ST PAUL’S ANGLICAN SUPPORTS
Restore Mission: a ministry that strengthens the Anglican, United and Congregation churches in Milne Bay, a province on the east coast of Papua New Guinea.
THE NEED
Currently, the bishops in this area run 600 churches, 256 schools and 29 hospitals and health centres. Their mission is to deliver the gospel to the poorest, most remote people in the province. They only have 35 diploma trained ministers, and are in desperate need of formal theological training. The remote bush minister does not get paid and has to grow all his own food on top of running the church, medical clinic and school.
These local churches have also been providing 95% of all government services in the province for the past 130 years, including vast infrastructure over many mission stations. They are proud of what they have been able to preserve from early missionary teaching and systems. Through years of hard work, the quality of the year 12 school completions has been raised in remote mission schools. The big challenge is discipling the gospel with the next generation. The current generation of school leavers are better educated than their parents and the local bush minster, and he cannot answer many of their questions.
THE MISSION
Angus and Christina Skeoch are missionaries with Restore Mission. They serve in the diocese of Dogura, where they have been helping to restore the hospital and mission facilities with the help of Anglican Aid, Anglican Relief and Development Fund and Mobile Mission Maintenance (MMM). This includes a current project to install new toilets and septic systems in the Dogura maternity hospital.
With the help of St Paul’s Anglican, Angus and Christina are studying at St Andrew’s Hall in Melbourne in 2021 to grow a formal partnership with CMS. St Paul’s is also supporting the Bishop of Dogura, Fr Tennyson Bogar (pictured below on the left), who Angus and Christina serve under.
At the request of the Milne Bay Bishops, Restore is working with the Christian Leaders Training College (CLTC), Moore College and Overseas Council to help build a local evangelical theological college in the province. Studying at St Andrew’s Hall will prepare Angus and Christina to become teachers in this college that is being built.
