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Each day started with a devotion.
One morning we saw the gospel story acted out using local symbols.
Jesus, a handsome young pastor, very black, was crucified on a
coconut tree, which is known in this part of the world as "the
tree of life" because of all the gifts it gives the people.
After a while he walked away from the tree and draped a white
bedsheet over his head. Then various people approached him, each
with a problem. One group was thirsty, so he gave them some green
coconuts and showed how to cut them open. One group was hungry,
so he gave them dry coconuts and showed how to grate them. One
group learned how to make fire with the husks, one group learned
how to weave with the leaves. After a while, the people from each
group stood up and slowly approached Jesus by the tree. Each group
offered him some of their abundance, which had come from him in
the first place, and all joined in singing a hymn together.
The first principal of Onesua, Ian Gray from New Zealand, visited
the modern campus with his wife, Lesley. In his talk to the assembled
visitors on the last day, he told a personal story from the very
beginnings of the school. In 1953, Ian and Lesley came to Onesua
and lived in a bamboo hut. The youngest of their three children,
Shirley, was only about 2 years old. She climbed up on a chair
one day while everyone else was outside, and then climbed onto
the table. She then found that she could just reach the high shelf
where the family's malaria medicine was stored. Ian and Lesley
found Shirley sitting happily on the table, surrounded by spilled
malaria tablets, and wondered what to do. They read the handout
that came with the medicine, and since it said nothing about overdoses,
they decided not to immediately take Shirley to the hospital.
Several hours later, when Shirley went to sleep and could not
be awakened, they took her to town, but by then it was too late.
It may have been too late anyway. They will never know. Shirley
died. Ian and Lesley stayed at Onesua for another seven years,
and together founded an educational tradition that created national
leaders for Vanuatu in every area of life. This was a striking
story for Lora and me, first because it's every missionary's worst
nightmare: what risks are we exposing our children to? But it's
also a story of deep commitment and trust. The real work was achieved
after the disaster; the bravery in carrying on in the face of
personal tragedy and guilt helped build a nation. Now the Grays
are creating a scholarship fund in Shirley's memory. The fund
will help promising Onesua students pursue further education to
continue the tradition started fifty years ago. If you'd like
to contribute, let me know. I'll put you in touch with the Grays.
The second principal of Onesua, Bill Francis, also a New Zealander,
was here with his wife Mary. They led Onesua in the sixties and
helped expand the school's programs. In those days there weren't
large, cinderblock dormitories like there are today. The students
stayed in little two-person huts. No student was allowed to room
with another student from the same island; they were required
to mix, sometimes with hereditary enemies of their home island.
Bill told me that once in a while a student would try to refuse
to stay with "a man from a poison island," but would
end up choosing to stay at Onesua and live together rather than
lose the chance for an education. It was in this way, in the little
two-person huts at Onesua, that inter-island links and national
unity were forged. When independence was finally achieved in 1980,
there was talk of some islands breaking away, but the archipelago
managed to hang together, all 100 different languages, instead
of breaking into microstates that would have no chance of succeeding
on their own.
The Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu held its annual General Assembly
in the meeting hall, and the Presbyterian Women's Missionary Union
held its annual convention in the chapel. Both places were decorated
with flowers and banners, (including yours, Vancouver, Washington!)
and the whole campus looked festive and beautiful. There were
serious issues discussed, and decisions made about important subjects,
but even the meetings seemed mostly fun, with the welcoming of
new pastors, just graduated from Talua Seminary, and the recognition
ceremony marking the retirement of several pastors who have served
the church since long before national independence.
I got to meet a lot of people, since I was one of the official
photographers. Shooting people makes for a great conversation
starter, and the pictures, which will be compiled into an album
for Onesua's archives, will be fun for future students to see.
The closing of the Golden Jubilee was fun, because there were
many gifts to all who had helped make the celebration such a success.
Necklaces, carvings, and woven mats were given to the visitors
as souvenirs, and each village was given food! A pile of cooking
bananas and root crops, along with a live pig, showed the gratitude
felt by Onesua for the support of the surrounding villages. The
symbolic torch blew out in the wind, and nobody really minded.
The dance went on, and the local dancers gave the torch to dancers
from Malekula Island, where next year's assembly will be held.
Again, there was lots of singing, speeches, and string band music
into the night.
We enjoyed meeting David Walter, a previous missionary from PC(USA)
to Onesua. He is largely responsible for starting the computer
lab here on campus, and he tried to teach me a little about taking
care of it better. The climate here is very hard on electronics
because of the humidity and the salt spray. Thanks to David, I
can now change such things as memory cards and disk drives. Even
more fun, we got to swap a lot of stories. David has Vanuatu in
his blood, as if it's some hideous tropical disease, and he has
a relapse about every year and comes back. He will be leading
a study group next year, and we are already looking forward to
seeing him again. If any of you are interested in visiting for
a couple of weeks as part of a PC(USA) sponsored tour next year,
let me know. We'll connect you with David.
