Sunday, November 24

Last night around 7:00, one of the catechists came by and asked Aaron to preach this morning.  So he spent the evening looking at the lectionary and texts selected for the Sunday before Advent. The first series of bells (only 116 this time) rang at 5:00 this morning.  Two bells rang at 5:50, and one bell rang at 6:10, which meant “get yourself out of the door and on the way to church.”  Aaron was preaching and Olivia was singing, but I hadn't finished cooking breakfast yet, so out the door they went with a slice of papaya.  Katherine and I scarfed a quick breakfast burrito and followed closely behind. We left a filthy kitchen and dining area because everything had been so rushed.

Fast forward to the end of church...around 8:30, we're standing and singing the last hymn when I see the necks of all my friends in front of my swivel to look underneath our house.  There is a white woman standing there, obviously waiting for us.  Then my friends' necks swivel to look at me.  As soon as church got out, Aaron and Olivia went to listen to the outside announcements, and Katherine and I hustled home.  An Aussie couple who has volunteered on and off in the Solomons for twenty years was sailing their yacht from Australia toward Honiara and stopped to see us. Surprise!

We sat and visited on the porch with a fresh press of coffee. A couple of “big men” stopped by to meet them, including the District Priest who held a plate of cassava pudding in his hand! We only met Mik and Lynn briefly in 2016 when they volunteered to fill the role of SITAG’s Operations Director for several months. So it was fun to learn more about them and their family and their history with the Solomon Islands. Most recently, they have been distributing Roviana Bibles out in the western Solomon Islands, and they are looking forward to helping with transportation needs at SITAG.

After lunch of our traditional pizza (including one with a potato crust for gluten-free Mik), we trundled off in their little dinghy to tour their cute little sailboat, the Blessing. It was like an RV on wheels, everything so tiny and compact with no space wasted. Olivia decided to stay on land because the choir was singing for Evensong and had practice afterward. After eating a delicious supper of mackerel (caught as Mik and Lynn sailed towards us) and watching Katherine try her hand at fishing, we headed home in the dark, brought a huge tuna head back for Chief Hensi, and prepared for the next day’s adventure.