John and I have been rehashing some of our high-adventure experiences. We’ve rafted a river with 2-3 category rapids outside of Cancun, Mexico. (In fact, a fellow Japanese cruiser fell out of the raft while going through one of the rapids.) We’ve hiked down the Grand Canyon to Havasu Pi Falls and camped for a few nights. (Actually I flew in a helicopter down and rode a horse back out of the canyon, but it was still pretty exciting!) We’ve snow-shoed several miles into a Uinta yurt (small round cabin) during a snowstorm at night with temperatures around zero degrees. (It was so cold that the dogs, even in snow booties and fleece jackets, would not walk.) These experiences are kind of pale compared to our recent “wildest ride in the wilderness,” and I don’t mean the train ride at Disneyland!
On Wednesday President and Sister McMurray, Danny (their son), Elder Thompson and I took the 35 minute flight to the Ha’apai group of islands. (Our plane was only an hour late!)
We landed on the island of Lifuka. The runway runds from one side of the island to the other. The main street of the island runs through the runway.
While the President had zone conference with the missionaries and members, Elder Thompson and I inspected four missionary houses. After this was completed, we joined the rest of the group for “the feast.” Oh yes, Tongan food…and so much of it. On the plates which were placed before us was a whole fish, a chicken leg, a hunk of pig including the skin, and some part of a lamb. Then they passed us a lobster and an octopus. John cracked open the lobster tail, and we devoured it. We passed on the octopus. In addition to our plates of food, there was the ufi, kumala, crab salad, noodle stuff, and orange pop.
After attempting to taste the various foods, I decided that the crab salad was delicious. But before I could finish the portion that was given to me on a separate plate, the sweet lady next to me picked up my plate and finished eating my salad. Oh well…
Late in the afternoon we rode the new mission boat to Ha’ano to take missionaries back to their house and to inspect it. Their house is located in Fafakakai , a small village on the island of Ha’ano. The boat was loaded down with missionaries, and it was a rough ride…only a prelude to what was yet to come.
That night we stayed at the Sandy Beach Resort that night—private beach house, king- size bed, hot water, deck facing the ocean, clean, and fabulous!
Our Room
The view from our room
Now the adventure begins…Thursday morning it was windy and raining. Does that stop the work of the Lord? No way! We (4 missionaries, the President and his family, John and I, and two boat drivers) hopped into the mission boat and headed towards Nomuka. Our plan was to visit several islands, hold district meetings, and to inspect houses on several of the remote islands. Our first stop was the island of Uiha.
Due to the high tide, the cement pier was about a foot under water.
We left the President, Sister McMurray, and the drivers in the boat, and the rest of us waded through the water to the shore.
The missionary house was about a quarter of a mile from the rocky and broken down pier.
Some missionaries in this mission live in tough circumstances. The Uiha house has no power and water is limited.
They have no cooking facilities so they rely on members to feed them or they go without. When we arrived, two pigs were sleeping next to the missionary house. The missionaries call them their “guard pigs.”
The neighbors had ten to fifteen pigs in their yard. When the missionaries call “Maaaaa, maaaa,” the pigs came running for food. We got surrounded by those oinking, snorting fellows.
This island is also known for its mystic well and cemetery stone.
The legend says that the water in the well turns to red whenever a Tongan king dies and fire shoots from one of the stones in the cemetery.(I don’t know. Some things you have to see to believe).
From Uiha we headed towards Nomuka. The ocean waters were rough, and we needed to travel about the distance from Hite to Wahwep. Those of you who have been to Lake Powell might compare the waves we were driving through to the largest waves you’ve seen at Lake Powell and then multiply it by five or six, maybe seven. We’d dip down into the swells, then pop up onto the top—dipping, plopping, crashing, bamming. The president, how do I say this nicely, threw up once, and dear Sister McMurray three times before we got to our destination.
The members of the Church on the island of Nomuka were thrilled that the president had come to meet with them. They thought, because of the rough seas, he might not make the journey.
Once again, the president did the conference and had interviews while we did the inspections…
Next to the missionary was an old cement water tank than had been converted into a kitchen.
