Posted July 26, 200915 yr Hey guess what? I'm leaving for the solomon Islands in two days! YAY I can't wait A whole group of kids (teens) and adults from my church are going out there to repair a hospital roof! Can't wait!!!!! will post when I get home!
July 26, 200915 yr That sounds great!! Don't forget your camera - I'd love to see some pictures when you get back
August 19, 200915 yr Author Well I'm home. I would like to be able to honestly say that I am glad to be home but i cant. I miss all my 'family' over there sooooooooooo much that I just want to go 'home'. This happens when you live and work WITH the people and share their joys and sorrows, cares and delights. I will post later on my trip and hopefuly I will be able to post piccies! no surf where we were! Sorry
August 30, 200915 yr Author HI all, I promised to send you stories on my trip to the Solomon Islands, well here is a copy of my journal for the first 6 days. Actually after that I stopped but you can get a good idea on the place and what we were doing. And of course there is more to come... You'll probably find it long and very boreing but I promiesed! Hope you enjoy: P.S It's probably easier to read if you print it out! Project Atofi Eastward Missionary College's Mission Trip in 2009 July 30 - Aug 18 Atoifi is a small village on Malatia Island Solomon Islands, with a SDA hospital; the EMC crew plus others from all over Australia were there to 1. replace the hospital’s rusty old roof, 2. to run evangelistical programs in four villages, and 3. EMC was to run a ‘health expo’ for the public and the nursing students at the Atoifi College of Nursing. This is my journal for the first few days: On the Way: Hovering ore cloudy fairy floss, Over carpeting trees like moss, Clouds like snow showing clear, That we are flying high. Matchbox cars crawl slowly past, Driving on the ribbon road, We of course are moving fast, For we are flying high, With Christie by my side, ‘Goodbye, goodbye all who abide’, At home while we embark, On our first trip, flying high. Flying for a foreign land, Going there to lend a hand, To travel far to serve our God, We must be flying high. 30-7-2009 okay so today is the first day of our trip. We left home at 1am! WOW, that was early although I was too excited to be tired or even sleep! So we left our house at 1, picked up the girls at 1:15, the boys at 1:30, and James from King Creek at 2. YAY we are on our way! After a non-eventful trip to Newcastle, we arrived and hour early. So we waited around and ate breaky and then James took the bus home and we caught our first flight for the trip: to Brisbane! After we got our luggage there we caught the ‘airtrain’ from the domestic to the international airport. There, getting through customs was okay, only some of us were just in time! Here we also met Brian and the rest of the crew. Now we are flying over lots of ocean, open and boring. We are going 526mph and are at 38,254ft. Kylie and Andrew are next to me. It was so good to see her again! I hope we can see the islands as we land. There are patches of cloud cover but at the moment it is okay. Chris, Kez and I were soo excited as we ran down the tunnel thing to the plane in Brisbane. I’m afraid we may have yelled a little too loud! Flying over the open ocean is so boring (just a random comment) we seem to go so slow. We landed in Honiara, got through the simple customs, and drove to the SDA mission compound where we unpacked our baggage off the truck that it had come on. Going to the mission headquarters office where we discovered that thousands of dollars was missing (that was our food money!) we went into town and to the bank to get $50 each Aussie dollars changed into Solomon. We received $320 Solomon! Rich hey! Next we explored the fishy, filthy, and fascinating markets and the icky, irresistibly intriguing Chinese shops. These shops are extremely crowded, dirty and messy. Yuck. But anyway in the end we got some bananas, watermelon, lettuce, cucumbers, paw paw, pineapple, white bread and wonder of wonders: peanut butter! This finding was greeted with many sighs of amazement and thankfulness. We rushed ‘home’ and used these things to concoct something edible for tea. Then we hurried to get our baggage on the front lawn so that the truck could pick it up to take it to the wharf. Then we practiced what we would be doing for the next 4 + hours: waiting. Finally the trucks came and we were taken to the disgusting, terrifying wharf. Here our bags were handed up onto the ship over a gap between the hull and the wharf of 1 1/2 feet. That was creepy seeing as my bag’s handle broke as they were handing it up. Thankfully it reached the room where all our gear was stored, dry! Then we climbed over that same gap, trough the bottom rooms that were full of natives and stank like anything, up a ladder to the top deck were our little corner was. Making ourselves as comfortable as possible on the fiberglass floor, we waited. It was 8:30; we had left the house at 7:00. 