ABM News - Island church
Members of the Tasmanian Pilgrimage to Vanuatu and their Partners in the Parish of Mango make a colourful picture. (Photo Brad Chapman ABM)
Bishop Chris Jones with some of the children in the Mango Parish Church. (Photo Brad Chapman ABM)
New church building in Vanuatu. (Photo Brad Chapman ABM)
Tasmanian pilgrimage to the Anglican Church in Vanuatu
Only three hours flight from Sydney, Vanuatu is known to most Australians as a popular holiday destination. However behind the golden beaches and smiling faces, Vanuatu wrestles with many of the same development challenges as Australia’s other Pacific neighbours.
This is a country where in 2008, less than forty percent of children could attend secondary school; where one child in twenty will die before their first birthday, and where less than fifty percent of the rural population have access to adequate water and sanitation.
Most of Vanuatu’s population attend church regularly and the Anglican Church is actively involved in building the social and spiritual health of the nation. They are challenged with providing communities with schools and safe water.
The Church is also struggling to keep young people engaged in its parishes and to reach out to people on the margins of society. ‘Colonial Christianity’ is gradually transitioning to an indigenous understanding of God’s presence and call to contemporary Vanuatu.
The Diocese of Vanuatu headquarters are on the largest of Vanuatu’s 83 islands, Espiritu Santo (Spanish for Holy Spirit).
In early September, 13 mission-minded Anglicans from the Diocese of Tasmania including nine from Edge Anglican Claremont and Bishop Chris Jones and family, travelled to Santo to experience life in Mango parish, Luganville.
In just seven days we saw so much.
We were welcomed as brothers and sisters in Christ by members of Mango parish.
The Sunday School has over one hundred children and only one teacher. The Sunday school building is the old church complete with rusting roof and bare dirt floors. The parish eagerly accepted the thirty-five Bibles and the small amount of books and resources we took with us.
Driving on potholed roads made for an interesting time as we travelled to Ban Ban sub-parish to see a church newly carved out of the jungle. The determination and vision to be a parish in their own right, reaching their local community is what inspired a priest and nine men to begin building.
The need for fresh clean water was ever present. Father Felix of Ban-Ban has to fetch his water from his neighbours if they have any to spare.
One parishioner said, 'There’s about 1000 people living here. If the community could come to us for water what an outreach it would be.'
Further north, in Lorevuilko, the extended dry season has left water tanks empty, so the villagers walk half an hour to get brackish water that is barely drinkable. The community school has traditional timber buildings with thatched roof and earth floors and is under-resourced, yet the children were happy and glad to be at school.
The aid post (run by Sister Angela) is a reasonably new building with a bare concrete floor, and again under-resourced – thankfully, the roof isn’t leaky, unlike her own home.
Despite their hardships, the people of Vanuatu are happy and filled with God’s Spirit.
We were blessed in so many ways on our pilgrimage as we saw God very much at work in his world. Many friendships were formed and we have a commitment to pray for each other, and our parishes.
We encourage you to pray for and contribute to the work of ABM in the province of Melanesia and especially Vanuatu and for our new friends in Mango parish.
Stephen Savage