Greetings from Vanuatu!

We're in Vanuatu, slightly exhausted. The time here is one hour different from Sydney, so if it's 2pm there, it's 3pm here. We had a safe couple of flights, first to Brisbane and then a two and a half hour flight to Vanuatu. Margaret and I both enjoyed listening to the two twin boys sitting in the seats behind us who reminded us how amazing flying is with comments like “Woohoo we're flying!” and “Are we in Vanuatu yet mum?”

Once we arrived, after filling in our swine flu declarations, we came through customs. We told them we had netball uniforms which we were bringing as gifts. Apparently the letter didn't have quite the same magical effect as on the way here though, but they let us through with a warning that we'd better get the church to write a letter to customs next time. I am not sure whether they specifically took our names though. Margaret likened the situation to Brother Andrew's – where he smuggled bibles behind the iron curtain in the 60s, 70s and 80s I think. I would say that's a little bit of a stretch, but I was a little afraid she wasn't going to let us through at one point and then I would have been praying the smugglers prayer which goes something like "make seeing eyes blind Lord" - although they may have been a bit suspicious when the developed massive cataracts in order to avoid seeing hundreds of pieces of clothing.

On heading out of the airport we found our transfer company, and then as we were heading towards the bus, who should pop out of the shadows but Meto! He's our contact from the Presbytarian Church of Vanuatu (PCV). I recognised him from when I met him (possibly in November?), he had Pastor Allen with him (great name), and a couple of others. There was a bit of confusion as we tried to deduce whether they'd come to pick us up from the airport, but once we'd said our hellos we raced to the bus. Meto will be picking us up at 9am tomorrow morning to take us to his church.

So we're at our hotel. The people are super friendly. The internet access is quite horribly slow from our room, but for free - I'll cope. I was interested to note that the internet access is actually better if you go and sit at the side of the pool. So I just might do that sometime :)

Until next time
Katherine