More adventures

We were down at the beach by 5:30 a.m. waiting for the canoe to arrive.  By six o'clock, we were all on our way, driving into the rising sun.

 

After we left Marulaon, we stopped at the next village, Karumalun, to pick up our driver's son.  The son that was supposed to go wasn't around, so our driver hollered out for a different son (who happened to be asleep on the porch when we pulled ashore).  One shout from dad, and the son was up like a shot, pulling on a shirt, and climbing into the boat.

 

We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise and pointed toward the sun the entire three hours we were in the boat.  The Russell Islands sheltered us for a while, then we hit the open ocean and really slapped through those waves.  Flying fish kept us company, and toward the end of our trip we watched three frigate bird diving for their breakfast.  We finally arrived, wet, salty, and sore, at the tip of Guadalcanal a few minutes before nine o'clock and found a SITAG welcoming party alongside Chief Leonard.

 

 

Just a few days ago, I had been chatting with a friend in Marulaon about the body of Christ working together, and our SITAG family is such a beautiful picture of I Corinthians 12 in action.  The SITAG truck carried our linguistics coordinator, another colleague, his five children, our village chief, two containers of gasoline for the canoe's return trip, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and cold grape koolaid.  Our SITAG family also provided lunch and supper Sunday, so we didn't have to try and buy food on a Sunday afternoon.  Chief Leonard headed back to Marulaon so he could attend his son's graduation on Tuesday, and the rest of us (including two of the guys from our canoe) piled into the SITAG truck to drive the hour back to Honiara.