The Assembly Experience

On August 25th we headed up to Santo to attend the 69th Assembly of the PCV. Assembly is the annual gathering of pastors and elders from all over the country, to meet and discuss and make decisions. We aren't sure how many delegates there were but at least 300.
Getting there.

We flew to Luganville with about 60 other people heading to Assembly (we almost completely filled the plane, but many more went by ship), and we were then shuttled from the airport to the Presbyterian Church in Luganville, where many of the others were staying overnight before being driven on to Tasiriki village where the Assembly was held. We went by truck to stay overnight at Talua Theological College to meet up again with Phil King, who had gone up there a couple of days earlier, about an hour's bumpy drive from Luganville.

 Phil showed us around the Talua campus. 

The dining room really needs a new roof.

In the afternoon  we had some spare time so we walked through coconut plantation down to the sea for a swim. We were accompanied by 4 children belonging to some of the students, who passed us a breadfruit to try.

 We had a lovely swim in the sea,

 then in the river just behind the beach. The children played on some bamboo rafts that someone had left there.

Day 1 at Assembly- Saturday 26th
It rained all night and we were fortunate to ride inside a truck for the approx 1 1/ 2hr bumpy drive from Talua to Tasiriki. Those on the backs of trucks got soaked, but at least it wasn't too cold. We crossed 16 rivers, mostly over bridges, but there were a few real river crossings!

Once we got to the village we offloaded our gear, then we moved to just outside the village and formed a parade made up of each presbytery dressed in their particular colour, and marched slowly back into the village singing hymns.

 As we entered the village every member was presented with a salusalu (lei). Not fresh flowers unfortunately but Chinese silk flowers.

 Each group lined up on the grass facing the stage and fortunately the light rain eased off and the sun came out. We were invited up onto the stage as guests of the Moderator (the elected top man for a 2 year term). This was very fortunate as everyone else was either standing or sitting on the damp ground in the sun for a long time.

 There was a re-enactment of the coming of the Gospel to Vanuatu by early missionaries which was very entertaining. If we had known, we could have volunteered to play the missionaries - we've got the right skin colour!

After the welcome there was free time to explore the village. It is so, so beautiful! It is U-shaped with a black sand beach at the open end, and slopes up on all sides to the hills behind. The photos don't do it justice!

 In the middle is a large grassed area, usually a football field, but for Assembly they had built a really really big meeting hall, the biggest that our PCV staff had every seen at any previous Assembly. All made from local material by the people of Tasiriki and the surrounding villages over the past year.