Next we went to Nau'papu. We were dropping off the last two elders there. We got off the boat at a dock surrounded by a white sand beach. It was small, but beautiful just the same. We hiked up a natural stone staircase into the jungle where we followed a path with trees on one side and the ocean on the other. We walked for about 4 blocks and ended up in a village of about 100 to 150 people. We wondered through the village finding children, dogs, chickens and pigs along the way. There is a primary school there, but we saw a lot of young children that we thought should have been in school. They stay home to help their parents and grandparents. Children on these small islands don’t have much of a chance at getting a good education.
We walked to the MQ and found the missionaries cleaning like mad. I loved it, at least they heard what we were saying to them at Zone Conference. This MQ was really old and not in very good shape. We are going to try to get it cleaned and worked on. There is no electricity on this island. Japan-aid is putting those solar panels on the huts, but they won’t put one on a religious house. So these elders have no running water because there is no way to run the pump. They have a shower stall inside so they fill a bucket with water and shower from that, they also fill another bucket and use that to flush the toilet. They use a lantern at night. It was the closest thing we saw to how Alan lived when he was here, only he didn’t have brick walls and a metal roof. The drinking water was really bad because a filter won’t work with no sink. We are getting them some special filters for drinking water. These boys are going to be sick!
As we were walking back to the boat we noticed how beautiful and quiet the island is. No radios here --- yet. Just as we got to the dock the missionaries came down out of the jungle with long poles. As they got closer we could see that they were carrying sugar cane. They raise that here. The driver of the boat got out his machete and cut some small pieces, then President Tukuafu taught us how to eat sugar cane. It is stringy and tough but really sweet and tasty. We both liked it and had several pieces.
Once again we drove away leaving two missionaries in white shirts and ties waving to us from the dock. That really pulls on a mother’s heart strings!
