Wednesday, October 21

Katherine and I were supposed to be down at the beach at six o’clock yesterday morning to catch a ride to Baison Village. At 5:50 I was stepping out of the shower when two of Katherine’s friends came to ask if we were ready to go. Our friends are almost never early, so I was caught by surprise! With no makeup or hair to fix (one of the perks of village life!), we were ready in just a few minutes and climbing in the motor boat.

Aaron had been asked to be ready to preach, just in case. When Katherine and I landed on the shore around 6:20, he still didn’t know if he was supposed to preach. The second set of bells rang, so Aaron went to get dressed for church while Katherine and I walked up the hill to find Olivia. She was grabbing a quick bite to eat on the porch of the house where she and several of the Marulaon girls had spent the night.

(video of Kyrie)

Aaron did end up preaching so he was up front with all of the church leaders, Katherine and I found a seat about halfway down the aisle, and Olivia ended up in the overflow outside the church. One of the things I appreciated the most about this service was the custom dancing that accompanied much of the singing. Even though the Apostle’s Creed was sung in English, the dancing was definitely from the Solomon Islands.

After church, the village served hot sweet tea and lots of different kinds of breads. The “ring cake” are my favorite. Olivia ate with her friends and quickly went up the hill to practice dancing and get dressed. The rest of us settled in with the other big men and their families and waited for the dancing to begin while we visited.

Marulaon was ninth to dance, so it was close to two o’clock before their group finally performed. Olivia has invested many late nights dancing and singing and still getting up with her alarm at 5:30 each morning. She has spent hours making the right things to wear. My spunky girl has been the spark that has encouraged others to do things the right way, the culturally appropriate way, instead of slopping through. From end to end of our village, everybody treats her like one of their own.

All of the dancing finally finished, and we began to wave the flies away as the food was set out on the tables spread with banana leaves as tablecloths. The girls sought out their friends while Aaron and I stayed at the big man table for feasting; fish and cassava pudding were a great way to finish up the festivities. Aaron chose to ride back in the motor boat with us, but Olivia wanted to walk back the two miles along the trail with her friends. One of the hostesses handed us a big basket full of food to take back with us.

I knew it would be too much food for our family, so when we landed back at Marulaon, I shared more than half of it with the owner of the boat as a thank you. We traipsed up the hill, thirsty and ready for a shower. Olivia arrived around 6:30, and we enjoyed filling each other in with the stories of the last twenty four hours since we had been in three different locations much of the time. I think we were all asleep by 8:00, enjoying the sleep of the exhausted and content.