Ten-year-old Joe watched movies and played video games with friends at his home in the Solomon Islands. But he wasn’t happy.

Joe’s family lived in a poor neighborhood in the South Pacific country’s capital, Honiara. Neighbors sold illegal drugs, and children stole and got into trouble with the police.

Joe’s house was a popular place for neighborhood boys to hang out every evening. He noticed that one of his friends didn’t talk like the other boys and participated in something called a Pathfinder club every Sabbath. Joe decided to join his friend at the Seventh-day Adventist church to learn more. Soon, he joined the Pathfinders as well and went to church every Sabbath.

After a while, Joe and the other Pathfinders were invited to fly to Australia to attend a camporee for Pathfinders from all over the South Pacific Division. He really wanted to go, so Mom worked hard to save money for his plane ticket. When Mom was finally able to buy his ticket, Joe flew to the camporee and enjoyed every second of it!

When Joe returned home and the neighborhood boys came over that evening, he told stories from the camporee. The boys loved the stories, so they asked to hear more the next evening.

Then Joe thought to himself, My friends like to hear about Pathfinders. Why not tell them about Jesus, too? So each evening when his friends came over, Joe kept telling them stories from the Pathfinder camporee but also began to share stories from the Bible.

Joe’s friends enjoyed his stories so much that they invited other boys from the neighborhood to come hear them, too. Soon 30 to 40 boys came to Joe’s house every evening to learn more about Jesus. Although Mom didn’t have much money, she began to cook food for the children to eat after story time. She somehow always had enough food for everyone.

Joe’s new friends began to ask him if they could join Pathfinders, and four joined him at church the next Sabbath. More of his friends came to church the following week.

The Pathfinder leader couldn’t understand where all these children were coming from. “Joe, why are so many kids from your neighborhood coming to Pathfinder club?” he asked. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Joe replied. “I just tell them stories about what we did in Australia, and we have evening devotions. That’s all.”

The leader asked to visit Joe’s home to see the evening get-togethers for himself. When he came that evening, he was amazed

at what he saw. Afterward, he said to Mom, “This neighborhood would be a good place to open a church.”

He noticed that Joe’s house had a large unfinished living room that no one used and asked if it could be used for Sabbath worship services. Mom agreed. Several dozen neighborhood children came to Joe’s house for church the next Sabbath. All the Pathfinder leaders and their families came as well, and they brought food for everyone.

Then something happened that made Joe very happy: Mom decided to be baptized! Not long after, his 20-year-old cousin was baptized too, and so were three of his neighborhood friends whom Joe had introduced to Pathfinders.

Today, Joe’s living room is packed every Sabbath with about 70 people, and plans are under way to open a permanent church in the neighborhood.

Now, Joe is 13 years old. He’s humble in appearance and speech, but no one doubts that God is using him in a powerful way.

“I may be small, but in God’s hands, I can grow a church,” Joe says.

Like Joe, you, too, can help grow God’s church as you share Jesus with your friends and family.