After everyone got rested up from the festivities, we were invited
for a trip in Takara's big canoe. The village knew that I was
interested, so they let us come down for a ride, along with Caroline,
the Australian English teacher, and a friend of hers, Karen, who
was visiting for the day. We walked down to Takara, and sailed
away in silence, watching the reef drop away below us into deep
blue. It was remarkable. I have never been on a sailing canoe
before, and they are wonderful inventions in many ways. For example,
they are not rigid. The outrigger flexes independently of the
hull, which allows the craft to ride over the waves with a lot
of stability. The outrigger balances out the extremes of the waves.
We all got very wet with spray, were too busy watching flying
fish to get seasick, and had a great time. I have a lot of respect
for the ancestors of the Ni-Vanuatu, who traveled from island
to island in canoes such as these. They were careful enough to
build good craft, and brave enough to use them. The canoe will
be used to give rides to tourists, and will hopefully earn some
money for the village. After the trip, we sat at Elder Albert's
house for a while. Karen wanted to buy a mat woven from pandanus
leaves, and one of the women in the village had one for sale,
so Karen bought the mat right there in Takara, where the money
is needed. She did a nice job of trying to speak Bislama; communication
was established with a little help and a lot of laughter, and
the effort was appreciated. We were invited to stay for a feast,
but it was already almost dark so we made a small donation to
the feast, which was a fundraiser for a bride price payment, and
started to walk home. First, though, we had to wait for some food
to be ready so that we would not leave empty handed. That would
have been very rude. We walked home in moonlight, eating tulok,
which is a fist-sized lump of grated manioc with a surprise piece
of meat in the center to give it some flavor. You partly unwrap
it from the leaves that wrapped it up while it was cooked in a
pit lined with stones, hold the leaves just like you would hold
a hamburger in its paper wrapper while eating it, and then toss
the leaves into the jungle along the road as you finish. Crabs
clean up the leaves in the night. Karen talked on the way home
of her impressions of Takara. She works in Vila, the capital city,
and has only been in the country a month. This was her first visit
to a village. It is a very strange experience to walk into a cluster
of tin shacks interspersed with thatched huts, with skinny dogs
and naked kids and flies and smells, and to be welcomed with hospitality
and respect and laughter.
Bride price is the custom of the husband's family paying gifts
to the wife's family to repay them for the cost of losing a woman's
labor and offspring to the husband's family and village. It used
to be an occasion of conspicuous consumption, with families and
villages vying with each other to see how much they could earn
for one of their daughters or how much they could afford to pay
for a new bride. In order to keep families from bankrupting themselves,
parliament passed a price cap; $800, or its equivalent in gifts
of food and mats, is the maximum you can pay for a bride. Every
bride, at least in the more developed parts of the nation, costs
the same then, since as a matter of family pride no one wants
to pay less for their bride.
In a Bible study I lead at the Ebule Rural Training Center, the
students had their own perspective on the story of the day, 2
Kings 4: 1-7. (This lesson idea came from "The Face is Familiar",
the 2003-4 Horizons Bible Study, by Presbyterian Women. Let me
know if you'd like a copy.) I thought this was a story about an
indebted widow asking for help from neighbors in order to keep
her children from being sold into slavery, and about how the grace
of God can create abundance when a village helps its most vulnerable
members. The students, though, focused on something entirely different.
What kind of a village is this, they asked, where a widow isn't
taken care of? Where is the husband's family? There is no way
the children could be sold as slaves! It is interesting to me
that in village life, including the practice of bride price, everybody
belongs. It is true that women do not have equal rights with men
here in Vanuatu, and that bride price is one sign of that sexist
tradition. In the old days, a necklace of shell beads could buy
a young woman against her will! But it is also true that in a
traditional village, everyone knows who belongs to whom, and no
one is left out. If we were going to craft a good society, one
flexible yet reliable, what knowledge would we use from the past?
What modern tools would we incorporate to make it stronger and
more secure for all the passengers?
Lora and I will leave for Brisbane on Monday for about a week.
Lora damaged her knee dancing with her kindergarteners, and there
is no one in Vanuatu who can repair the torn cartilage. Kinsey
and Emily will stay here at Onesua with Caroline. It is a sign
of our trust in this community that all of us are comfortable
with that decision. And we are grateful to you, the larger community,
which supports us in many ways, including making it possible for
us to have access to modern medicine when we need it. Please remember
us in your prayers.
I wish you a month full of new symbols of grace, as abundant
as a coconut tree. I wish you a month of forgiving yourself for
past decisions that have caused pain, and the gift of transforming
that pain into opportunities to serve. And I wish you hope for
peace, for a world that we build together, like roommates forced
to share a hut, where we learn that the old fears of the past
are silly, that the fear itself is the poison, and that we can
work toward a world where violence is just a show and the victims
get to stand up and join the victor's dance.
Lora and I each wear a shell bead necklace. We belong to each
other, and to you, and to God.
Love and peace,
Bruce
The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
191
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