Hayley and Stuart's Flinders Island Report

Hayley and Stuart's Bible work has now extended to Flinders Island in Bass Straight off the south coast of Victoria. It's been quite an adventure in sharing the Great Controversy. Their friend, Mark Mason joined with them in this project.

Hayley writes -

Hello to all the Steps to Life Friends,

Well, another year has come and gone, and we’re all asking where did it go!

It's an amazing time to be alive as we see Bible prophesy being fulfilled before our eyes. There are so many important events taking place on the world stage that it seems like something significant is happening on a weekly basis. God is amazing how He uses these events to stir people’s hearts and call them to action.

God has certainly blessed the book ministry this year with the amount of literature that has been going out each week and how many people are coming back with positive responses and asking “what else can I have that you are sharing”. I have certainly been blessed to have this opportunity to be doing this work and we appreciate your support.

A couple of years ago we considered King Island, a small island in Bass Straight between Victoria and Tasmania. We felt impressed that the community on King Island being isolated might not have access to resources the same as people on the mainland. So we organized a trip to King Island to distribute The Great Controversy books to everyone on the island. This trip was a great success. But, this posed a new question, What about Flinders Island?

Flinders Island is another Bass Straight Island and similar to King Island. It's a 30 percent larger island, more remote and isolated. We had researched and found there were approximately 350 homes on the island. So we set about organizing a trip to Flinders Island to distribute The Great Controversy. We were told the island is mostly rural or country properties and spread out over a large area. Our first plan was to distribute the GC’s via the Post Office as there are no household letterboxes on the island. To do this we plastic wrapped 370 GC’s with a note of introduction. This totaled 8 boxes. The next problem was freight, the 8 boxes were heavy and postage was expensive and even if we sent them, we would still have to visit the Post Office on Flinders island and make the transaction. So we decided once again to hire a plane and fly the books and us to Flinders Island.

This worked out perfectly …… until we arrived at the Post Office. The manager at the Post Office said “ Sorry we can’t post the books in the PO Boxes”.

Big problem! Now we were stuck, 8 boxes of books and there was no way to distribute them. We tried filling forms for permission to have the books posted and were told 'no' again as the books were a bit heavy to put in the PO boxes. Now out of options we were faced with the reality we had to leave the island and the books behind, we asked the Post Office manager if we could store the boxes with them and they agreed. Prayer Answered!

We had to resolve how to distribute the GC’s. The only way now was to distribute them by hand, door to door, literature evangelist style. So we enlisted the help of Mark Mason, an experienced LE and a guy with passion for God's work in spreading the message. Mark was very keen to assist. So we arranged for another visit to Flinders Island in a small plane again. This time the weather was awful, and the little plane struggled through the weather and clouds and just as we arrived at the island the clouds cleared, the sun was shining and we arrived safely on Flinders Island. We all felt God was with us as we embarked on this mission.

We collected the 8 boxes of GC’s from the Post Office and headed to a park bench to wrap the books in gift wrapping paper. No easy task as the wind was blowing a gale! This was the Monday three days before Christmas. Our team of three headed out to canvass the whole island. Asking God to be with us all the way. Mark and I handed out books with Stuart driving. We had a 95% success rate which is unheard of on the mainland. People readily accepted the books and were very thankful. In many cases we got the impression The Great Controversy would be the only gift some people may receive this Christmas. It was evident to us that God was with us preparing the way and we felt very blessed to feel God's presence with us.

We were able to hand out all the books by Wednesday afternoon, this was Christmas eve. And as I mentioned previously the weather was awful with the wind at the airport up to 120 km/h. I was nearly blown over. This also caused an issue with the aircraft as we were not sure if we could depart at all. It all worked out in the end and we all arrived safely back in Melbourne just before dark.

We all thought we had been in a whirlwind, with the windy weather, the fast pace book distribution and being on a spiritual high knowing God was with us!

God is so good how everything happened in His time - the right time.

We can safely say Flinders Island now has the The Great Controversy book and has been introduced to the 'Spirit of Prophecy'.

Thank you for your support and prayers.

If you would like to sponsor a mission like this to a remote community or country town that may not normally have the opportunity to receive books please get in contact with Steps to Life.

Hayley Phillips. (STL Bible Worker.)

Please remember Hayley's Bible work in your prayers. Particularly pray that The Great Controversy books left on Flinders Island will we read, understood and help prepare the Flinders Island people for the times we are living in, prior to the second coming of Jesus.

If you would like to help STL to fund Hayley's Bible work please call us on 03 9739 4093 or send us an email to admin@steps.org.au