For God's Sake

We have been having a highly emotional time in Vanuatu. Previous posts may already have indicated this. Today has topped it even though we might not have thought it possible.

The much younger crew from Frozzie took a dinghy ride yesterday to Lorlow, one of the other villages in South West Bay on Makakula. (There are 5 and we have so far spent our time with only 1). Tristan and Claudia were most surprised to find a white woman there and spoke with her. It turns out that she was visiting for the first time in many years and had been raised there by her missionary parents. The reason for her presence was to accompany her father, aged 91, for a final farewell visit to the village where he had been a missionary between 1954 and 1964. His health is failing (cancer, congestive heart failure) and had made the trip, despite contrary advice from his doctors. Luckily his daughter Wendy is a nurse and was assisting him. She insisted that we should all attend the Presbyterian Church service the next morning and that it would mean a lot to her if we would attend. 6 Yachts: 12 people, all having traveled from Queensland. Wendy's father, Pastor Ian Taylor, is now retired and lives at Kippa Ring on the outskirts of Brisbane so it must have seemed like serendipity for 12 people also from Queensland to arrive quite literally out of the blue for this special occasion. So we paired up and took 3 dinghies to 'the village with the Airstrip' about 1Km away and went to church on Sunday.
We were blown away. The service was attended by people from all 5 local villages. Some had walked several kilometers along the beaches at low tide. Some had taken a ride on heavily overloaded boats. The church at the top of the hill was built by Pastor Ian Taylor and named after him. A group of 9 year old boys were allocated the task of leading us to the church located up the hill. The path from the dirt road to the church entrance was lined with brightly coloured leaves and flowers in special celebration. Unbeknown to us, we 'grotty yachties' became special guests and were led to reserved benches at the front. Before long we were draped in garlands of frangipani. That were were there at all was entirely random and all of a sudden we became a part of the show.
The singing was stupendous and all of us found ourselves with tear filled eyes several times, especially when we listened to the respect and praise being paid to Ian Taylor. He had A son was born during his Missionary yeard arrived as a young man with his wife and two daughters aged 3 and 6 months.s whilst on furlough in Brisbane, but from what we could glean, didn't survive his father's posting. During Ian's 10 years as Missionary in SW Bay. He was responsible for the creation of an airstrip (carved out of the jungle), building a church, and school, a clinic and a hospital. All of these have been named after him High praise indeed. He is revered here and he himself had no idea that his final visit (he is quite clearly a very sick man) would initiate the extent of celebration and appreciation. We witnessed the community's gratitude and gift giving presentations. We were embarrassed in the end to be beneficiaries of a feast prepared for the whole district. Men had been sent out into the hills the day before to hunt a wild cow for the meal. We sat as treasured guests in a long community dining hut and had to participate in the feast.
In church Ian surprised everyone. Despite looking ashen and very stooped, when he stepped up to the lectern he appeared to grow 6 inches and spoke with a strong voice. A man reborn! During his sermon he decided to address us for a good part of it instead of the main congregation, by speaking in English rather than Bislama (Pigeon English). Perhaps he knew that in terms of the locals it was a case of 'Converted and job done' and we were likely the only godless people in the congregation and his ministry not yet complete. A final opportunity to save a few more souls from an unexpected source. This is a fellow who bought the last of the New Hebrides (old Vanuatu) bushmen in and persuaded a population to cease annibalism!! What he has achieved is incredible. The people here revere him and the respectful things we witnessed today were most humbling indeed.
Claudia and Tristan - SV Frozzie greeting Pastor Taylor after the service All we can say is that we are not visiting Vanuatu and seeing stuff that is necessarily asphysically beautiful as New Caledonia, for instance; we are witnessing something much deeper and more moving. Emotionally, our visit here is very costly. We feel like we've gone through a wringer. We recorded all the singing in church today. It needs a bit of amplification and tweaking, but when you hear excerpts, you'll feel the joy too. When we get back to Brisbane next month, we have arranged to visit Pastor Ian Taylor and his wife Val and give them a CD with the soundtrack. 40 minutes of singing from a service lasting well over 2 hours and one song composed for him. Tomorrow we move on to Dixon Reefs and hope to snorkel and recharge emotionally. For a change we had sunny skies today and the smoke from the volcano on Ambrym was much less. We still have a lot'stuff' to give away and only 2 more planned stops before we reach Luganville on Espiritu Santo (Santo for short). Once there we'll bepreparing for our passage home (via Chesterfield Reef), then checking out.