We returned from the workshop today (Wednesday) with word that an email had come in for us from a colleague in Honiara. The ship that we are supposed to take to town was stuck on the reef and now has arrived in Honiara. So, that means the ship is delayed and now isn’t scheduled to leave Buala, the provincial capital, until Saturday evening getting us to Honiara in the early morning of Sunday. Hmmm. Will there be a plan D or E before we get to town? Emily has taken accepted the news with grace.

The workshop continues to go well. The participants are doing really well and excited about what they are learning. When we had our break around noon, the group surprised us with a feast. Planks were laid on top of pews in the church and brightly colored tablecloths with crocheted edging. Pots, plates and bowls were laid out on the table filled with rice, sweet potatoes, slices of juicy pineapple, noodles and fish. (Some of the fish are colorful reef fish that you would find in a US pet store with triple digit price tags!) The participants also brought me orchid plants and other flowers to plant in my garden in town.

A few words of thanks were given by one of the leading women in the church who is also participating in the workshop. After Tim prayed for the food, we began filling our plates while the workshop participants sang songs in beautiful harmony for us. When everyone had mostly finished eating, the man who heads up the translation committee stood up and gave some words of thanks to us for coming. We were given a chance to say a few words as well. It was really a very nice feast and it made us feel us very special. Normally such a feast would be held on the last day, but since everyone thought that we were leaving tomorrow the feast was held today. Of course now we won’t leave until Saturday, but never the less we celebrated today!

If Emily has any regrets about growing up in the Solomon Islands, it is probably that she didn’t get to live in a village for a long enough to learn a local language. She envies her MK (missionary kid) friends who spent many years living in a village because their parents are Bible translators. Emily has enjoyed the opportunity to hang out in a village this week.

Kids here have a lot of freedom in the village. They can run and play outside all day, jump in the sea for a swim or take a ride in a canoe. If someone is cooking, it’s not unusual for someone to offer the kids a bit to eat – villagers are so pleased when the MK’s like the local food!

The other day someone came to the house with a few sticks of sugar cane for the kids. The Emily and Grant quickly grabbed a machete and headed outside to cut the cane in pieces and share them around. After the outer skin is cut off, big bites of the cane are broken off and chewed to release the sugary sweet juice inside. When the juice is all gone, the tasteless bits of cane are spit out on the ground.

Last night Emily and Tim went to the evening prayer service and afterward Emily and Grant (one of the other MK’s) hung out with the village kids. They strolled around the village and the kids were telling Emily the names for different things in the Zabana Language. Later they sat around and the kids told Emily some of their traditional stories. She had a wonderful time hanging out with the kids.

Village life is not perfect, but there are some really nice advantages. We always know that when the kids are wandering around the village, they will be watched and cared for by the whole community. It’s a nice feeling.

Tuesday afternoon

The workshop went well today. The students have now learned the first half of the coursework which involves teaching students to read and write stories. We finished the workshop by 2:30. Tomorrow we start training them to teach the phonics part of the program.

After the workshop, I walked through the village. It was quiet and I didn’t see many people, although I did see a few escaping the hot afternoon sun by taking a nap. Others were probably out tending their gardens or harvesting food for their dinners. The trail through the village curves and follows the coastline. It’s a pretty village with flowers growing along the path and around people’s houses.

At 4:30 we gathered around the two-way radio to talk to our office in Honiara. A friend in Honiara was able to buy us tickets on a ship that is making a trip to the other end of the island. We will have to meet the ship at the provincial capital of Buala. In order to get there, we will hire someone to take us in his fiberglass boat with a 40 horsepower outboard motor. We will leave here Friday morning, expecting the journey to Buala to take 5 – 6 hours. The ship is due to leave Buala Friday night and travel through the night with an expected arrival in Honiara early morning on Saturday. The air conditioned cabin is already booked, so we will have seats in the second class cabin where Tim sat on the way out. If it all works out, we should get into town in time for Emily to attend the youth group retreat.

Here it’s always a relief when you can get to your destination although often it is often not by ‘Plan A’.

Tuesday evening

Dark clouds on the horizon threatened rain most of the afternoon. It finally came around dusk with a very heavy downfall making quite a racket on the corrugated iron roof. It will be nice to be able to take showers again rather than bathing with dipperfuls of water from a basin.

With the rain came flying insects that descended on the house. It is a bit of a mystery how they get in the house, but soon there were hundreds of them swarming around the lights and on the walls. After a while they die and fall to the floor. It’s quite annoying when they come in as it makes it difficult to do much of anything. This morning (Wednesday) there were piles of them to sweep up off the floor. These insects do not come everytime it rains, but every once in a while the conditions must be right and they descend in droves!

Seventeen men and women arrived this morning for the teacher training workshop. Amazingly, we started just before the scheduled 9:00 opening time with Tim leading in a short devotional. Except for a short break at noon we continued until 3:30 pm. The participants are excited to be in the workshop.

