Coconut oil

Pastor Rollence Lug (pictured first with his wife and children) is the national pastor of a thriving church on an outer island of Yap, Micronesia called Fais.  “Pastor Rol” grew up on Fais.  He graduated from Harvest Baptist Bible Institute in Guam, trained further at Yap Baptist Church under the direction of missionary Mark Zimmer, and returned to Fais several years ago to plant a Baptist church.

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The island of Fais consists of only one square mile of land and the population is probably less than 300, so there is little way for church members to support the church's financial needs.  The church members had been making hand-squeezed coconut oil and sending it back to Yap to sell in order to help support the church.  This endeavor has been a huge blessing, as it allows the congregation of the church there to support the work financially without the aid of American dollars.  

 

We had long been looking for some way to help these nationals be self-supporting, and we learned about coconut presses which would enable the people to make coconut oil faster and more efficiently.  The coconut press (pictured second) is a great way for them to gain extra money.  Many volunteers in the church will use the press to extract the coconut oil.  Then, they can bottle it and send it to stores on the main island of Yap to sell.  We had found a suitable all-manual screw-type press that we believe would be ideal for use by the Christians on Fais.

 

We had been praying that the Lord would meet their need for a coconut press for Pastor Roland's church people.  In 2013, a donation was made to purchase this press for the church, and we were able to send financing to make this church self-supported!  Praise the Lord for His great blessing on this ministry; the people of this church greatly thank the generous donors in their faithful giving to the Lord.