A Happy Event In Malta
Solomon Oyinlade is a refugee from Africa who made his way to Malta. For some time he has been studying Bible Basics with my son, Duncan, and then he attended the small ecclesia in Malta. Solomon first contacted us from the www.carelinks.net websites; more recently he met Bro Mike Tanner from the UK who was very impressed with his knowledge of the Truth. After some further correspondence with me concerning his answers to Bible Basics, Solomon requested baptism. As Duncan was away doing baptisms in Egypt, I went to Malta to do this baptism and was very happy to work with the CBM Linkman for Malta, Bro Derek Davies. After we had briefly interviewed Solomon, confirming the interview with Bro Tanner, I gave a baptismal address based around the word ‘baptism’ and then baptized him in the Mediterranean Sea. Afterwards Bro Derek gave a confidence-building exhortation about Christ as the door and received Bro Solomon into fellowship. All the local Maltese brothers and sister were present and helped in the service in various ways.
The Baptism
Solomon lives in the Hal Far refugee centre, a collection of canvas tents which houses 5,000 refugees. There are 350 canvas tents accommodating 14 refugees each. There are seven double tiered bunks, spaced about 1 metre apart. Bro Solomon has a top bunk and sleeps with his face very near the canvas above him. It’s very cold in winter at night, and probably will be very hot in summer. Each refugee has a small personal locker for their few possessions – in Solomon’s case this includes his Bible and Bible Basics. Each of the tent blocks have a dusty chalk roadway between them, the dust from which is easily blown by the wind making the site atmosphere very dry. However, the refugee camp seemed well managed and organised.
Our brother has a job in a hotel, travelling 90 minutes each way to tand from the camp and has little free time. I was very impressed by the local Maltese brothers and sisters and the work done on the Island by Bro Derek and his team. There are 145,000 units of accommodation on Malta, and so far leaflets have been distributed to 80,000 of them. The leaflets feature the phone numbers of local brothers and sister and advertise Bible Basics and other Christadelphian literature. They receive about one reply every 500 leaflets distributed. The leaflets are relevant, modern, and full-colour- the latest one is about true ‘saints’, in contrast to the recent Roman Catholic canonization of the first Maltese ‘saint’.
I left Malta feeling the apostle Paul would be happy that on this Island where he spent some months, there is now a small but zealous ecclesia awaiting the coming of the Lord.
M Heaster