Lee and the literacy committee are working on a beginning reading book in Zabana which we are training them to use. Tim and I taught most of the workshop today using Solomon Islands Pijin. The students then do their practice teaching in the Zabana language in small groups. Lee, Tim and I observed the groups to make sure that they include all the steps of the lesson we have taught them and are doing them properly. We will teach the workshop tomorrow through Thursday.

When we got back to the house, we found out that an email had come in for us from Honiara. We were planning on taking a canoe on Thursday afternoon to a port about an hour or so away in order to catch the ship back to Honiara. Because of a tsunami disaster relief charter, the planned trip out here is delayed until Sunday. We will be explore other options for getting back to town.

We’d appreciate your prayers for some kind of transportation to open up so that we can get back in a timely way. Emily will be very disappointed to miss her youth group retreat scheduled for this weekend and the girls are due to go back to school on Monday.

Travel in the Solomon Islands is always interesting and unpredictable.

We woke to a drizzling rain. The rain is welcome as yesterday one of the water tanks ran dry. At 6:30 am the church drum pounded out a rhythm that sounded like it would never end. We ate a little breakfast and got ready to walk down the hill to the church service.

The church building is a long building made of bush materials. The floor is loose pieces of coral. It is a typical Anglican style church. A wide aisle separates the women’s side from the men’s. As worshipers enter the church they drop monetary gifts or lay produce from their gardens at a cement stand.

Heavy wooden benches provide seating with the added luxury of a back to lean upon. Scattered among the pews were kneeling pads woven from pandanas leaf. The two priests assigned to this church were not in the village so the service was lead by the local catechist. Prayers and liturgy were said in the English language with some people reading along in their prayer books, but much of it would be said by memory.The Scripture readings were read in English. Some day they will be able to read them from the Zabana New Testament.

After the service we wandered back to the house to wait for the drum for Sunday School. The appointed hour came and went and it appeared that Sunday School might be cancelled for the day. Eventually the drum was sounded and Lee, Robin and I went down. Lee and Robin are both Sunday School teachers. I went down to take some video and photos.

The Sunday School was filled with preschoolers through teenagers. The teacher led them in singing – some in English, some another local language and then in their own language of Zabana. Their strong voices belted out the songs in rich harmony. The kids were broken up into their various classes for a time of Bible teaching and then came together again for the closing time.

At my special request, the teachers helped arrange the kids in the new church building, that is almost complete, so we could video tape them singing in the Zabana language. Over 150 kids patiently stood in the church and joyously sang out – many with animated faces. What a privilege to be in this place and hear them sing and pray in their own language. I couldn’t help think about when we are all in heaven and standing at the throne singing praises to God. Maybe some of it will be in the Zabana language.

After lunch we played a board game that the Lees taught us and then we went down to the church. We were going to videotape the village kids playing a game with coconut shells, but when we got there we found a feast about to start to honor a woman who had died a year ago. People were standing in lines facing each other. Between the rows of people, banana leaves were laid end-to-end and covered with food. Sweet potatoes, fish, clams, rice and even sea turtle meat was ready to be enjoyed. After a word of prayer, the feasting began. Not one piece of silverware could be seen, but clamshells were being used as individual scoops by a few. Each person helped themselves to the food in front of them. People continued to eat as the family and friends of the deceased said a few words of kindness.

After a short time the food was finished, the bowls, pots and banana leaves were cleared away and the churchyard was returned to its normal state.

The kids soon gathered to play the coconut game for us. They had fun playing it and it was good to get it on video.

Tonight we are going on a crocodile hunt! We asked the boat driver who took us to the island yesterday if we could see a crocodile. Tonight the adventuresome among us will go out in the fiberglass boat and paddle along the coastline with a strong flashlight and see if we can spot a crocodile. We’ll keep you posted as to whether you can call us ‘Crocodile Matzke’ or not!

Sunday Night – ‘Crocodile Hunt’

Just after dark we made our way through the village to the house of our boat driver. The narrow muddy trail meandered between houses that were illuminated by kerosene lanterns. Our flashlights lit the trail in front of us and as we passed by the dark silhouette of a person we would greet them with ‘redu vehana’ (good evening) in Zabana.

Ian, our boat driver and host for the evening, lives in a house built on posts over the edge of the lagoon. We visited for a while and then we headed out in the fiberglass boat to look for crocodiles. Ian sat on the bow of the boat with a long paddle while his nephew steered from the stern. Vowing the kids to silence, the boat glided into the dark lagoon. The sky above was full of ominous gray clouds. The waveless water was black except for the phosphorescence stirred up by the paddles. Each time the paddle dipped into the water and was drawn back, the plankton were disturbed and emitted a trail of small glowing lights that faded behind us.