The kitchen has two doors that provide cross ventilation. The Tonga people are creative. If the can save or use something for another purpose rather than destroying it, they will. Sitting with us is a woman who is nicknamed "Big Mamma".
After the meeting we had another feast. Oh yeah!
During the feast President Mcmurray sang a song that they made up. It is an intertaining song that the Tongans like.
After all was said and done, the members followed us out to the dock to see us off.
It was quite a sight to see those few faithful saints waving until they could no longer see us. “Big Momma”, one of the larger sisters, was dancing and crying at the same time as we left. They just did not want us to leave. What wonderful people!
Next we backtracked to Ha’afeva where we stayed the night.
Our accommodations were very different than the previous night. We slept on a mattress on the floor of a little house in back of the church. We shared everything with about 500 ants and had only cold water for showers. Hey, we had another feast! After the feast we went with the sister missionaries and participated in the first lesson of “Preach My Gospel”—spoken half in English and half in Tongan. It was fun to observe the missionaries in action. Who were the missionaries? One was Sister April McMurray (the President’s daughter). April speaks Tongan and is doing a fine job as a missionary.
During the boat trip elder Olsen was dretched by sea water. What do you do? You hose down with fresh water and have the truest form of wash and wear.
The next morning we needed to pick up a couple of missionaries on another island and inspect their house. So, while the president had interviews, John and I jumped back into the boat and went to O’ou.
It is a small island with one village, no motorized vehicles, and a village phone boot made of plywood.
Children love to be photographed. We made a mistake by taking pictures. Some kids were out on recess, but when others learned we were taking pictures then came running out of the class room to join us.
This bike has been use so much that the rubber tires were gone, so they ride on metal rims.
After inspecting the house, we returned (with the missionaries living on O’ou) to Ha’afeva for the district meeting.This toothless Tongan sent us off from O'ou.
After O'ou it was back to Ha'afeva.
While the district meeting transpired, we inspected the houses in Ha’afeva, and John met with all the boat drivers. It was necessary for him to clarify policies and instructions and to discuss damage to one of the new boats. A trim tab and transducer had been knocked off their mounting brackets. The boat was only a month old and had been used twice.
Elder Thompson pulled Elder Olsen out of the district meeting and had him interpret for him. He questioned the drivers, but they didn’t know how the damages occurred. After hearing their stories, John then sketched out what he thought the problem was. The damages had occurred by how they were anchoring the boat. The drivers were throwing the anchor out in front of the boat and tying the anchor rope to the front of the boat. Then they took the remaining rope and tied it to the dock. That’s sounds ok, doesn’t it? No! That was not good. Here’s the reason. On a windy day the boat would float over the rope running from the front of the boat to the dock because the rope was loosely tied and dragged in the water. What caused the damage (in John’s opinion) was the rope would catch onto the trim tab and transducer. The force of the boat moving against the rope broke the parts off. Now, why did John think this? When we went to the boat to go to O’ou, John noticed how the boat was tied up. He watched as the boat floated over the anchor rope. The drivers of our boat did exactly what the drivers of the damaged boat did. Solution…take the rope from the bow and tie it to the rear ski eye, then to the dock. That keeps the rope away from the trim tabs. When the boat drivers saw the sketches, then it all made sense to them. Problem solved (hopefully).
Wait…There’s more action! When it was time to depart Ha’afeva, we got a message that there was a high wind warning. We cancelled our stops at two other islands and decided to head straight back to Lifuka where we had originally started. It usually takes an hour to travel the distance, but it took us two hours because of the rough waters. The waves were higher than the day before and would splash up and over the top of the cab drenching everyone in the back part of the boat. Sometimes it felt like the boat was flying. I thought of the movie, “The Perfect Storm” with George Clooney as the main actor. . . well, maybe the waves weren’t quite that big, but in the small boat it felt like it. On a high-adventure scale of 1 to 10, I’d say this was an 8. It really was the “wildest ride in the wilderness” or at least the Pacific Ocean.
You got to love this mission!
‘Ofa ‘atu, Diane and John
No comments:
Post a Comment