Postcards from Santo (pt. II)
To my friends,
Hello again! After the Navota students left for their holidays, I found myself with quite a bit of time on my hands. This gave me a good chance to unwind a little and think back over my time in Vanuatu, as well as helping out around the farm and visiting lots of nearby villages. This last one was a real cultural eye-opener for me. At first, I was treated with fear and discomfort, but after wandering through the same villages a few times, making a sufficient fool of myself in the local dialects, and word spreading of the fact that I’m working at Navota with Daniel (one of our SPRTE candidates and related to most of the area), the locals became comfortable enough with this crazy white man to let me see the real Vanuatu. In many ways, it’s actually quite a sad place… Various forms of abuse are rife, esp. amongst young adults, and the churches are largely stuck in the 1800s. In truth, I now think probably only about 30% of the people who attend church in Santo are actually Christians. The others have so little knowledge or understanding of Scripture or even the gospel that it’s hard to see how they could be otherwise; and animism is still strong when you look hard enough. This was a heart-breaking thing to realise, but after much prayer and reflection, it’s settled into a firmer determination to keep people coming overseas to share the gospel, especially to the places people wrongly assume are already reached.
Posted: Oct 1, 07:22 PM Category: Reflections
Tags for this article: navota farm, vanuatu
sammo · Oct 4, 10:55 PM
amen brother
sammo · Oct 4, 10:56 PM
…and the link doesn’t seem to be working…
D. · Oct 5, 11:23 PM
Typo in link fixed. ;-)