fish

I think Dad and Devan are the only ones that know this...maybe Mom and Sarah too if you guys are really studying PMG like you say you are ;) But guess what? Missionaries do service once a week! It's the coolest thing in the world! President Weir has set apart the appointed day of Thursday that we do service. Sometimes is lasts one hour, sometimes the whole morning...but this last week was pretty memorable. 

We got to Unia's house and asked if there was anything we could do to help. We were all dressed in grunge clothes ready to work. Unia -- and the people here -- are really shy to let foreigners help them because it's definitely outside of their culture. They have strict traditions that girls can only do girl chores and guys can only do guy chores but when we come - we come to work. She said she really had nothing for us to do, and just then her three daughters came back from their morning bath in the ocean with all sorts of fish they had caught (talk about multi-tasking..) So we started the daily routine of the people of Kiribati. We gutted the fish (and I almost threw up..but I held my white self together) salted the fish..then walked all over the islands to find fire wood. We found some, and started a fire with stones. Just kidding..but sometimes I think I wouldn't be surprised if we did. We started a fire, and then placed a sheet of metal on top of two large rocks with the fire in the middle and cooked the fish. After all this was done and the fresh fish was cooked..we ate the fish. I actually ate the fish...but only two bites, hahaha. I always have to explain to everyone, "Nanou, e kain Kiribati; ma biratou, e tiaki kain Kiribati" My heart is from Kiribati, but my stomach isn't from Kiribati. And that concluded our service...but as I thought about it as we were walking home..I was seriously so impressed with the skills of these people..yeah no one has a solid education -- but they have got street smarts like nobody's business. With only an empty bag of rice as a net they can catch a whole meal of fish..and keep the fish in the bag, and still catch more fish..and take a bath, and...MAN! And then - as most things on this island do -- it turned into a spiritual lesson for me.

I thought about when Jesus asked his apostles to leave their nets. And that scripture story clicked for me. It clicked because their nets are EVERYTHING to these people. Nobody has jobs here--the economy is literally non existent..so all they do for fun and for work is fish. And when Jesus asked them to leave their nets..He was asking them to leave the lives they knew. The kids here - from the time they are old enough to walk, bathe in the ocean and learn how to fish. Fishing is their life. They fish to LIVE, but Jesus asked the people to leave their nets..leave your life behind and come follow Him. I can understand why after Jesus died they went back to fishing -- because they had been doing that their WHOLE life long. They did not have the spiritual food that they were used to with the presence of Jesus, so they turned to physical food - to fishing. 

Maybe this was just an "ah-ha" moment for me, and it won't make sense to anyone else..but man, this mission is teaching me so much about the life of Jesus Christ.

love you to the moon and back,
sis j