Mike and Sophia Abbe spoke to Pastor Walton this week about coming to know Christ, growing in their faith, and continuing in local church ministry on Chuuk.
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Transcript
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We have two services at Harvest every week. The first at 08:45AM Sunday morning, second at 10:45AM.
We have Japanese and Korean translation during that 10:45AM service, and that’s also when we livestream at hbcguam.org. Hbcguam.org. This week, it’s our seven habits of highly effective churches summary from Revelation two and three. Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming Pastor Gary Walton. Hi, Pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey, hafa adai, Chris. Well, we’re coming off a highlight of our whole year. Our Missions Conference has been going on this week. In fact, I’m going to introduce you to one of our guests here in just a minute. But as you’re listening to this, we’ve just finished the conference and it’s always an adjustment for our church family because it just feels like we’ve been on the mountaintop of hearing from God and having Him challenge our hearts.
And now we want to look out on that mountaintop and look forward to what God has us to do about what we’ve just heard. And so I want to invite you to come on Sunday as we kind of start off that veranda of a view. We are finishing the series that we began back in January when we just started teaching through the letters to the seven churches that the Bible gives us in Revelation two and three. If you’ve been with us, you know that we finished the seventh letter the week before our conference, but we’re going to come back one more time and do a summary. We’ll go back and review the highlights of each of those seven lessons and then try to pull that all together.
I think it’ll be helpful. I think we’ll be challenged again by some of those themes that we went through and that God cares about and Jesus cares about for his churches. So let me invite you to come. I can guarantee you that you’ll find a warm, friendly church that’s worshiping genuinely our great God and we’d love to invite you to come and join with us. Well, I’m thankful to have with us Pastor Mike Abbe and his wife Sophia.
So glad that you’re here and with us for our Missions Conference. So welcome Pastor Mike and Mrs. Abbe.
Mike Abbe: Thank you.
Sophia Abbe: Thank you.
Gary Walton: We’re so glad that you’re with us. Pastor Abbe and Mrs. Abbe have been supported by Harvest Baptist Church now for a number of years. My guess is since you went back to Chuuk, and they are ministering together on the main island of Chuuk on Weno. Pastor Mike is the pastor of Grace International Baptist Church, and he’s been in that position now for a little while.
We’ll talk about that in a minute. But we’re really thankful that you’ve been here for this Missions Conference. Tell us, just to begin with, tell us about what the conference has meant to you so far.
Mike Abbe: Yes, I’m very, as they said, regarding this conference, refreshed. I’m very refreshed. Not by only coming from Chuuk, but the lessons that I’ve been learning here so far. It’s really great and really moving and something that I learn about. And if God allows me to live more years, there are some things that I just want to take back to Chuuk and apply it there.
Gary Walton: Amen. Thank you. You know, our prayer is as we come to these conferences and the freshwater conference for our Bible college, which you both were involved in, and then our missions conference together, You know, for sure our prayer is that God would use your ministry as you express your burden in the life of our church, and that’s happening. But just as importantly, we’ve prayed that God would allow our church to be a blessing to you. That it would be, Harvest would be a place of oasis of rest and refreshing.
That’s the word that you used. And so I’m really thankful to hear that. I know our church family will be thankful to hear that too. We want you to go back encouraged and uplifted for the difficult and challenging work sometimes of Let the me back us up a little bit. If you guys would be willing to tell us about your story.
Growing up, where you grew up, I think both in the islands, tell us that first, then I’ll ask you some questions about how you became a follower of Jesus.
Mike Abbe: Okay. Yeah. For myself, yeah, I grew up on the outer island of Chuuk, as I mentioned in one of those lessons that we lived 180 miles apart before we got married. My island is 180 miles from her island. Growing up, as I was saying, I grew up a very good kid during that time.
My parents were very loving. My father was a deacon from that church on our island. I just grew up being disciplined by my parents.
Gary Walton: How many people would be on the island that you grew up in?
Mike Abbe: During that time, I would say 300, 300 people.
Gary Walton: OK.
Mike Abbe: So, it was until I moved from my island, because I attended high school on a different island, in Pohnpei. I went to that vocational high school, and then that’s when everything changed about me. The so called good kid was not good anymore. And I believe it’s because I’m away from my parents and I was on my own. Went to school on that island for four years, and then I went on to college for also two years and came back to Chuuk, started to work.
But my life was in a very bad shape, I would say. Looking back it was a very bad time for me. Into that work, I was working there for sometimes that I know this her, I know this Sophia. Their group were in the 1st Floor and our office was upstairs on the 2nd Floor. And then I noticed her, I tried to talk with her, she didn’t like me at all.
