SULADS STORIES

THE KEROSENE FAILED NOT

By Rendy Sebilo

Lapangon Mission School

November 1999

Since all the members of the village Lapangon has been baptized, they meet, young and old, in our front yard to worship each morning and evening.  They are hungry for the truth in their new found faith.  They want to listen and fill their still empty hearts with the Word.

Although we meet early each evening before sunset, the hearers are so interested for the study deeper into the God’s word that it gets dark before we end the study.  Therefore, my partner and I purchased a kerosene lamp so we can have enough light for the worship service.  When the kerosene lamp was first lighted, the people were very surprised to see a very bright light making their little nook in the forest so bright.  Their little lamps made of sardine tins produced such a flickering little light that this was amazing to them.

Each night, they anxiously await the time to light the kerosene lamp and this magnificent light can illuminate the village and they can listen to the Bible stories from the picture rolls.  They loved that kerosene lamp also because the surrounding villages from quite a distance can see the light shining from Lapangon.  They compare that magnificent light with the light of salvation through Jesus Christ brought by the student missionaries from Mountain View College, The School of the Light. 

The night came when we ran out of kerosene.  We need the light for worship.  We asked about if any one had some kerosene.  Many raised their hands and with any second thoughts, they scampered to their homes and returned with small amounts of kerosene in their little tin lamps.  We poured it all into our kerosene lamp and it was only about half full.  We decided to shorten the worship this night because there was not enough kerosene to go as long as we had been in the nights before.

We had a very interesting and lively worship that evening and forgot all about the shortness of the kerosene supply.  We went far past the 30 minutes which we thought our short supply would take us.  When we finally stopped, we put out the lamp and checked the tank.  It was empty.  That meant that we would have NO kerosene for the next night’s worship.  It is a long ways down to the nearest trader to buy kerosene and we could not spend the valuable time just to obtain that commodity.  

 

As the time approached for worship, my partner decided to drain what little that might be left in the lamp into the sardine tin so that we could have some little light for the evening.  To his surprise, the tank was full!  He asked me if I had stored some kerosene away for an emergency but I had not.  He commented that this was a miracle.

That night, we lighted the lamp again and began worship.  My partner emphasized that our God is a God of miracles.  God provided the kerosene for our worship.  He told the story of the widow and the two boys who borrowed the vessels to fill with oil and the oil failed not until all were filled.  We told the people that this was because of the faith of the widow.  We compared that to the kerosene in our lamp.  The following evening, we inspected the lamp again, and again it was full!  This went on for three nights before we had the opportunity to purchase more kerosene. 

God really did bless our lamp.  He filled it to the brim each evening when we needed it.  He performed the same miracle for us that he did for the faithful widow.

“My dear SULADS,” the chief, Datu Malinas, interrupted during our worship.  “We have seen the miracle shown by the God in heaven before our very own eyes.  We need to be faithful to Him every day!” he emphasized. 

“We will be faithful!” the villagers chorused.