31/7/09 And we waited. At 11:30 our ship slowly crawled out of the harbor and out into the open ocean. We were on the ‘milk run’, which meant that we stopped at all the ports between Honiara and Auki, our destination. This was one of the most amazing parts of the trip so far. Lying on the hard deck we tried to get some sleep. None of us succeeded in getting sufficient. During the night one islander sat at Tony’s head and was looking carefully at his baggage. After that he went and lay down next to Leah and was feeling around the baggage there. He thought all were asleep, and we were but and angel woke Christie up, who saw the sus guy and woke up Dave. They stood up and began to sing, that scared away the guy and also helped to calm Chris down! During the night we stopped at an island that had plenty of mangroves and also plenty of crocs. Suddenly there was a splash and the cry of ‘man overboard’. While they were shining the light around to try and locate him in the water you could see sets of shiny eyes: Crocs! The drunk guy who had fallen over was rescued and we continued on our way! In the morning when I woke up (2am) there were pretty stars and all. When the sun came up I went over the rails to where Tanay, James, and Matt were down talking to a native. Just as I joined them the cry of ‘dolphins’ was heard and the native took us up the front to lie on the prickly fiberglass and watch the slippery creatures race in front of the ship. We watched the sun lay out a golden path for us as we arrived at Auki. The dock was a stinky dirty place but finally we got the luggage and ourselves on two lorries and went straight to the SDA mission where most of us stayed while some went to town to get food for the next week. When they came home with food, building supplies, ect… we piled back into the trucks and begun another exciting part of our epic journey. After bumping along a rough road for hours and having an experience on those trucks too amazing for words we arrived at Atori, across the bay from Atoifi. Next was a 45minute trip in tinnies and then joy of joys, Atoifi!! We made it!!! We walked up the massive (well its not really that big but to us who had been travelling all day it was huge) hill and as we began walking up the main street a bunch of wild looking men and boys ran out from behind buildings and trees wearing grass and covered in the red mud from the hill! They looked so cool! Some others were scared but I can remember laughing so hard that I couldn’t walk!!! We proceeded slowly up the road towards the hospital and as we walked up the paths our welcoming committee formed a guard of honor. We were seated on wall lining benches in front of the store and lab, as we were to find out later. First the initial welcome then the young girls hung beautiful laes around our necks and other girls (nursing students) gave us fresh green coconuts to drink. Wow what a welcome. After we listened to heaps of speeches, we were whisked down to tea. Yum, my first taste of island food: absolutely amazing! After dinner we were left to sort out the housing arrangements. There were three houses, one flat, and 28 people (27 from Australia and one from NZ that was already there when we arrived) to fit in. at first the ‘other’ group wanted us all to mix and match but the EMC crew were not for that, so they sent all the ladies up to a tiny stone house. As soon as we entered we saw stone floors, an outside toilet and shower and cramping. We were ready to cry although none of us dared show it. Thankfully Kylie saved the day and went and said quietly to dad ‘could you please come and have a look at our house? I don’t think it’s suitable.’ So Dad came and as soon as he saw the stone floors, outside toilet and shower, and cramping he said ‘okay girls pack up and come back to our house. It is a palace compared to yours.’ There house was also the one with a kitchen inside and the only gas stove in the whole area! Unfortunately while all this was happening all the guys had also moved in, and some had also had their showers. The EMC boys were more then happy to move (thanks guys) but they had a little trouble convincing the other men to make the shift to the other houses, but finally they left and we settled down to the first shower in a long stinky time! And best of all: Sleep! 1-8-09 We woke this morning at 6:00 to the clanging sound of a bell, more accurately described as a gong that we were going to learn to hate! Today was totally amazing! This morning of course we went to church. There are 17 Sabbath School groups here! WOW and we thought Wauchope had lots! The meetings were amazing. So much singing although they only ever sang the first and last verse of the hymn, we loved it! It felt weird to be cooking on Sabbath but as we arrived late last night and we are catering for ourselves today it was a must. This arvo, Chris, Lachy and I were out on the front steps and saw some kids playing down in front of the church. We had not met anyone local so we went down there for the first contact in a wonderful friendship with the local girls. They were actually pathfinders but their teacher had not turned up so we talked to them for a while. They were all very shy but one girl called Elina spoke up and we slowly eased into a warm friendship. After this Leah came down and we played charades with them until it was time to start the AY program, which always starts around 4pm. We led out in this meeting. It was basically as song and testimony program for