Day Six

Today was a bit different to our other days because a lot of the senior students were preparing for the dinner the school had planned for tonight. The dinner had two main purposes; first, to thank some of the parents of students of the school for building a new fence around the school property. Second, to farewell our team as we are heading back to NZ tomorrow.

It was a bit of a sad feeling to know that we leave tomorrow; the time has gone so fast and we are loving every moment we are spending with the students! The students are truly amazing and are so joyful to be around – they laugh at absolutely everything!

Because a lot of the senior students and teachers were planning and preparing for the dinner a lot of the junior classes were unsupervised so we decided to play sports with them outside and teach them new games. We gathered them together and played games with them such as: duck duck goose; Indian death ball; dodge ball; captains coming; cat and mouse and a lot more! It was so much fun to run around with the children and laugh with them as we tried desperately to keep up with them in the hot temperature that we are not used too!

After lunch we were able to take a tour around some of the coffee plantations on Tanna Island. Tanna is known for its coffee as it is the only island in Vanuatu that grows coffee beans because of the rich volcanic soil. As we were driving through the coffee plantations we were also able to go for a drive along the beach which was so very beautiful! What made the drive so amazing was again the people on Tanna Island. At times you felt like celebrities because everyone would stand up and wave to you and shout out “hello” and you spend a lot of your time waving to the people. This would normally not be a problem except you are on the back of a Ute trying to keep balance so many times I almost fell off because I was trying to wave and hold on at the same time (I’m a boy; I struggle to multi-task!)

We had a bit of free time in the afternoon so we used this to get up to date with our team training! It was good to sit as a team and read about ‘community’ and realise that in our short week we have actually done really well at building a community among the members in our team.

The highlight of today would have had to be the farewell dinner that the school put on for us. We went into the school hall and the children had covered the walls and ceilings with plants and flowers – it was stunning. They had made beautiful lathes for us and presented them to each member of our team. They did a tribal dance and got the team to join in with them – a fun experience that had the students erupting in laughter as the uncoordinated Carlton and Jeremy tried to keep up and keep in time in the dance!

When the principal of the school addressed us with a speech it was so beautiful and really did bring tears to the eyes or some of our team! He opened by mentioning that when we walked into our welcome ceremony at Lenakel College each member of our team had a look of ‘concern’ in our eyes! However, now as he looked at each of us he could now see that we each had a ‘sparkle of joy’ in our eyes and commented; “what happened in the week for our ‘concern’ to be transformed into ‘joy’?

I myself have reflected so much on that very question because his comment was so true; our looks of concern and worry have been transformed into complete joy! So what happened? I have only one answer and that is ‘God happened!’ I have no other way of explaining everything that has happened in the last week – living with the students and doing life with them has been one of the most transforming experiences of my life and it was great to hear how the school enjoyed having us just as much as we loved being there!

Listening to the principal speak helped us realise it has been a two way street; we have not only grown and experienced God but the students and teachers were able to do the same through our visit as well and the invitation was left open by the school for future teams to visit if we would like to bring future teams there in the future.

We as a team were able to present the school with gifts that we had brought them from NZ including a new guitar for the students to continue to do their music. The school then presented each of the team member’s with a gift – we prayed and then the feast begun! It was a humbling experience to have a community who doesn’t have much go to such a huge effort to thank us and bless us for coming and being with them for the week!

After dinner the students put on a concert for us doing different dances from their home Islands – Natalie Clark and Robyn also surprised us by joining in with the students in a couple of the dances. It was a night of laughs; a night of joy; a night of celebration in the presence of God; a night of being blessed by each other and a night of what I can only describe as ‘community.’ It didn’t feel like we were strangers any more, we didn’t feel out of place – it felt like we were all ‘one big happy family’ (which is actually a song the students taught us). I don’t want to leave tomorrow – however, I’m encouraged by the invitation that we are always welcome back!