Dear Kids,
We had a lovely baptism yesterday in Vuna at our
traditional place on the sea shore. It was a nice high tide and we had a
good group. Rosana Valelala is only 14 but understands well and has been
attending Church for a few months. A couple months ago, just after Ela
and Ana were baptized, we taught Ela about being a missionary and asked if she
had anyone we could teach. She nodded her head and pointed to Rosana, her
cousin, who had joined us that day so from that time forward we have been
teaching Ela the new member lessons and Rosana the investigator lessons.
Ela would like to serve a mission and has completed about 3/4 of the Book of
Mormon, and serves as a counselor in the YW program. She's just doing
great so we asked just two days ago if she would prepare a talk on baptism for
Rosana's baptismal program. She not only wrote out a beautiful talk, but
also memorized it and delivered it with grace as we stood under a small tree by
the shore with about 10 members in attendance. Rosana and I then walked
out into the ocean and performed the baptism. It's always so unique there
since many of the kids who come along are just swimming and enjoying themselves
before and after the baptism. When I walked out with Rosana, a couple of
them swam along side of us -- why not? After the program, they all die
for Mom's banana bread or other treats she makes and brings with us. It
was so funny because the bread knife she brought got lost under a seat in the
bumpy ride down to Vuna so Mom ingeniously settled for our big cane knife to
slice the loaves (wish I would have gotten a picture of that). Then after the
treats, the kids jump back in the ocean and play around (the water is always a
perfect temperature). I was walking by the sea a few yards from one 10
yr. old girl who was swimming with a mask and snorkel and it suddenly dawned on
me that I was hearing a muffled version of "I am a child of God"
coming out of her snorkel as she swam along!
After the baptism we sat around and visited along
the shore with some of the members, sang hymns, and generally enjoyed this
beautiful moment. Some of the kids had gone down the shore and gathered
some seedpods from a tree and brought them back to where we were. Then
with a rock, they pounded them open (the pods were about 2-3 inches long and
wide), to find a long narrow seed that tasted somewhat like an almond – very yummy.
The sea is everyone's friend. They swim and play, hand-line fish and spear fish, gather various
things to eat from it's waters and shoreline, and run along the shore playing
games -- it is nothing short of wonderful to me and I love that part of Fiji.
After the baptism we travelled with two other
elders down to Navakawau, the last village where the road ends on
Taveuni. We went to have a final interview with a man and his wife who
are preparing for baptism. They have been taught by the elders but since
we had the truck, we tagged along. This is a village that is very
isolated and we arrived just as a big gathering of people were butchering a
cow. They had quartered it and were skinning it out and cutting up the
meat for everyone in this quite large village. One man came right over to
welcome us and reached out his bloody hand to welcome us to the village (they don't
get many visitors -- especially white ones!). We watched briefly as they
worked and saw the kids taking pieces of hide, the tail, etc. and have tug of
war with the dogs. We then walked down to the home of our friends, Muri
and Mele, but Muri (who was to be interviewed) was out spear fishing so the
District Leader could not do the needed interview. Of course there are no
phones down there so you just go and hope you catch people.
Since Muri was not home, we visited with Mele and
then asked if she would like some coconuts. Mom and I had gathered about
15 from the yard in the last couple days and since they have fewer coconut
trees down there we thought she might like them (when available, they regularly
cook with coconut cream and then they use the husks for their fires). By
that time, a large entourage of kids from the village had gathered around us,
intrigued with their white visitors, so we asked them if they would come help
us get the coconuts. The truck was parked about a block distance from the
home so we ran and played with the kids back to the truck and then each took
one or two coconuts as we trailed back to the home. It was so funny as
they were getting a real charge out of the event and one girl kept looking back
at us as we took pictures, when all of a sudden she ran into a big bamboo pole
that was propping up a clothes line and broke it in half! Everyone laughed
like crazy and it all added to the uniqueness of the moment.
After dumping the coconuts near Muri and Mele’s outdoor
kitchen, Mom suggested we play "Duck, Duck, Goose" with the children so
we got in a large circle and taught them the game. We could tell they
were struggling with "goose" until we realized they don't have geese
here and didn't know what we were talking about, so we changed that to
"chicken". They absolutely loved it. Since all homes are close
to each other in a village, many other people gathered to see the game and
cheered the kids along. When we were done, we asked one mother a question
and then she said, "can you get them all to go take their baths
now?" But everyone was too wound up for that so we raced back up the
hill to the truck and played "follow the leader" for a bit.
While the elders are fluent in Fijian, we are not so we couldn't really
verbally communicate with the little kids but all children talk
"play," and we had a great time as about 15 of them mobbed the truck
while we backed out and drove away. Many of them had seen our tags and
yelled out as we drove away, "Good bye Sister Sherry! What a day.
By the time we get back from our conference on the
island of Vanua Levu, we will officially have one month left. We are so
excited to come home!
Love -- Dad
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