Journal Entry

This is Monday morning, and we leave Taveuni for the last time on Wednesday.  We will then spend a day in Suva, fly to Nadi and go to Ba for a couple days to visit friends there, and then return to the United States on Saturday, the 23^rd.  In the amusing realm of artificial time markers and international datelines, we will leave Fiji at 10pm on the 23^rd and arrive in Los Angeles at 1pm the same day (nine hours before we leave!).  After a 5-hour lay over, we will fly to SLC and arrive there at 9pm.  We trust the kids in Utah will be there to welcome us and we so look forward to it – we are ready to go home.  We will then spend several weeks visiting each of the kids in Utah and Washington before arriving back in Corvallis around the 17^th of April to finally be home and be with Seth and Caroline, Tommy and Cali.  We can’t wait to drive down Crescent Valley Drive once again and to pull into our home we love so much.

How can I sum up all these months of hardship and frustration, challenge, sweat, bugs and critters – all at contrast with the intense feelings of love and gratitude we have developed for many people in Fiji?  Just can’t do it, such contrasts.  Perhaps like all missions, there has been in reality more difficult times than good ones.  But also like most missionaries, with time we hope to feel that the good experiences outweighed the bad.  This has been a hard mission.  The living has been difficult and that is combined with the frustration of trying to help Fijians who have accepted the gospel learn how to be participating members and leaders in the Church – oh, what challenges and barriers exist to administering the Church here!

Notwithstanding the difficulties, we have had moments of intense and eternal love with those we’ve taught and with whom we worked.  At those times, we realize the promise made to us in our call issued from President Monson’s desk that we would have joy beyond our previous experience, truly has been fulfilled.  It is impossible to adequately express in words the feelings we’ve had while sitting in little shacks, on the woven mats we enjoy so much and with wonderful friends, communing beyond our language capability the deep feelings made possible only through the Spirit.

Poverty and all it’s inevitable reach into every aspect of life is something we’ve never had a close experience with before.  It permeates everything from food availability, to possessions of convenience, to education, to health, to government services (or, complete lack thereof), to outlook and hope.  For the most part, these people simply have nothing, and there are not a handful of them who have a job from which they can earn cash.  When we bring a simple picture, or a video on our computer, people of every age begin to gather and light up.  Music! A picture!  Just to see one, to hold one, to imagine – something they have very little exposure to.  To see a picture of themselves that we’ve take and put on the computer has brought such pleasure to them.  I remember in Sister Mate’s home in Ba how a little piece of broken mirror and a hair pick were prized possessions and were lovingly placed on a piece of material draped over an ancient TV that may never have worked but made a good shelf and still sat in the corner (besides, she had no electricity!).  It was as though two treasures were being presented to view.  Not sure they ever used them, but there they were as if to say, “In this home, we have a mirror and comb!”

Poverty also has terrible and real consequence. It takes a grievous toll on health, on outlook for the future, on education, and on opportunity.  It’s not pretty and the down side is very real and pervasive. With few teeth, lots of daily struggles and disease, and a short life span, the people here move forward in a very stoic manner, not asking for attention or sympathy because everyone else is in the same boat. But still, as we’ve emphasized in our blog posts, you could not find a happier people.  Their simple life focuses on the joy of being together, of play, of joking and laughing, of bathing in the river and jumping in the ocean, of knocking down a mango or papaya to munch on, of running after each other, of the daily games of rugby, soccer, or volleyball with a ball half flat and cover torn off.  I laughed the other day to find a very large group of young adults gathered at our church to play volleyball and every few hits they ran to the sideline to inflate the ball with a cheap little pump we bought.  Barefoot and scantily clothed -- but oh how they laugh and joke with each other as though life had provided for them every needful thing.

Life matches and conforms to the poverty and the rhythms of nature.  You wake up to the light and the call of the rooster, you go to bed when there is no light left.  No money for shoes?  No problem, from the time you’re born you just run around barefoot and the soles of your feet harden like leather, so you don’t really need shoes do you?  No money for furnishings in your home?  No problem, the voi-voi plant is just outside and you can harvest, boil, dry, and weave a mat to sit on.  No need for chairs, or sofas – just sit on the floor with your family and friends and everything is fine.  No electricity?  Well, who needs computers and TV, and air conditioners, and the endless things that cost money anyway.  No refrigeration?  Then we’ll just raise food that doesn’t need it and eat what we harvest today, tomorrow will take care of itself, and Heavenly Father has provided most of what we need to eat anyway.  No stove? Well, we have sticks and people have cooked over open fires outside forever, what’s wrong with that?  No plumbing?  It’s Ok, we have the rain water and can dig a pit outside to use as a toilet.  It’s raining?  Then let’s all go out to play and take our “rain bath”!  It’s always warm in Fiji and the rain doesn’t make you cold, so what’s the problem?  We’ll take off our simple clothes (purchased second-hand, or given to them, or handed down), and wash them in the river and hang them out to dry.  But what if it is rainy and they don’t dry?  We’ll just wear them wet, it’s not cold anyway.  Need to go to town but have no money or car to get there?  Just walk!  We went to a meeting the other day on Rabi Island and a leader we asked to attend (though we had no idea where he actually lived), had walked 17 kilometers to be with us.  No complaint, no grudging attitude, no request for sympathy. He carried a pair of shoes with him and upon arrival he reverently put them on to enter the chapel.  When it was time to walk home, he removed them and left to walk back home with no complaint.

Still, the poverty keeps you down, the government doesn’t work, and the opportunities to change your circumstances are few.  As summarized by our good friend, Saimone Nairoqo, “Everything is broken in Fiji, even the weather.”  We’ve really experienced this and it is discouraging to live here and so hard to get anything done, with barriers to success being woven into every aspect of Fijian life.

One day, we will all be stripped of the possessions and materialistic trappings of life.  We’ll pass into the next world with just our character, our accumulation of thoughts and actions we chose to shape our mortal experience, and the friendships and loved ones we’ve nurtured and been blessed by.  Then, we’ll stand before the Lord just as we are – the person we’ve become.  All the inequities of this poor world will have faded away, been compensated for, and seem to be but a dream.  In that day, we hope to be worthy to stand with so many who have truly loved and sacrificed for those around them and made life better.  We will join arms and shed tears of joy to be forever with those who loved the Lord and righteousness and the children of God, and there will be no barriers that separate us.  Our mission has sharpened this focus and our appreciation for the Lord and His children throughout the world, whom we have come to love with all our hearts.