This morning a couple of the men in the village took us all out to an island where we spent part of the day. We glided through dark blue waters in a fiberglass boat powered by an outboard motor on the back. The village lay behind us as we motored through the passageway out toward the open ocean. Except for a few swirling eddies made by flow of the currents coming in and out of the passage, the waters were deep and calm.

Here and there a house or two sat nestled along the shoreline and on the hillsides felled trees marked the site of a future garden. Overhead, whispy white clouds floated across the blue sky. As we neared the island, the dark blue waters gave way to aqua and peering over the edge of the boat, we began to see coral and fish.

The motor slowed down and inched toward the beach, but the kids couldn’t wait and jumped into the crystal clear waters and ran toward the white sand beach. We unloaded the boat and the guys got back in the boat so they could head out fishing. A couple of hours later they triumphantly returned with over a dozen fish. The kids are outside laughing together as they scale the fish.

In the meantime the rest of us stayed on the island and enjoyed swimming and walking along the beach looking for seashells. An occasional fisherman paddled past in a wooden canoe a fair distance from the island, but otherwise our island paradise was ours to enjoy alone. When we looked out at the scenery that surrounded, we had to remind ourselves that this wasn’t merely a picture postcard we were looking at but a glorious part of the Solomon Islands that we are privileged to be able to visit.

Most of the time our day to day lives here are far from idyllic scenes of waving palm trees and the sea lapping up at our toes. However we thank God for his creation and the wonderful opportunity to experience this small slice of it today.