the local people. The church was filled with people from Atoifi and other villages. There were even people standing outside and looking in the windows! Tonight we went up to the basketball courts and played games with the kids. We taught them a few games although that was really hard because they knew most of them!!! 2-8-09 This morning started as usual, we ate breaky then we had a little powwow and broke into four groups of seven. These groups are doing missions in four different villages around the area. One in Atoifi, one across the bay in Wifalonga, one up the river in Barriki (they have to walk) and we are in Goonasu. In our group is Pr Olsen, a nice young pastor, Dad, James, Tanay, Christie, Gwen, Joyce, and I. Today we are doing tours of the hospital, I can’t wait! Our team was the last to go to the hospital and it was past lunch time and very hot and humid. The hospital is made up of sets of buildings, 4-5 on each side, which meet at an open corridor, which lets what cool air there is into the buildings. There and outpatients, store, lab, theatre, men’s ward, women’s ward, children's ward, maternity, and other private rooms act… Anyway just as we were in the children's ward, which is closed due to lack of staff, but as Chris is to paint a mural in there we got to go in. As we were in there we were talking to Dr Janella about malaria and the next thing we hear Christie saying ‘Tanay just fainted!’ None of us panicked but we were a bit worried as we looked over and saw Christie supporting Tanay with one arm. James talked her and told her that he was going to carry her out to a chair in the corridor, she said no, that she could walk herself. But we knew that she could not and sure enough she did not remember this when she recovered. When we got her out where there was a bit of a breeze the Dr went off and got a cloth and cold water and fanned her and splashed her with water until she woke up. Then we took her down to the house and laid her on her bed where she began having cramps. We put this down to not enough minerals as she had been drinking heaps of water, sweating allot but not replacing the minerals so that arvo Bonnie and I spent fanning here and getting up those minerals. The others went swimming but I… Anyway, she was better by bed and slept well. 3-8-09 Challenges and miracles! So many on mission trips! This morning we were shocked to here that someone on out plane from Brisbane to Honiara had, yes… Swine Flue! Ahhhhhhhhh! So we spent the day together in quarantine. We also studied together in our groups, which was really good getting to know each other. Some of us also fasted but most of us began to feel too faint so we had to eat, just in case. This was a challenge but we claimed the promise in 1 Chronicles 20:17 “Ye shall not [need] to fight in this [battle]: set yourselves, stand ye [still], and see the salvation of the LORD with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them: for the LORD [will be] with you.” And accepted it as a blessing and a stepping-stone. And as He always does He honoured that promise. This evening Pr Abbi announced that we were free. Of course the hospital managers did not want us sitting around doing nothing so they had just been protocol so they had told the government that we had been quarantined so that was that. Talk about miracles! Praise God, We slept tonight with happy thankful hearts. 4-8-09 okay so today we spent the morning cleaning out the children’s ward. We wiped down all the beds, louvers, walls and also the nurses station. After this big job we spent some time visiting the locals and also the mothers and their children in the hospital. There was one little tyke that took a liking to me and every time she saw me she would run and cuddle up to me! So cute. There was also one tiny baby that Rachel tried to hold but when the mother handed it to her it started crying. Rachel of course gave it back and then Tanay decided to have a go. As soon as Tanay got it: it started laughing its little head off. We don’t know why but Tanay has one up on her Mum now! Today was also an exciting day as it was the first day that we went to Goonasu. It is beautiful! To get there we cross the bay by tinny then up a few kilometres of tidal creek so narrow that we can almost touch both sides from our boat! Finally we arrived at an adorable little village of about 8 families. They had prepared a special little stage for us and decorated it with palm branches and flowers. We were treated like royalty because we were the first white people to ever go to their little abode. First we went and ate dinner. There was rice, veggies, fruit and fish! The fish I am sure were caught, baked, and set on the table whole! Yuck, I don’t think that anyone touched them. During the meeting, all 7 of us, plus Luke the photographer sat up on the stage miles away from the people. In front of us the talented Pr Olsen preached a simple yet powerful sermon and I could understand perfectly even though he spoke half in Pijin. The trip home was perfectly magical. The moon was shining, making the water glistening and smooth. We sung all the way home. When we arrived at the wharf we could hear Pr Abbi preaching his heart out, we had arrived early! We listened to him