Students International Missionary Baptist Seminary School (SIMBSS): A Brief Update

January 24, 2023

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to each of you who have prayed for us and reached out to us over the past few weeks. Your thoughts, prayers, calls and messages have been such a blessing! There is no need really to go into detail about all the things which have "befallen" us of late, but I will say that God has used many of you to be such a tremendous encouragement to us, our family and our friends.

More will be shared in the January report, but I wanted to say that the Y8T1 teaching trip was a great success, even though we faced many obstacles. Words are insufficient to convey my thanks to Pastors Jerry Grimes, Joseph Stacks and Todd Anderson for what they all did in continuing on with the classes after I had to return home to be with Valerie following the death of her brother, Kenny.

It seems that each time we travel to the Solomon Islands we experience something new. Sometimes it is a new student with his own life-story and remarkable testimony of what God did to get him to the teaching term. Yet at other times, it is an old student who tells you of things that, even though you've known him for several years, you never knew! Why are we so surprised by the wonderful blessings we receive from God when we just slow down and enjoy the fellowship He has given us with other believers?

Soon, we are going to be taking the website for SIMBSS down due to the fact that we have other options for promoting the work which are free and much easier to navigate. Please save the link or follow the blog for regular updates. I'd also like to move away from Facebook, but that may take a little more time. Here are some pics from the recent teaching trip, Y8T1.

Me, Valerie, Todd & Kelly

Todd...somewhere!

Here we are on our arrival, January 12th. I think Jerry was taking the picture of us with Bro Samuel Fangata. You'll be hearing more about Bro Samuel very soon.

The hilly road to Windy Hill...we had to walk up the hill because the van couldn't make it up due to the previous night's rainstorm...and it wasn't my first time to be in that same situation! Haha

Windy Hill MBC in Honiara.

California MBC, about an hour and a half's drive from Honiara.

Jordan MBC, about an hour's drive from Honiara.

The USA/Solomon Islands WW2 Memorial

This guy thought Jerry Grimes was a priest...

The USA/Solomon Islands WW2 Memorial

Looking over the edge of the retaining wall of the war memorial at the Iron Bottom Sound. The Iron Bottom Sound is so named because of all the sunken ships and planes of enemy and allied forces. Each time I stand here and view these houses scattered all over, I can't help but think of the last verse of the book of Jonah were God asked Jonah "And should I not spare Ninevah, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand;..."