Tag Archives: Christianity

The Syncretistic Rabbit

Posted on by
2

 

wp-1458858091357.jpg

Credit: Revivals Cakes, via Wiki commons

There are no rabbits on Tanna.  There are also no chocolate eggs in the stores.  That’s cool with me, I don’t like chocolate much anyway.  For those who do, I have been able to get my hands on two packs of Tymos – much like the Australian Tim Tam but better because they come in coconut flavour.  Personally, I would prefer the rabbit itself, but as I said, none of them either.

Eggs aren’t a part of Easter here.  Why would they be?  Even if people did know what a rabbit was, I’m pretty sure they could take a fair guess and say that they don’t lay eggs.  An egg-delivering fur-ball just isn’t part of their past.  But it is part of ours of course. Continue reading →

Book Throwing and the Mission of God Pt 1

Posted on by
14

Interaction with Don’t Throw the Book at Them by Harry Box

The church in VanuatDon't Throw The Book at Themu (then New Hebrides) was first established on the island of Aneityum. Nova Scotian missionaries, John and Charlotte Geddie, arrived in 1848 and by 1849 they had produced the first ‘primer’ and then ‘book after book of literacy aids, scripture portions, catechisms and hymnals, until finally the whole Bible was available in Aneityumese in 1879 after Geddie’s death’ (Miller 1978, 80). In other words, the mission here was founded on a whole lot of book throwing!

This pattern continued on Aniwa, Tanna and many other islands until the work of the Geddies and countless others resulted in the formation of the Presbyterian Church of the New Hebrides in 1949, which in turn became the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, with whom I work today. And that pattern, as far as I know, has never really been questioned.

When I arrived in 2013, I joined a church that assumes its members will read hymnals and Bibles. It has a written worship book, constitution, rules and documents. Reports are expected to be printed even though few people have a computer and fewer still have a printer – while fewer again have any ink for the printer. I took up work at a Bible College that had its curriculum written on a piece of paper that was … somewhere. Students are expected to have four exercise books and do something with them. If you want to be a church leader you really need to be literate, or at least very good at pretending you are. Continue reading →

Cyclone Ula and Tanna’s Spiritual Beliefs

Posted on by
1

Vanuatu, Tanna, Naka, Cyclone Pam 30At the moment winds are blowing at about 165km/h close to the centre of the category 4 cyclone, Ula, about 210km southwest of Tanna. The courses of cyclones are difficult to predict, but at present the best guess is that it will miss Tanna and continue to head in a southwest direction, however there is more to think about here than the direction of the storm.

We are in Port Vila (on another island further away) at the moment waiting to go home to Tanna tomorrow, but from our experience with Cyclone Pam last year, it is likely that many people on Tanna at the moment will be in a state of great anxiety. Most people on Tanna do not view a cyclone and an event controlled by an all-powerful God, nor as a result of explainable physical phenomena; but as a physical occurrence controlled by certain people who manipulate spirits/gods through their magical ability and mental state. That is, they believe that some people can ‘pull’ a cyclone to Tanna or send it away. Continue reading →

Faith that’s Clothes Deep

Posted on by

Iresized_resized_TRPH0014-2slamic attire is now commonplace on the road that runs through Tanna’s Middle Bush. Before Cyclone Pam there was one Muslim family on Tanna, now there are many.

Following the disaster many groups have given out relief in the form of food and goods such as tarpaulins, blankets and water containers. One group that operated in Middle Bush was Islamic. Continue reading →

The Pam Report

Posted on by

Out the front after the cycloneWe would like to thank the people of WPC and other supporting churches, and individual supporters for your concern, prayers and financial support in response to Cyclone Pam. Here is a little of our story.

‘Well, we’ve done our best,’ I said to Robert, the student helping me, as we stood on the roof of the principal’s house with the storm’s first squalls driving rain onto our backs.

Robert looked doubtful. He’s a thinker and had the idea that we should add ten 40 kilo bags of cement to the logs and concrete blocks that were already there to hold the roof down. I wondered if adding 400 kilos to the top of a building would be really prove wise once the wooden structure started to bend in the wind. It was a gamble either way. Continue reading →