finish a very powerful message and then fell into bed exhausted! And thus concludes the diary that I wrote for those first few days. Later I well write out some more for you to read. God Bless Kate As an extra bonus I have included below a report that I wrote for Dad: Recently Eastward students, staff and friends set out on a life changing mission. Our objective: to replace the roof of Atoifi Adventist Hospital On the island of Malatia in the Solomon Islands, as well as conducting both health and evangelistical programs in the local villages. Getting there was the most eventful part of the journey! First we drove from Rollands Plains to the Newcastle airport - a 3 hour trip. Then we caught the morning plane to Brisbane, and another plane from Brisbane to Honiara. We arrived in the afternoon and that night at 7pm we caught a ship that would take us from Honiara to Auki, the main city on the island of Malatia. This 'different' trip took over 12 hours and needless to say, we were exceedingly exhausted by the time we docked in Auki. But we were only halfway there! After buying some food for the first week of our stay at Atoifi we all piled onto two lorries and preceded to cross the mountains of Malatia over a road that has not see a grader in a long while! We arrived in Atori a few hours later, across the bay from Atoifi. The last leg of the epic journey was by tinny for a 45 minute, clothes soaking trip. When we finally arrived on the jetty at Atoifi and walked up the long hill, we knew that all the troublesome kilometers we had traveled had been worth it. They gave us a beautiful welcome. I would like to tell you just one story about a special friend I made whilst over there. Her name is Vaelyn and she lives in a very small village 10 or 15 minute boat ride away from Atoifi. Goonoosu (the village) is made up of about 8 family's and has a tiny little SDA church with a dirt floor, concrete block walls, and a tin roof. This teaches us the great lesson that we can learn from these people, no matter what they have or don't have, they are always friendly and smiling. When Vaelyn was small, her father left her mother for some reason that we do not know. Not long after this tragic event Vaelyn's mother remarried. Now in our culture this would not be a problem, but in their culture the wife must move to the husband's village AND leave her children from the previous marriage behind. Vaelyn now lives with her brother in Goonoosu and has only one or two pairs of clothes and a pair of thongs. When I was giving out small presents for the kids over there I decided to give her a few tiny highlighters. Of course she did not know what to do with them but she tearfully took my hand, looked into my eyes and whispered in words that I will never forget: "I have nothing special. Thank you." This small statement made me realize that even though this is only one girl in one village, there must be many out there, even in Australia, perhaps with slightly different stories but with the same tragic ending. They quickly become starved for love. It's not the things that they are starved for; it's the thought, the love that comes with that thought and the friendship that YOU can give them. "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matt 25:40 As you can see this trip has changed my life forever, I have seen and experienced that you can only be totally happy when you are in service for others. Let God change your life too.
August 31, 200915 yr that is beautiful! COngratulations and well done from the bottom of my heart. You have done a beautiful thing there and may it last and be with the people who youve helped. I am happy to know the are people in this world that are helpful kind, and can see how some people are living but can notice how they are still kind to you, and you are a great example of this type of person. if there were more people in the world like you it would be so different. Our world is amazing, isn't it? how everyone lives and there are so many places to explore. Your signature reflects that. Well done and may god bless you for what you have done
August 31, 200915 yr that is beautiful! COngratulations and well done from the bottom of my heart. You have done a beautiful thing there and may it last and be with the people who youve helped. I am happy to know the are people in this world that are helpful kind, and can see how some people are living but can notice how they are still kind to you, and you are a great example of this type of person. if there were more people in the world like you it would be so different.Our world is amazing, isn't it? how everyone lives and there are so many places to explore. Your signature reflects that. Well done and may god bless you for what you have done Lovely words cute_spangle....and WOW what a story my_6!!!! You should be very proud of what you have done !!
September 1, 200915 yr Author Thanks CUTESPANGLE Yes, believe it or not there are many people in this world that do or at least want to help. Even if they are too shy sometimes. But God has His ways and gets things done in his time. Anne I had a great time P.S I plan on going back next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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