Today Karl, Damien and Brendon went for site visits to where a few of the churches will be built. I'll have to see if I can get Karl to caption the photos for you....
No luck, you are getting the information second hand, Karl is busy elsewhere. In the foreground is the current meeting place for the congregation. If you are sharp-eyed you will see 4 guys standing where the corner posts of the new church will go. This will be the first site to get a church. 
This is the land donor for the second church they plan to erect. This man moved his whole family(village) from a more southern island called Tanna. He has a master plan for his new village which is drawn on the black board. It includes three classroom shelters, a "medical center" and the place for the new One Day Church. Only one of the buildings is currently there. A newly completed shelter that will be used as a school (classes to start next week) during the week, and a church until their new one is built.
Looks rather nice, doesn't it? Too bad the life span will be only about 10 years due to termites, and less if there is a cyclone. Across the road, another new village is about to be built. The residents of a small atoll have out grown the space it provides. The government will be moving the whole group (usually an extended family makes up a village) to the new village site across the road. The man-with-the-plan says that when they send their children to the new school and use the new medical center (still to be built), he is confident they will also become a part of their church.
This is the road that they will share with the new village and will be the avenue materials and builders will need to use! You can see why Karl put this 2nd on the list. In a few weeks we should be into dry(er) season and things will have had a chance to firm up a bit. The church will be built in the middle of the green area you see in the photo. I've got to share some more road photos, they are just too good.
Pretty crazy, huh?
The road is actually worse than it looks, beleive me, I was there, I took the photos! The worst part was so rough that I was unable to get a photo while moving. As for the life span of the building made of local materials, 10 yrs is MAX, I am told that 5-6 years is more common, thus the steel structure of the One Day Church. ks
ReplyDeleteReminds me a little of the road to our "Rain or Shine" picnic on Sabbath -- big puddles and ruts on the Switzerland Trail.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm Looks a lot like the roads I carried mail on the last year before I became postmaster in
ReplyDeleteGrafton. Mud so deep, I got high centered and had to have a tractor pull me out and wash down my motor.