Three weeks to go

Three weeks to go and we will no longer be at Talua - that is creating many mixed feelings. Last night the children at Talua put on a farewell for Connie, William and Simon. It wasn’t last night, I should say it was yesterday, as most events here involve a day of preparation, where everyone comes together to prepare. It would be like having guests around for a BBQ, but they also all come around during the day to cook and prepare the food together, sitting under a tree organizing who will say what and being community together. I will miss that. I will miss many things. I will miss some things I don’t even know about. And yet I desire to get back to NZ. I am looking forwards to be “normal” again, to eat normal food, to not have students or staff knock on the door at 5:30AM asking for this or that in their roundabout way, to have good health care available, to not be ‘stared at’ as if we are strange, to be able go to a church service in English and enjoy theology that is developed and the list goes on, some things I can name, other things that are too hard to express. On the other hand we have feelings of hesitation about leaving due to the friendships made, the number of needs, the simple way of life and the knowledge that NZ life is hectic, materialistic and complicated. No doubt we will have some kind of reverse culture shock, probably not initially but later as we each slowly process things we have seen and experienced and decide to buck the NZ system, not wanting to lose certain aspects of life we gained or adsorbed in Vanuatu. What will make this hard is we will have absorbed some things that we don’t realise or are too difficult to articulate. Therefore no doubt we will have various times of frustration and not know why.

I preach for a call soon after getting back to NZ. That will be interesting, I wonder if I drop some Bislama in by mistake - not that my Bislama is very fluent.

I don’t want to be a successful minister - in the way the world see’s success, with numbers, flash clothes and slick church services. On the other hand I do want to be successful in the sense that people grow in their relationships with each other and God, and yes, there should be new converts but not cos of me but because peoples relationships with God and each other are richer. On the issue of success, from the world’s perspective Jesus Christ failed. He died when if he had kept alive he could have healed more, preached more, travelled more……..but he died. I think that somehow a minister has to die, die to the need for success, for slickness and sophistication where amazing programs are run and people come to church for entertainment, escapism and not true spiritual growth. One beauty of Jesus dying is he rose again three days later - no one else has ever done that! It confirms that profound words he spoke during his few short years of ministry were true and not just a kind of philosophy and clever sayings. It proved that to be successful one must die. Jesus said “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” I wonder if I will be able to die to self…………………

God Bless
Jon

PCV General Assembly 2007

It was a privilege to attend the PCV GA.

Getting there was as much an adventure as the event, and getting back was a test of in patience.
Talua staff all ready to head off to the boat when we were told it was a day behind schedule.
24 hours later we arrived to find they were still loading cargo. After another four hours waiting we could board. Our luggage was loaded and piled up with a tarpaulin put over top. Then another tarpaulin put over us for sun protection. Before we boarded the skipper assured us the boat was safe and legal, and that there were enough life boats if we needed them. He also asked that once everyone was settled, they stay put due to the overcrowding.


So everyone found a space, lying or sitting on cargo, or luggage, a few seats in the back and some sitting on 44 gallon drums of fuel. At around 8pm we headed off, with most people trying to get some sort of sleep.

I had been told before that one normally sleeps 10 minutes at a time, waking up and going back to sleep for another 10 minutes repeating the process for the whole night. Up till around midnight I used a 44 gallon drum as a kind of pillow – I got my 10 minutes doze now and then. Around 1AM I was given one of the crew bunks, and I managed longer than 10 minutes at a time, getting up around 5AM.

Upon waking it was a pleasure to see the day would be a cracker and we were passing Ambae Island. Breakfast crackers and mugs of tea were passed around for breakfast.

Two hours later we arrived at the very north of Pentecost and the day’s journey down the cost of Pentecost began.

The barge dropped off supplies to the scattered villages down the cost of the island.

Drums of fuel would be tossed into the sea, a crew member would then hold the drum as a small dingy would go inshore.

The cargo unloaded was a mixture of items; iron, cement, food and clothing were loaded onto two small dinghies’ to be delivered to the villages.

As we made our way down the island, crew looked out for smoke rising from any beach, the smoke being a sign that a village had cargo to be loaded onto the boat.

We spent the daylight hours going down the coast of Pentecost. This frustrated some of the people travelling to the assembly but I enjoyed the boat trip as the weather was nice, the sea was calm and Pentecost is a beautiful island.

We arrived at North Ambrym in the dark, more cargo was unloaded and loaded before we headed for South East Ambrym, arriving around 1AM. It took 2 hours to unload all our bags and selves into the small dinghy’s which then navigated through the reef landing at Moru Village. It was a very special feeling to arrive at Moru. In 2005 I helped build water tanks and in 2006 helped paint the church roof. The first voice I heard was Ps Jackson – it was a joy to meet him again and hear his familiar voice. We then hopped on a truck and headed off to Utas. It felt great to be back to South East Ambrym, seeing familiar faces and places. I got to bed around 3:30AM and up again at 5AM as the day kicked off with showers, breakfast, and the opening of the assembly. It was a good thing our boat got us there in time for the opening as the PCV moderator was on our boat.

I enjoyed being at the GA, it gave me hope for the future of the PCV because there are plenty of keen & committed pastors. When praying together I sensed the Holy Spirit (it can’t have been too much coffee in my system – I only had one cup a day). I did find the meeting procedure tedious but when a lot of people can’t read, the previous days minutes have to be read out, word for word.

One highlight was the daily Bible studies – the theme was Evangelism. The speakers were good with their talks leading to good discussion in the small group sessions. Many of the issues talked about are issues PCANZ congregations need to be thinking about.

The living conditions at GA were basic, although (thanks to St. Ninian’s Church, Blenheim); there was a sit down long drop available as well as the plenty of swat hole toilets). The shower was not very private and the water only worked now and then so I came home a bit smelly! My accommodation was a temporary thatch hut with a thatch floor and I could see the sky though the thatch roof. There was no door – just a curtain.

The food was OK but as time went on I think the cooks got a little tired – who wouldn’t having to cook around 400 people? When it rained – and it rained a lot near the end – it must have been very unpleasant to cook for so many people on open fires.

The evening before I was due to fly out it started to rain. A couple of tropical depressions turned up (a high out towards Fiji and a low out towards Aussie) and so it blew and poured for the next few days. The grass airstrip was closed until five days later, so my time at GA was nearly doubled.

The main meeting hall was a temporary structure with thatch walls and a corrugated iron roof - the iron just sitting there with concrete blocks holding it down. When the rain began people would be shifting around trying to dodge drops of water. After one particularly heavy downpour, we thought our huts and everything inside them would be soaking but amazingly not much water ended up inside the thatch roofed huts. This surprised me because I could see daylight through the roof of my hut. Some groups did have small streams of water flow through their huts but a bit of digging soon stopped that.

The rain caused damage on South East Ambrym. The main road to the airport had a 15meter wash out. On the way to the airport climbing down and back up out of the wash out on foot was a little tricky. The water supply was also cut off, most likely due to the dams being clogged up with ash (happens every big rain), and presumably pipes lying in the creek being damaged from flood debris.

So I got back to Talua, five days late but it didn’t matter – it was a blessing to attend and spend time with neat people.

God Bless
Jon