Where’s Aaron?

Don’t worry. I’m here. Where have I been, you might ask? Well, between being sick and classes at school starting for the year, I have been busy. Not the kind of busy where you want to pull your hair out, but the good-kind of busy where there is stuff to do everyday and you can sleep well at night. That kind of busy. “Busy doing what?” you might ask. Well, here goes.

First, our main priority for moving to Tanna is to work with the church. Our second priority is for Cindy and I to help at a local Rural Training Center (much like a vo-tech in the States) to bolster goodwill within the village where we live. School began two weeks ago and time has really been flying by ever since.

I am teaching two classes at the moment, English and Bible Study. English, I teach on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I like it OK, but let me say there is a huge difference in speaking the language versus teaching that same language. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one thing. Try teaching English without any curriculum and this is why it’s even more difficult to teach the students here. They come to class with pencil and paper. That’s it. Then, it’s up to me to teach English to 18-20 year olds who, on average, have an eighth grade education. I’m not complaining, but just mentioning that it is like a Rubix cube puzzle – just when you think you have one side all lined up, then you look at the five other sides and realize you have a long ways yet to go.

The positive side is that the school has a very small and antiquated library. So, I was able to rummage through their books and find a few about the English language and use them to draw some ideas from and put together a make-shift curriculum that should last me a few weeks. After that…who knows?

So while thumbing through these books, I was completely reminded of the disparity between Western education standards (Australia, New Zealand, USA) and Vanuatu / South Pacific education standards. The grading scale for Vanuatu goes like this:
A+ = 100-85
A = 84-80
B+ = 79-75
B = 74-65
C+ = 64-60
C = 59-50
D = 49-40
F = 39-0

I don’t know about those of you reading this blog posting, but where I went to school from primary school, middle school and high school, you had to get at least 90 and above to earn an A. It seems here they are handed out like lollies. In addition, a 50 while growing up would earn me an F in school, a stern lecture and probably an application of the good ‘ole fashion “board of education” to my “seat of learning”. I guess that’s just me, because here in Vanuatu a 50 earns you a C. Wow!

My favorite class, by far, is Bible. Each student is required to take my class, so on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the mornings (7:30 – 9) I have about 17 students with whom I get to spend a few hours teaching the Bible. I pray that in the future, this will really produce a great harvest for the church.
Because so many students come from so many religious backgrounds, I am working slowly on laying a good foundation about trusting and studying God’s Word. I have students with Presbyterian, Assemblies of God, Neil Thomas Ministries, Church of Christ denominational, and even Bahai beliefs. My goal is to teach the truth in love as clearly as possible so that the Word can do its work in them. Even with students with such a mixed background, only the Word is able to unite them in one belief, if only they are willing to follow and study the Bible, and it alone. Only time will tell how it will turn out. Prayerfully, there will be a harvest sometime in the future.

Where else have I been? Well, due to our family not having refrigeration, I am trying to go to town every Friday and Monday to get food and supplies. On Fridays, our famliy makes the trip to town to do our shopping and have some family time together. We usually try to go swimming to have fun together for an hour or two each week. Then, on Mondays, I come to town by myself to send/receive emails, go to the bank and take care of other odds and ends. On Fridays, we leave at 9:30 in the morning and return about 4 in the afternoon. On Mondays, I leave at 9:30am and return by about 2:30pm even though I walk 30 minutes to catch a truck to get to/from town.

Besides going to town, we spend time in the garden weeding and cultivating our crops. Everyone here in Tanna spends time in the garden. It’s what you do. It’s how you get food. So, we knew if we came it would be frowned upon if we didn’t have a garden. Therefore, we’re going to try and turn our black thumbs green in this rich, black soil found in Tanna. Who knew black plus black made green?

Oh, funny story (and not just a preacher’s story, this really happened). So I was preaching this past Sunday in a village to which we had been invited. Our family as well as Harry and his family, Miswel, and a few people from around the Lorakau area, walked to Lausenganu (pronounced Lao-sang-ahn-oo) village where we were to worship. The walk was about 45 minutes one way and boy, that sun was hot!

As I was preaching during worship, there were various chickens and dogs milling around. For sure, nothing can disrupt a sermon like a good dog fight. I was preaching away and all of the sudden two dogs right next to where I was standing decided to tear into one another and away they went at each other: fighting, biting, clawing and gnawing. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried this, but try preaching while the entire group of people gathered is watching a dogfight and see if your points get through.

Needless to say, the dogs went round and round, growling and fighting and something had to be done! I decided in that instant that since I was the closest to the dogs and was probably the only one annoyed at the show they were putting on, that I would give my strongest, hardest, fastest kick I could muster to the closest dog. Just like my old soccer coach taught me, I planted my left leg, swung with my right, and expected good, solid contact. The only problem was that I missed! The dogs decided, mutually, I’m sure, to stop fighting in that instant and move away from this funny looking white man standing on one leg. As they moved away, I missed my well-planned, but poorly placed kick and nearly lost my balance. Try regaining the attention of your audience once they are snickering at you almost falling down. Not easy, believe me.

Anyway, that was the first time I ever tried to break up a dogfight while preaching. I’m guessing it won’t be the last.