AUDIO
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Archbishop Peter Jensen's Christmas Message 2011 on the centrality of Jesus to human history
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Aidan Willams
Before coming to Fiji we prayed a lot that God would change us through this trip. I talked to a few of the other students about how we thought God would change us this month before we came and most people assumed or believed that it was their attitudes to affluence and consumerism that would change. This has been true of all of us I think, but definitely not the only thing.
The things that people put their faith in here is amazing. For me, although my faith is in God, it certainly wasn't in God alone, as it is for nearly every Christian I've met here. If things at home fall out for me; if I ever lost my job, if ever I ran out of money, if ever I had no roof to live under, if ever I felt lonely, of course I'd have God, but I'd also have my parents, my grandparents, a lower paid job or the government to fall back onto. For a lot of the people I've met here, they don't have a lot of the things I listed. Often they don't have their parents nor do they have the blessing of government support.
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It's true what they say, that you don't truly know what you have until it's gone. I can't say that I've lost those things, because I haven't, but this last week we've seen what its like not to have them, we've seen firsthand where Fijian Christians put their faith, and their faith is in God alone. They can't rely on their job or their government or on their family to provide for them the things we think are essential, and I guess we can't either. But we do, and we forget the one thing that will never fail us in this life and that is our God.
No doubt our attitude to money and possessions will change this month, not in a way that makes us value them more, but in a way, for me at least, that makes me wish I didn't have them. I want the faith of these people, how great it would be to put my everything in the hands of God without having this net of material possessions that we all think will catch us when we fall.
To read previous blogs from the Year 13 team, click here.
In the top photo, we are arriving in a village and all the local women have broken out their "Sunday best" (their church clothes) to receive us with amazing lays made by hand from palm leaves and native flowers. We were met with songs and BIG smiles and welcomed formally by the chief who received us in a special ceremony (meaning we could now go anywhere in the village - including in peoples houses - not that we used that right unless invited!).
And those houses? Made of sticks, corrugated iron, bamboo, thatching. Dirt floors. Most would fit entirely within an Aussie lounge room. The village is in its third location, having been (literally) blown off the map twice before in cyclones. There is electric lighting, but all cooking begins by collecting firewood. Washing and bathing happens in the river. Food is subsistence - even the kids have a plot they tend every day to grow taro, yams, cassava etc for their family to eat. Fish is caught in the river. There are chickens around the village that provide meat for special occasions (like our visit!
We visited an orphanage full of gorgeous kids who have been abandoned as infants, or are the fallout of marriage breakdown. About 20 (from 3 months to late primary) are cared for by wonderful "mothers" in a very modest 3 bedroom house provided by American missionaries some years ago. A small government allowance per child is not enough, and the orphanage relies on donations from local churches (which dont always come). Some of the kids we met will be adopted, but some wont. The ones with disabilities wont.
It was a wonderful caring place. These kids are the lucky ones in many ways. Fiji does not have the kind of government provided welfare systems we take for granted. The supervisor was only aware of one other such orphanage on the Western side of the island - also church run.
There are other solutions too.
At a Christian school we visited, the Deputy Principal shared with me (when I asked if he had children) that he has 2 kids of his own, but has raised 10 other children from within his (very) extended family over the years, with one nephew with him at present. Most had been from outlying islands. They had lost parents, or been in abusive situations, or just too poor for them to have any chance of education at all.
Master Longa shared with a sparkle in his eye that of the 10, 4 had gone on to become teachers (just like him).