath and worshipped with them in a modern urban building. It was the first Adventist church that I had ever attended in my life.

As I sat listening to the beautiful hymns sung by the believers, tears of joy rolled down my cheeks and felt the presence of God there among the believers. A young man who sat next to me realised that I was new to the church. After the worship he asked me a few questions about myself. I told him the whole story and my search for an Adventist pastor.

He led me to the home of a minister named Pr Peter Yorio's where I told him everything that happened back home and why I had come to the city. Pr Yorio returned with me to my village, and the new believers were filled with joy as he gave us encouragements and Bible studies for three days before returning to the city. He was the Sabbath School and Personal Ministries director for the Adventist Church in the Morobe region.

He continued to visit us, regularly and after a period of two years, my wife and I were baptised into the church. That year was 1992, and I continued giving Bible studies to 28 interested believers. 10 people were baptised in 1994.

Many interested people joined us from the neighbouring village and our group swelled to 40. The Adventist Church sent a man to pastor and shepherd our group in 1995. In 1996, 30 more people were baptised which brought our membership to 49.

Thank God for his wonderful plan in leading me to his great truths in the Bible and his remnant church and the gospel commission to take the gospels others in my village. The joy was great in our hearts but the challenges of our daily Christian life experience was not understood by many of the members and they began to lose their courage and were weak spiritually. This led them to be unfaithful and disobedient. It was like a disease spreading among the entire church members, leaders and interested ones.

The church pastors did their best and struggled with only a small group who were praying. When the seventh pastor was sent to the local church, he started a prayer ministry group which met every Wednesday. I was among this little group and we continued praying earnestly, patiently waiting on the Lord. We claimed God's promises as we went down on our knees for six months and God was always faithful to his promises. One of those promises was in Psalms 37:23, 24.

Thank God that He is cleaning His church through these crucibles as He had said through prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 9:7. The Lord is doing great things we were unable to do.

This article first appeared in Tell the World, the newsletter for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Papua New Guinea.