Diary of A Missionary's Wife - Part 2

April 14, 2010

. . . The village children saw us looking for a place to swim and began to lead us to the right place. Pretty soon even more children came and we had about twenty children all ready to go swimming!

Welsin, the chief's son, had been teasing me a lot earlier during freeze tag, so when he and Trevor (another village boy) wanted to take me and Nathan out in the canoe, I was a bit hesitant. I was afraid of sharks or of getting stuck somewhere, but Nathan and I decided to enjoy the adventure. I teased Welsin that he'd BETTER not tip the boat because I didn't want to be shark food! He kept teasing back that he was going to. I would tease back in Bislama, "You better not!", with an authoritative tone and he would just laugh so hard! Both of the boys found my fears hilarious. As luck would have it, after we got a ways out the canoe broke and we all fell in the water!! Welsin thought it was hilarious, and I have to admit, after all the teasing it was pretty funny.

Later, after we climbed into a bigger fishing boat, Welsin asked Nathan to tell them a story. Nathan told the story of David and Goliath, and then about an ice storm in Missouri. Then he had to explain snow to them! They asked Nathan if he had a truck in America and when he told them that even I had a car, they could not believe that I, being a woman, could drive!!

Before we left, I told Welsin that I was going to tell all the kids at school tomorrow about how he tipped the boat and tried to feed me to the sharks. All the kids laughed until they almost cried.

The day Wesin and Trevor took us out in the canoe will forever be one of my fondest memories of Vanuatu.

Jennifer



I don't have any pictures of that day, but Wesin is the blonde boy on the second bench. Trevor is sitting beside him.



A couple of the village children.