Sometimes she would see me coming to work and the way I looked, back then I was thinking. And sometimes I would come to work, I’m hungover. And she would see me with all of those things. She didn’t like me. But I didn’t give up.
Sometimes I would try to talk to her, she ran away. So because they just moved in that building and then they didn’t have a telephone, but we did have. Sometimes I would tell the secretary in our office, Go down and tell that girl that she has a phone coming in.
Gary Walton: So she’d come up and have to talk to you, Yeah.
Mike Abbe: When she came up, I’m at the desk with that telephone. Instead of talking to the telephone, yeah, we talk a little bit and then That’s funny. That’s great.
Gary Walton: Let me back up, Mrs. Abbe, for you. Where did you grow up? And then tell us what your perspective was when you met pastor Mike.
Sophia Abbe: I grew up with my parents and my grandparents. They teach me to be a good girl. Mhmm. They told me to I’m not talk say bad words. Mhmm.
And now I’m attending the Sunday school. When I was 16, I’m attending the Bible study. And now that time, I accepted Christ. Amen. And now I go on to follow Jesus.
And sometimes I’m twenty twenty one years. I’m like just not good to follow Jesus.
Mike Abbe: Yeah.
Sophia Abbe: And one day, I attended Sunday School for youth. And there is a first, we share Mathew 26 sixteen or 16 to 17 said, I forgot in English.
Gary Walton: Say it in Chuukese.
Sophia Abbe: This is the first it make me to go back to my belief. Yeah.
Gary Walton: God used that verse Yeah. Bring me back. Yeah. Was this before or after you had met pastor Mike? Before.
Before? Yeah. Okay. Pastor Abbe, tell us about how God drew you to himself. Yes.
Mike Abbe: Yeah. We I asked her to marry me. She said yes. And then she started to ask me to go to church with her. Every time I say, No.
And then I was thinking, Maybe I’ll just make her feel happy. And I start going to church with her. One thing led to another before I knew it. I was drawn closer to Christ. But my experience with Christ did not come until one day when I came back from work, and then I was listening to this radio station, and the preaching was on Luke 14, and the pastor was talking about excuses.
And toward the end of the message, said, If you can tell me a good reason why you should not come to Christ, if I am satisfied with your answer, then I’ll quit my work. And then I started to think and came up with lots of reasons. Lots of reasons that I came up with, but as I look at those reasons, they were not good reasons but actually excuses. So right there in the car, I asked Jesus, I prayed, asked Jesus into my heart.
Gary Walton: You and I have talked about that before. It’s a powerful testimony of the impact of the radio station, right?
Mike Abbe: Yes, yes.
Gary Walton: You heard the Gospel on the radio in your car, you asked Jesus to be your Savior and your Forgiver.
Mike Abbe: Right. Wow. The radio station was Tom’s, yeah, Tom Phillips.
Gary Walton: Missionary Tom Phillips, who was in Chuuk for
Mike Abbe: I was 32 at that time. Yeah. 32 years old.
Gary Walton: I always love hearing the stories of how God draws people to Himself. Both of your stories a little bit different and yet God loved you both and brought the right people into your life at the right time in order to call to you, to accept His forgiveness and put your life and your faith in Him. Tell us about your life together and then, Pastor Mike, know, your call to the ministry, because you’re 32 now, you’re working, you’re not thinking about the ministry. What happened after that?
Mike Abbe: Yes, I started attending Bible study and continued to listen to the radio station and I also attended Bible study. Think that’s when God called me to the ministry. Because I would listen to those preachers and I would say, Where did they get those from? What they are preaching? I looked at the texts, looked at those, and I didn’t see them.
And then, it took several years. But then I asked this missionary if you could recommend a college, a Bible college, for me to go to. And so right there in his briefcase he had this college catalog. He handed me that and he told me, There is an application at the back. If you’re interested, apply for it.
There is something that I want to also mention. Was one time when we got married, our plan was a big family. But then we came here, she had an operation, and then the doctors here, they told us that, You will never have babies. At one time we went to Hawaii, we also saw a doctor, he told us, No. But then in 1993, yeah, we had our only daughter.
God gave you a miracle. Yes. And we call her a miracle daughter. Yeah.
Gary Walton: It’s so great. God answered the prayers of your heart.
Mike Abbe: Yes. Yes.
