Captain's Log #34
June, 2003

CUT OFF
The small boy made it as far as the mango tree...    the big one. This was last week. He was coming back alone from the village having gone there earlier in the day for schooling. The rain had been what surely only rain here in the South Pacific can be - torrential! As he looked at the pathway in front of him, there was nothing there except teeming, raging water sweeping past...  the path beyond the tree had completely disappeared. His father's fields as far as he could see were gone somewhere under the roaring torrent of muddy waters. His small frame leaned against the wind and sheets of water as he held on to the tree. This, he was not prepared for. Dealing with circumstances like this was way beyond his few years. He was cut off from home. Bravely he called out for his mother, his voice swept away by the blowing wind. On and on he called...   no one answered...  no-one out there. His lower lip started to quiver as the incessant rain pelted down on him. All that had been familiar to him in the direction of the humble shed called home, had changed. He looked all around him, he was alone. By some miracle he didn't try to keep going forward, but instead turned around...  looking back over his shoulder at where the path had always been. Slowly he retraced his steps back to the village some distance away - two days later the water receded and his family found him safe. That was Tuesday night, this last week. Eight months worth of food is gone. All the crops destroyed completely for these people. But what matters so very much more was saved - thank you for praying for all aspects of the Kingdom work here in Fiji...  the little boy, whom surely God prompted to stop, turn around and go back, is a Nazarene.

5:30am
There's a phone call to Jim Johnson. "Jim, I've been up all night sicker than a dog. Not sure how on earth I can make the flight to Samoa today with you for this week-long trip."  Samoa trip for me is called off at last minute. 7:45am There's a phone call to me from Jim at Nadi airport on the other side of Viti Levu. "Harmon I just found out there was some strange, severe, localized storm over part of Kadavu island this last week that did major damage to some of the villages actually washing their crops right into the sea. Had you heard about it?" The answer is no.

CROPS IN THE OCEAN
Later I'm able to reach Pastor Aseri on Kadavu by radio-phone. He also has heard nothing about it. We arrange for him to get some petrol and take the small coastal boat around the East side of the island and see what he can find out first thing in the morning. Later I hear back from him: "I have been to the village of Rakiraki - I met with the chief and the people there and they are in trouble, I have inspected their fields and they are gone. Three villages have been hit the worst. They collected what they could find of their crops out of the sea, but immediately it all began to rot. That was quite a few days back - they are really all very worried and in trouble."

AFTER HOURS
This whole day I've been real sick but it seems like it's getting better... surely. I talk to my engineer who's working on the boats. "This is just a wild shot but do you know any way we could get bulk food like flour, rice, sugar, etc. at some sort of a decent price after hours like this?"... "Let's go, I know someone!"

TWO TONS OF FOOD
I really don't feel very good as I sit down in the manager's office of a new food store in Suva, the capital of Fiji. I thought everything in Fiji shut down by 5pm every afternoon - it's pitch black and well after 7pm. We negotiate wholesale prices for 50kg bags of basic food and soap and such things as I mentally calculate cargo capacities and load for the motor vessel 'Galilean 2', thrilled that we have a boat that's made for this. Then to my total amazement after it's a done deal, they throw in delivering all the goods all the way to the boat past the town of Lami...  tonight. This is more than I could have hoped for. "It will involve hand carrying all of it a fair distance!", I warn them... "all 2 tons of it!".  "No problem", they say. I start wondering just where and how I'm going to justify and pay for this purchase? Surely God's telling us to go forward with this - hey this is part of the 'walking' vs. the 'talking'. The talking is cheaper, I think.

VERY LATE
My engineer, Peni is still with me as we try to beat them back to the boat but he also is now showing symptoms of possibly the same illness I've been dealing with, which might be dengue (similar to malaria) which is not good. I call the D.S. and let him know that I need help to get this stuff from the seawall to the boat. "When does all this have to happen?" he asks me (it's late).   "Now?"    I respond, hoping he can come up with something, which he does and somehow half a dozen strong guys that aren't sick pitch up in time to help us transfer everything to the boat and strap it down in the darkness.

HUNGRY
With a prayer that God will let us two men, who don't feel very good, spend the next 48 hours dealing with a moving, three dimensional sea, we head out of the harbor towards open ocean at dawn. The ocean today is good to us and the boat does all it's supposed to. By afternoon we've covered an incredible amount of the Pacific, navigated very many reefs and we've reached the very places that were effected by the disaster. Soon we've began the process of Fijian protocol with a delegation preceding us into each village and the gratitude is overwhelming as the village structure under their chief, accepts the gift to try to help them a little. All this barely 24 hours after our pastor met with them. As we meet with each village we explain in whose name we are doing this...  his name is 'Jesus', and as we close in prayer I listen carefully to the words spoken to God by Pastor Aseri in Fijian...  "Father, in the Gospel of Matthew you said you were hungry...  we are trying Lord."
 
Rewarding?...  You have no idea!

ANCHORS
As it's getting too dark to run the reefs I am told there is one more place we will have to get to tomorrow. "Where is the last village?" I ask. "Clear on the other side, where we've been working at starting the second church, the hardest hit there is our new Nazarene family who have given land for the church, they and others have lost all their crops!" This strange severe storm must have crossed right over the middle of this long island in a straight line...  effecting no-one on either side of it's path. It's very dark by the time I put out two anchors so that I will sleep and not worry about the anchor dragging. Once everyone gets off the boat I flick on the anchor light and drop exhausted onto one of the wooded benches...  only rarely half waking throughout the night to some sound or to flash on the spot-light to check my bearings with the shore.

COFFEE
By dawn I'm working my way through a steaming cup of hot coffee (which solves most problems) when the first people come. By the time I leave, I have to draw the line at my maximum of 17 passengers, plus those who go in the coastal boat. Some hours later we have delivered the last of the food - who would have believed when we were buying it by faith 36 hours earlier that some would need to go to members of our own Nazarene church that at the time we'd heard nothing about, but who desperately needed it. God's like that! He does that kind of thing! And the sickness? Both of us are doing much better. Obviously this is why I couldn't go to Samoa this last week.

THANK YOU
As you've been a part of this ministry, it's possible one day God will say to you...   "hey you know one day on a distant Pacific Island, I was hungry and you fed me...  look over here" and introduce to you some people from some islands of Fiji that really needed help quickly this week.
 
Working with you for Him, for the people of the South Pacific,
Harmon
 
p.s. I just found out as I was writing this that the 16mm JESUS Film projector has been stolen -
- after writing the first part of this sentence I turned the computer off to go and deal with the robbery. The police reports have already been filed as the robbery was now about 48 hours old. The thieves also stole the church's sound system where we had the projector. A few minutes ago the pastor called me, this is what he said; "we were just having a prayer meeting, praying about the robbery...  I saw something over against the wall under an open window and there was the JESUS Film projector - returned!"
 
p.s.s. Please pray that Tropical Cyclone 'Gina' to our North West will not track towards us here in Fiji.

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