The shoreline around the lagoon was silhouetted against the gray sky. As we neared the far side, our hosts shone large flashlights along the shore looking for crocodile eyes peeking above the water or any other sign of a crocodile. Now and then we heard a noise in the mangrove trees at the edge, but no sign of any crocs. Occasionally our flashlights illuminated fish jumping out of the water and we wondered if something was under the water chasing them. The men said it was too early in the night for crocodiles and when it started to rain, we gave up the hunt. Our driver started up the engine and we motored back into the village and home to a shower and bed. Seeing a crocodile would have been fun, but we won’t soon forget the trip around the lagoon, listening to the sounds of nature and seeing the shore dotted with the lights of houses along the shoreline.

Tomorrow – Monday morning, we begin our teacher training workshop.

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.

The beating of the church drum at 6:15 AM announced the new day and called people to the morning prayer service at the Anglican church down the hill from the house. We didn’t get up for the prayer service, but lazily stayed in bed for a while. The kids started stirring and chatting and soon we were all enjoying freshly made doughnuts that Robin had made.

This morning we took a walk to one end of the village where the local primary school is located. We were able to meet with the school headmaster and chat about a pilot program that we would like to see introduced at the school. This program, similar to another one that we have developed, would teach kids to read and write in their own language before learning English. The headmaster was very receptive to the idea and when we are assured of the funding of the project, Lee Montgomery will be able to introduce it to this school.

As we walked through the village, we greeted those whose houses we passed. We were met with smiles and welcoming remarks. The village stretches along the narrow strip of land between the lagoon and the steep hills behind. The houses along the water’s edge are built on stilts over the water and often have a wooden plank or logs that make a walkway to the house. Crocodiles are common in the waters around the village and sometimes they swim under the houses at night and make their presence known when they rub up against the posts, making the house shake.

Around many of the houses we saw wooden dugout canoes; some in small sizes suitable for a small child, typical sized ones that would accommodate one or two adults, and even some huge ones that are twenty-five feet long and are used for carrying cargo, passengers or fishing nets. Out on the water we saw some children and adults out fishing in their canoes.

Along the coastline we saw wooden pigpens on stilts over the water. This provides a sanitary spot for raising the pigs, although on rare occasions a crocodile manages to knock down the pen and enjoy a pork dinner. We saw a couple of outhouses similarly located on stilts out over the water with a narrow wooden walkway up to the door.

One of our last visits was to the new church building that is waiting to be dedicated at the end of the year. The front of the church is covered with narrow panels of beautiful hardwood inlaid with mother of pearl designs. It’s neat to see the church decorated in a local style with local materials.

After lunch we headed out to the other side of the village. We hiked to a part of the village that was high on a hill and had a nice view of the passage below. One of our stops was to visit the head chief of the village to let him know about the workshop that we will hold next week. Another stop was to the home of a friend of the Montgomerys who will be taking us out tomorrow in his motorized canoe to an island where we can swim, snorkel, fish and picnic.

Tim had been planning on making a trip to Kia Village on
Isabel Island to help our literacy colleagues, Lee and Robin Montgomery run a teacher training workshop. Since it is Easter break for the girls, we decided to make it a family trip. We have been watching the shipping schedule and found out that the ship would be heading out Wednesday night. We don’t have internet access here in the village, but can send an email out via radio. So these entries will be posted by a friend in California.

We went down to the wharf shortly after 5:00 pm as the ship was due to leave at 6:00 pm. We carried our luggage on board and spread out the sleeping pads on the floor of the first class cabin. (Picture a 12′ x 12′ room with 13 spaces marked out on the linoleum floor for the passengers. One big advantage is that the cabin was air conditioned – when the ship was underway. The rest of the time it got pretty stuffy!) We piled our cargo on one side of our assigned spaces and spread our floor mats over the rest of our spaces. Because there were only 3 cabin spaces left when we bought our tickets, Tim ended up with a bench down in second class. (No air conditioning, but the open windows brought cool breezes and the bench was padded and long enough to stretch out on!)

On the Estrella with friend, Grant Bruner.

A corner of our cabin aboard the Estrella.

The wharf was full of people, and boxes and cargo waiting to be loaded onto the ship. Six o’clock found us still at the wharf, with the loading process still in full swing. Sometime later, an announcement was made that the ship was ready to go and the last passengers scrambled on board and those who weren’t passengers got off the ship. We pulled out from the wharf and anticipated enjoying a beautiful sunset as we headed out of Honiara. But instead of proceeding on our voyage, we pulled up to the refueling wharf! A fuel truck on the wharf then pumped diesel fuel into the ship’s fuel tanks while we had to enjoy the sunset from the stationary ship. Finally, at about 7:25, the ship left the wharf and we were on our way. The twinkling lights of Honiara shrank behind us as we traveled into the darkness ahead.