Gary Walton: Yeah. I’m thankful for that. Pastor, you were 46 years old. I love this part of your story. When you went to Bible college, right?
Yes. Left Chuuk, went to The States. What made you decide that you were going to stop your job and move your family, your daughter, your wife, to The States to go to Bible College?
Mike Abbe: Yes. By that time, I knew that God wants me to preach. Amen. So, as I mentioned, I didn’t know how to study the Bible. I didn’t know how those preachers got the explanation and words to preach.
And that’s when I asked Tom to help us and then he had the application. Actually it took two more years to really decide. And my wife here, she was the one pushing me.
Gary Walton: Wow. Mrs. Abbe, I wanted to ask you about that. What was it like for you to agree that God was gonna call your husband to the ministry and you would both leave your home in Chuuk to go to The States to get some Bible training? How did God work in your heart to encourage you about that?
Sophia Abbe: Me, when I’m going grow up, I just every time I pray, I ask God to help me to I want to be his servant. Mhmm. After many years, when I meet my husband, and I asked God to give me a husband because I want to be work with him Mhmm. With God. And now I agreed to be with him because I want him to continue to work with God.
Gary Walton: Amen. Amen. So you were pushing him. Yeah. Mhmm.
This is good. The Holy Spirit in your wife, you can’t resist that. You know, many people think that ministry is for those who start out young. What would you say to someone who feels God calling them later in life but wonders if it’s too late?
Mike Abbe: I think the ministry is never too late. Even when you are on your bed, yeah, you can still share Christ when people come to visit. So there isn’t any limit for ministry.
Gary Walton: Well, love that. And we have all kinds of examples in the Bible of God calling men and women at different stages of their life.
Mike Abbe: Yes.
Gary Walton: It’s not just when they’re young. And we repeatedly see this happening in the Scriptures, and we see it happening today. So for each of us, thank you for your example of just laying out your life. Romans 12 says, I surrender my life as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God and thank you for the example of that. Tell us a little bit about ministry in Chuuk.
How’s God working in Chuuk since you began pastoring there? Any moments that are sort of just clearly God changing lives? Can you tell us about that?
Mike Abbe: Yes, we have a few ministries, and one of them I would say that it’s got to my heart, and that is our prison ministry. I’ve seen people got saved, people got changed by God. One of the things that I love about the prison ministry is that they cannot escape. They have to be there and they don’t have any choice but to listen.
Gary Walton: Can’t get away. You’ve just got to listen to you.
Mike Abbe: Yeah. We have Bible studies and prayer meetings. We also have these men’s prayer breakfasts we get together once a month. I stress, I know the ministry there is very challenging. And the more challenging it gets, it excited me the more.
Gary Walton: Amen.
Well, you’re working there together with another missionary that Harvest supports, Josh and Sarah Wagar. We’re so thankful for that. And they speak so highly of you both and the examples that you have been to them. And I love that sweet partnership of pastors and missionaries. We’re thankful that we have a little part in helping you, trying to lift up your hands and hold up your arms as you serve I know that ministry can be hard in many places, and we’re praying that God would just allow the fruit to be the seeds to sprout up and grow and there’d be a great harvest of people coming to know Jesus in Chuuk and the church growing and thriving and discipling people.
So we’re praying for you. It’s important for us that you’re here to tell us so that we know how to pray for you, that we’re reminded of the burden, and we’re thankful for your faithfulness there and praying that God would bless you. Thank you for being here with us for our Missions Conference. Thank you for serving the Lord faithfully And we’ll continue to pray for your ministry day by day.
Mike Abbe: Thank you. Thank you so much. Harvest has been a good partnership with us. Even before I went to Bible College, I’ve heard that they’ve been praying for someone from Chuuk. But then when I went to school, they continued the prayer.
They continued to pray for me. And in fact, when I graduated, Pastor Joe asked if I could stop by on my way home. So, I stopped by here. He told me that they were praying for me, for us, and continued to pray for us until now. And that’s what encourages us.
We really experience, we feel the answers of your prayers in our lives.
Gary Walton: We’re so thankful for that. We’re praying that your faithful testimony would be the beginning of many others Chuukeses that would go back home and be part of God’s Church to see it grow, there. There are many people that need Jesus. Alright. Well, keep keep praying.
Thank you for being here.
Mike Abbe: Thank you.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always personally invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church, Sunday morning, 08:45AM, 10:45AM. During the 10:45AM service, we have Japanese and Korean translation. That’s also the service you could hear live here on 88.1 FM or khmg.org.
We hope to see you this Sunday. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.