Witness and Miracles in the Farthest Reaches of the World

It certainly looked like a gridlock, a dead end.

It was the early nineties, and the struggling Adventist congregation in the Penhryn Atoll, Cook Islands, in the South Pacific, didn’t even have proper pews to sit for worship. With no good trees on the sparsely inhabited atoll and hundreds of miles to the nearest island, there seemed not to be a way out.

Church members didn’t have the money needed, and even if they had had it, the importing process was cumbersome and depended on a ship that would arrive three times a year with provisions and supplies. In that context the always-scarce drinking water was the priority, not a place to sit in church.

Despite having no prospects and no hopes, Charlie Taamo, the Adventist Bible worker serving the local congregation, told members they still could do something. “Let’s pray about it,” he told them. “God surely has ways of providing that we can’t even imagine at the moment.”

Faithfully, members got together on a Tuesday and then the following Friday to specifically pray for wood for church pews. “We trust You can give us wood for our pews so we can worship You better,” members told God.

Then they waited to see how an all-powerful God could answer their fervent prayers.

The Farthest Reaches of the World—Literally

Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, in the South Pacific Ocean. It comprises 15 small islands spread in two groups across almost 2 million square kilometers (about 760,000 square miles).

Isolated from everything, islanders survived for decades on a diet of coconut and fish, and even now they usually depend on New Zealand, Australia, and other nations’ help for necessities such as drinking water, flour, and electricity.

Successive migrations of islanders to find work elsewhere have contributed to stagnant population growth. Currently it is estimated that there are just 15,000 residents across the archipelago.

A Missionary to His People

“I will move to New Zealand to find work and provide for our family,” Taamo told his mother one day in 1973, when he was 17 years old.

In New Zealand he eventually found work in forestry. It was hard manual labor, but it paid well. By 1980 he was making a significant amount of money, well above the average salary at the time.

One day, together with his young wife, he went to volunteer for one month at Fulton College (now Fulton Adventist University College) in Fiji. Perhaps I could take theology courses and become a pastor, he thought.

But then they heard Adventist leaders were looking for people to go as volunteer missionaries to Mauke in the Cook Islands. “I felt I wanted to give back to my people,” Taamo shared. “And with my wife’s support, in 1982 we decided to go.”

Taamo’s family couldn’t understand him. “You are stupid,” some of them told him. “Letting go of all that money and a safe future.” But the Taamos persisted, feeling that God was calling them.

A People’s Shepherd Across the Pacific

With no initial salary, locals allow him to have a piece of land to help them plant a garden and survive. When they harvested abundant produce, Taamo made his harvest part of the ministry. “I would go with gifts and knock on doors,” he shared. As a result, relationships developed, and eventually Bible studies turned into baptisms and local thriving congregations.

During the following decades the Taamos moved from island to island—Mauke, Atiu, Penhryn, Aitutaki, Palmerston, and Mauke again—to encourage, teach, and witness. In the meantime the Taamos grew a family and experienced the accompanying ebbs and flows of congregations affected by successive migrations.

“More than once, regional Adventist leaders offered me to take a break and go study at the seminary at Fulton or Avondale [in Australia],” Taamo shared. “But I can’t leave my people for several years. And I feel that the Bible, the Sabbath School study guide, and Ellen G. White’s books are more than enough for what I need to instruct others about God in the islands.”

Pews From Heaven

Taamo says he will never forget how God answered the Penhryn Atoll congregation’s prayers so many years ago.

A few days after both prayer meetings Taamo and one of his sons were out at sea, fishing. They were far from the regular shipping routes, so they couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw a big ship that, turning away from its regular itinerary, began to head to the atoll and in their direction. A little apprehensively they moved their fishing boat aside, in case the big ship didn’t see them and unintentionally ran them over.

Then the ship stopped.

A minute later the Taamos were astonished to see the sailors on the deck begin to throw dozens of empty wooden pallets into the sea. When they finished, the ship turned around and sailed away.

Taamo and his son couldn’t believe what they were witnessing. It was God’s answer to the congregation’s prayers!

They happily tied the pallets to their fishing boat and headed home with the good news. Against all odds God had provided the wood they needed! And the Penhryn Atoll congregation got their pews at no cost!

“I could share more testimonies like this,” Taamo said. “God’s promises are true. We just need to claim them.”