Official Business

We're sitting eating breakfast, waiting for Pastor Allen, who will be taking us around the island today. We don't actually know when he's turning up, although he was supposed to be giving us a message yesterday, but we didn't get one.

Yesterday morning we went to the PCV office and met with Meto, as well as Pastor Allen and the Clerk of the Assembly. We started with some general discussion about our visit. The Assembly Clerk was giving us a lot of confidence by saying that our visit, and the partnership we want to enter into, was within the plan. And by that I presumed it was the church's plan, and by implication God's plan. We spoke of ways that we (Castle Hillians) can benefit from the relationship – for instance
- the Vanuatu people have a very community oriented approach to living and worshipping together, this is contrasted with the very individualistic society that we have in Australia
- They regularly have evangelistic meetings (National Bible Week for example) and they are always attended by Heads of state and the prime minister, who are more often than not members of the church.
- That we can learn how the Vanuatuans do church in a different culture.
- Materialism has an impact on the church (roughly 80% bad) and we can learn from how this is impacting the Vanuatuans..

And they said that they could also benefit from our understanding of Materialism, since it's such a new thing to them, and how it fits into our life and our faith.

After we'd done some basic intros, Ian pulled out one of the wind up MP3 players that we'd brought over here. After a little bit of time spent winding it up and turning it on, we saw their faces light up as they heard the readings and recordings in Bislama. They reckon they can use the wind up MP3 players on the outer islands where they don't have electricity, so we'll have to arrange for some more! (The three that we've brought over will probably be going over to the island called Santo)

After we'd finished the meeting and taken some photos. We arranged to meet the elders of the church at Paama, which is apparently the church we might be partnering with. Pastor Allen took us down to the Bible Society where we picked up some bibles to donate to the church. I also picked up a Bislama hymn book so I can challenge the people back home with more fun Bislama singing. At the shop I also met Georgina who is part of the youth at Paama. She said she'd been helping out at National Bible Week, but would be at the youth group on Friday night. So we've been invited :)

After that we had lunch at a cafe that had been recommended for those who need Gluten free food, but they didn't have any gluten free food … so that was a bit unexpected. Then Margaret and I went shopping in the clothes shops. We both bought a skirt, mine is purple :) I also bought some nice new thongs, but they have a heel so they're a bit upmarket.

Then we trotted back up the hill. I fell asleep and when I woke up I was late for happy hour!!! We went to a nice little restaurant called “Le Cafe Du Village” and thoroughly enjoyed our dinner, although I am beginning to think that things are quite pricey over here, well food is, the rest is quite reasonably priced.

Definitely looking forward to seeing more of the island of Efate today. Please pray that we'll continue to develop good relationships. Oh and it's a bit overcast so pray that it clears up. Or at least that we don't get bogged :S

Katherine