Impressions

By: Aaron

Our family returned to Tanna on May 30th, as I’m sure you’ve already gathered by reading Cindy’s posts. I would just like to offer one or two impressions I’ve gathered from our return.

Flowers on the Table
A lady, named Lina, from Loun village has been coming to our house each week while we were in Vila to dust, sweep and chase the spiders out of the house. Coming back to the house, we found a jar full of flowers freshly adorning our dinner table in the front room of our house. Though we didn’t even ask Lina to do this, she did it out of the kindness of her heart. What a wonderfully welcome sight for us to behold as we entered our door. Thank you, Lina!

Rain
Our month in Vila was fast paced and hectic as we raced around to visit Christians, run errands, buy supplies, etc. Each night we were wiped out and ready for bed. If it rained at night, we barely even noticed. In Tanna, however, you notice when it rains. I mean, with streams of water cascading INSIDE the house, it’s hard NOT to notice. I was rather impressed with the power and frequency of rain since our return to Tanna. In fact, at one point I counted 15 bowls we had strategically placed around the house to catch drips, drizzles and downpours when it rains.

Bible
I had packed away my Bislama Bible inside our ice chest to keep it from getting soggy if the roof happened to leak exactly over my Bible. While the Bible was dry, it was, however, moldy on all sides. After a fit of sneezing from the dust and mold, the Bible was cleaned and back to usable condition. What an experience! I mean, how often in the States do you get to de-mold your Bible when you leave for a month.

Packing
When we went to Vila for a month, we spent quite a while packing books and anything else that could be damaged by water or eaten by cockroaches or rats into boxes, bags and ice chests. The result was that upon our return, our stuff was safe. The only problem was that now all our stuff was a jumbled mess. In fact, it took longer to unpack all our stuff and remember where everything went, than it did to pack it all away in boxes. Not to worry, we now have all our stuff unpacked and in usable condition, even if we cannot yet remember where it is supposed to go. All in due time…