We're Back!

At 4:00 Wednesday morning, Aaron and I awoke to the sound of rain pounding on the roof.  Waking up gently that way was great, the rain was not so great.  The whole family donned backpacks and left the house a little before 5:30 to very quietly walk down the hill to Atkin's house.  Around 6:00, we all piled in the canoe with Atkin and his driver, Nixon, and headed into the emerging sunrise.   Atkin had gone fishing the night before, and now he carted a big box full of just-off-the-motu fish for Harris (his daughter who is a good friend of Sarah's).  The skies cleared beautifully as we skimmed across the ocean, and the rays of the sun created lines through the remaining clouds reminiscent of a child's drawing.  About 30 minutes into our ride, Aaron and I realized that the basket with our food for the day, 6 liters of water, Katherine's baby dolls, the camera, and a few other things had been left on the table in the house.  I admit I panicked.  Thankfully, Aaron had moved two liters of water in my backpack to lighten the basket earlier that morning, and we knew we would be able to buy some crackers either in Yandina or on the boat.  But I had been saving some almonds and cranberries, and it took me a few minutes to get over my pity party.  We also left some green coconuts on the cabinet that Naris had given us the night before.  What an interesting science experiment that would be!

A few minutes later, we met Humphrey's motor canoe carrying all of our cargo, and from there the two canoes traveled together toward Yandina.  Sitting just behind me in the canoe, Benjamin sang almost the entire way.  We arrived in Yandina around 7:00 and discovered that Wednesday was market morning.  God provided several different types of "cakes":  doughnuts, breads with noodles and canned tuna inside, and some kids of delicious bread with toasted coconut folded inside and sprinkled on top.  I also found bananas, mogea (bush apples), and kino (cut nut), so we were able to buy enough food to keep the munchies away throughout the entire day.  There was also a little store in Yandina where we purchased some chicken flavored crackers and some orange soda pop, much to the delight of our children.  I would have preferred water, but the only liquids available were orange pop or Coco Cola! 

Aaron gave the one and only key to our house to Nixon to give to Chief Leonard with instructions to eat the banana bread that we left in the basket and to drink the green coconuts before they went bad.  Thankfully, Chief Leonard is planning to come to Honiara next week, and we trust him to take care of our basket.  I can't wait to get my camera back!  The Kosko finally docked around 10:00 a.m., and as we loaded all of our boxes onto the deck, Aaron also bought a few green coconuts to replace the ones we left on the counter in Marulaon.

The calm seas were a testament to the many prayers being lifted up all over the world on our behalf.  We settled in with our woven mat and books for the for the five hour ride to Honiara, realizing gratefully that our trek is the shortest of any SITAG family.  As we left the Russell Islands, we saw a few dolphins gracefully leaping next to the ship.  Katherine took a much needed nap, and Aaron visited with one of the men who had scooted over to make room for our family.  It's always a little awkward when we get on a ship that contains passengers who have already been riding for hours and hours.  Somehow, we have to find a place for our family to squeeze in.  The crew even offered for our family to move to the first class cabin free of charge, but we would rather be out in the open than shut in a stuffy cabin.

Around 3:30, we pulled into the wharf in Honiara.  One of our SITAG friends threaded his way through to crowd to help us carry everything.  Eventually, we unloaded, thankful for Atkin's help, and began the wait for the crew to tell us how much we owed for freight.  The guy didn't know what to do with us!  The Bikoi crew is used to us, and they know that our boxes are usually empty, our gas cylinders are empty, and our ice chests don't hold food.  But the Kosko crew didn't seem to understand, so at last we got the outrageously high bill and paid it.  Atkin tried to talk the crew down to a lower figure, but we had no choice but to be thankful that they didn't charge more!  God provided almost to the penny what we needed - Aaron had $4.50 left in his pocket by the time we were finished.  Edward, another friend from Marulaon, came down to meet Atkin, so they everybody pitched in to load the SITAG truck that had backed down to the wharf.  When people and boxes were loaded into the truck, we drove up the hill to SITAG.  Atkin and Edward jumped off at SITAG, and at 4:30 the rest of us drove up to our house for the next few months in Honiara.

We learned from friends that the seas had been rough all week, so we were even more grateful for the calm seas we experienced.  Aaron went to get our Honiara things out of storage while we tried to figure out where everything was in this "new-to-us" house and began to unpack so we could find some shampoo and soap.  We finally all got clean and thankfully walked over to a sweet couple's house for a yummy but brief supper.  It didn't take long before we all fell into beds with clean sheets lovingly prepared ahead of time by SITAG staff and gratefully slept in the breeze of ceiling fans, aware that God had been at work all day on our behalf.