Once the ship was on its way and the air conditioning kicked in, I settled down with the book I was reading. Another missionary kid, Grant, is traveling with us to visit the Montgomerys as well. He and the girls sat up at the prow of the ship for quite some time, enjoying the cool breeze and the adventure of plowing through the gently rolling sea.

The self-inflating sleeping pads we travel with provide a comfortable place to sit and sleep. The rush of the day had left us pretty wiped out so we quickly settled down and were soon sleeping. The throbbing of the engine below us and gentle movement of the sea rocked us to sleep. Every once in a while, the heat seeping up from the engine below woke me. Feeling like a meat patty on a grill I’d roll over and fall asleep again. Occasionally another passenger would walk in or out of our cabin disturbing my sleep or the air conditioner would drip on me.

Around 2:00 am we reached the southern most tip of Isabel and the ship reached the first port of call at about 4:00. We woke up around 5:00, thankful that we had slept most of the night and we tried not to think about the fact that we were still not half way through our journey. Daylight found us off shore of one of the many villages where we would call in throughout the day. Cargo and passengers were transferred to the ship’s dingy and taken ashore as they would be at other ports of call along the way. Every time the ship stopped, the air conditioning stopped and the cabin would get warm and stuffy. As the ship got underway people would settle back down and go back to sleep.

The rest of the day we spent sleeping, reading and standing on the deck of the ship enjoying the view. On one side of the ship was Isabel Island and the other side the sea stretched before us reflecting the blue sky above like an impressionistic painting. In some ways it was nice to be able to relax and enjoy the view without worrying about any emails that needed answering or anything else we ‘have’ to do. Relatively speaking, one couldn’t ask for a more pleasant ship trip here in the Solomons.

At one point I realized that my sister and brother-in-law are on a Caribbean cruise this week. What very different experiences we are having! They are feasting, while we eat crackers and room temperature water. It would be a successful trip in my eyes if I drank enough water to keep hydrated, but not too much that I would be forced to use the ‘squatty-potty’ toilet on the ship.

The ship’s crew had told us they expected to reach our destination of Kia around 6:00 pm as there hadn’t been a lot of cargo to unload along the way. The sun began to set and a beautiful twilight evening descended on us. We sat on the bow of the ship and watched the trees and details of the island shoreline melt into a purple silhouette against the sky. The sky above became inky black dotted with pinpoints of stars. Far from any lights, the stars formed a wide streak of white lights.

Outside the wheelhouse, a crew member stood with a large hand held light that he used to scan the water way looking for reflectors that mark the inside passage to the village. The ship continued to slowly move through the waters making slow turns in response to the reflectors. Occasionally the light would illuminate a village house along the shoreline on the outside of the village. Soon we saw the wharf ahead of us, and our friends the Montgomerys waiting for us. We pulled in about 7:30 pm on Thursday night – 27 1/2 hours after we boarded the ship.

We grabbed our luggage and walked up to the Montgomery’s house where we enjoyed dinner and showers before heading to bed.

The girls have finished the first ten week term of the school year, which means they have a two week break. They are enjoying the break from school and we are enjoying having them around.

Tonight we are all heading out of town to visit friends, the Montgomerys, who work and live on another island. You may remember that Lee and Robin Montgomery are the new literacy team in our group and currently they are working in the Zabana language on Isabel Island.

Lee has been working on producing a reading primer (beginning reader) in the Zabana Language. Tim will help Lee with a final editing check on the primer and then we will help the Montgomerys to run a teacher’s training workshop to train teachers to use the reading primer. The Montgomerys have not been involved in a workshop of this type before, so it will be an opportunity for us to help them through their first workshop.

We will board a ship here in Honiara late this afternoon. We are fortunate enough to have 3 tickets in the ‘deluxe’ upstairs cabin – which means we will have space on the floor of an air conditioned cabin which should allow us enough room to stretch out and sleep. The cabin has space for 13, so we will be sharing that space. I made a last minute decision to join the family, so we probably won’t all be able to be in the cabin. Tim may end up in ‘Second Class’ which means sitting on a bench for the entire trip. We should arrive in the village of Kia tomorrow evening after about 24 hours on the ship. A pile of books will come in handy to pass the time!

While in Kia, we should be able to send out some updates by email to be posted on the Blog. We would appreciate your prayers for a safe and productive trip. Pray that the girls have fun as well.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

We have just returned from an Easter Sunrise Service. Our church holds this service each year at the American War Memorial perched high above Honiara with a commanding view of the sea. We had over 100 in attendance this morning which is great for an event that was scheduled for 5:00 am. (In typical Solomon Islands time it actually started at 5:45 am.)

Tim was asked to preach the message at the service this morning.

Afterward we enjoyed hot cross buns and coffee together as we enjoyed the fabulous view from the memorial.

It was a blessing to again be with some of our favorite people to celebrate Easter today.