August 11, 2004

Letter 25

Hello from Vanuatu, where we have just celebrated the second anniversary of our arrival! Wow! Two years? In some ways, the time has gone slowly. Sometimes the days drag, and I get tired of waiting for the refrigerator to be repaired, or frustrated at trying to solve the same problem that I thought that I had solved last year (and the year before that, too!).

In other ways, the time has gone very quickly; there’s still plenty of work to be done, and the days are each as full as we are willing to make them. The “girls” are really young women now and are becoming remarkably independent and resourceful. One of our friends was reflecting back on his days in the mission field, and says that he doesn’t think he “was ever so spiritually, physically, artistically, intellectually alive as I was in Mexico.” Thanks for the list, Paul. That’s how we feel! Life is vivid here, and to live vividly is a good thing, even through the hard times of learning. That’s where faith grows.

Last month (letter 24) I talked about “Survivor,” which had just started filming in Vanuatu. They had not really made a very good first impression, and were creating a lot of hard feelings. Well, they are wrapping up filming now, and have improved their relationships a lot. They granted some interviews to the local newspaper and are now generally perceived as being friendlier. I think they relaxed. (The Pacific will do that to you.) They evidently finished sooner than they had planned and had thousands of dollars worth of leftover food. Rather than ship it all home, they donated it to Vila Central Hospital. It was so much food that it wouldn’t even fit in the hospital’s storage rooms, so they negotiated with a local market to store the extra, including 250 cartons of frozen foods.

This is a clear contrast to the U.S. armed forces at the end of World War II. When the time came to dismantle all the staging areas and supply depots in Vanuatu, the United States decided to sell the non-armament supplies, such as trucks and tents, which were no longer needed. The British and the French, who ruled Vanuatu at that time, knew that the United States wasn’t about to pay to ship all the stuff home, so they refused to buy it. They figured that they could eventually get it for free. The United States offered ridiculously low prices, but insisted on getting something. Neither side would budge, and so the United States ended up driving tons and tons of equipment off the ends of wharfs into the sea, where it remains to this day, still leaking oil as it corrodes. The most famous of the dumping sites is called Million Dollar Point and is a favorite scuba-diving site near Santo Island. How incredibly stupid! The Ni-Vanuatu, who could have really used some solidly built trucks, still shake their heads in amazement at the greed of both sides. “Survivor” did a lot better job with their surplus!

Vila Central is the same hospital that Onesua donated some emergency food to back in June (letter 23). At that time we were digging the last of the manioc that was ready for harvest, and we didn’t know whether the school would have enough food to feed the students for the rest of the year. The Chinese government donated tons of rice and flour to Vanuatu in a cyclone relief effort, so the hospital gave some of its share back to Onesua. Since we had already received our share of the Chinese donation, we are now in the position of having more than we need. We delivered a truckload of fresh Chinese cabbage as a donation to the national prison last week, we’re selling the new crop of manioc to an export firm in Vila, and the school council will meet this week to decide whether to lower school fees for the rest of the year. This is an amazing turn-around, what seems to me a true miracle of abundance. I think about Jesus confronting the disciples who thought it was impossible to feed the hungry crowd. “How many loaves do you have? Go and see” (Mark 6:48). In this case, I was the doubting disciple; there were a lot more loaves than I had ever dreamed.

Last night Lora baked two cornbreads instead of one, and Emily took the spare one across the lawn to our neighbors. Today Leiwia brought over some steamed squash in coconut milk. Food-sharing is typical here. The custom probably originated in the days when there was no way to preserve food, but now the custom is preserved, not the food.

In letter 23 I also mentioned that Vanuatu was having an election. This is a parliamentary system, like the United Kingdom’s, where the majority party chooses the prime minister. For the last dozen years or so, there has been no clear majority, so coalitions are formed. This election was mostly orderly, except on the island of Tanna, where a mob claimed that there had been illegal voting, stole the ballot boxes as they were being taken to the airport, and burned them, ballots and all.

Court decisions on that will take a while, but the election went ahead. This year the Parliament is more fragmented than ever before, with the 52 seats going to 9 different parties, not including nine independents. The Vanuaku Party (mostly Presbyterians), which had 16 seats in the last parliament (including the prime minister), disintegrated in infighting and dropped to only 8 seats in the new parliament. It took about two weeks for enough members of parliament to unite to create a new coalition, and already the new government is under fire from the opposition. There may or may not have already been a no-confidence motion filed (stories differ), but the new prime minister is forging ahead, proclaiming the need for stability. He has announced that the press should no longer be allowed to print articles critical of the government, that many of the expatriates in the country are really spies for their foreign governments, and that if a no confidence motion is filed, he will declare a state of emergency. In yesterday’s newspaper he is quoted as saying, “We have too many foreign advisors in this country. People think white people are wise. No, they are stupid, as how have we benefited after 24 years of using them?”

These are interesting times, yes? So, several thoughts:

First, we are safe, cared for and protected by our Ni-Vanuatu neighbors.

Second, we are guests in this country, at the invitation of the local church, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on local politics. I won’t. All of the above information is common, public knowledge.

Third, I can (and will!) comment on U.S. politics. It may be that when we are faced with internal problems, we might focus on external threats and use them as an excuse to suspend civil rights. It’s always simpler to blame others, to point fingers outward. Still, we are very lucky to be Americans, who use the expression “burning issue” as just a campaign metaphor. Groups out of power talk about the need to reform; groups in power talk about the need for stability. But the key word in both statements is “power.” That’s their real issue, and their real goal.

So where does real power come from? I think it comes from a God who confronts us and asks us to take stock of the resources at hand. “How many loaves do you have?” is a critical question. Those who insist on making a profit end up doing stupid, wasteful things. Those who give carefully, only after a surplus is clearly available, leave mixed messages on the hearts of the people they touch. Those who give freely create life and faith and abundance for everyone: the sick, the prisoners, and the working families trying to pay the bills.

We are very grateful for the gifts that we have received here in Vanuatu, and it is with mixed emotions that we share this news: We have been invited to be “missionaries in residence” at the PC(USA) national headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. I guess that means that we’ve been voted off the island. I think we have been asked to go because we are so good looking. Lora says it’s because they didn’t know what else to do with us. Caroline, our Australian friend, says that it’s about time the church realized that we need to be completely retrained! We will leave Vanuatu at the end of this school year, spend Christmas in Montana, and start work in Louisville in January. We will probably be there for about 18 months. We hope to spend a fair amount of time in 2005 traveling the United States and telling stories about our “old” work as it fits into the new. Maybe we will meet you! That seems appropriate, since we will have a lot in common. We will share the challenge of finding ways to live vividly and joyfully in a society that tends toward fragmentation, that often does not enhance all the aspects of life that we need to be really alive. A lot of people think that we are strange because we are willing to forego hot showers and refrigerators that work; I think that most Americans are strange because they are willing to forego creating real communities, communities that reach out to everyone and create complete and meaningful lives. How many resources do we have? Go and see.

Bake two pans of cornbread and give one away!

Love and peace,

Bruce

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 101