Chief Roi Mata unifies the tribes, and our tribe enjoyed a week at the lake without us!!!
Hello Family & Friends,
It’s my turn to write this week’s letter. I always wonder if my ramblings bore you, but if even one of you enjoys them, then it’s worth it. Darleen and I aren’t great journalers, so these letters also give us a weekly reminder of what we have been doing while having this opportunity to serve such wonderful people. Here are a few highlights from the week (not all in order).
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| After church this Sunday we had to stop and look at the beach as the waves crashed over the coral. The beauties of the ocean are incredible. |
Visit to Mangaliliu Village
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| The little Presbyterian Church that was organized by missionaries that visited the islands. It still has the bell they brought from England. |
I really enjoy learning about the history of a country, and learning about the islands of Vanuatu is definitely something I'm enjoying becoming more familiar with. On Saturday, we visited the village of Mangaliliu. Elder and Sister Lamph organized the trip for all the senior missionaries as a last celebration with them before they go home in mid-July. Mangaliliu is a village that is about 1 hour away from where we live. It is part of a village that has people who trace their roots back to the time when Roi Mata ruled the islands. Our guide, Koko, was with us the whole day as he helped to show us around several of the snorkeling locations around the island of Lelepa, and also walk us around his village. He gave us a history of chief Roi Mata, which as I read about him, it says most of the history of chief Roi Mata is verbally passed down, which Koko did a good job explaining. Roi was the last of the great chiefs on island of Efate Vanuatu. He lived around the 1600’s and conquered all the rival tribes in the area with a goal of unifying the people together to stop many years of warring that was going on between all the tribes since a big volcano pushed them closer together on this island. He established peace among the people of Efate, Lelepa Island, and Artok (Hat Island). He created a system where the people came together as unified people. When they came to visit him at the end of all the fighting, he asked what type of food they brought. If they brought coconuts, then those who brought that were put into the tribe called coconuts. If they brought octopus, they were united into the tribe of octopus. It is not clear how many tribes of this nature were created, but we have heard of the reef fish, birds, and yam tribes created by chief Roi Mata. We met individuals from the coconut, octopus, and yam tribes (which was Koko’s tribe). The tribe you are in are tied to your mother. So, when you are born, whatever tribe she was in, that becomes your tribe.
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| Older huts in the village of Mangaliliu. Most of these are not used any longer other than for rituals as they have moved to more sustainable cement shelters. |
When Roi Mata died (believed to have been poisoned by his brother who wanted to take control of power - remind me of some of the Book of Mormon stories), about 50 of his wives, family, and closest retainers were buried alive with him. Hundreds more followers were also buried in surrounding pits — some voluntarily after drinking strong kava (the local fermented drink around Vanuatu), others forced in. Estimates suggest as many as 300 people. During the time of Roi Mata, the people believed that it is best to go to the afterlife with those you know by your side. I guess he needed 300 trusted people to be with him.
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| Little pig out in Mangaliliu. I think he wanted a kiss. Not going to happen. |
One interesting thing that Koko told us as he walked us
proudly through his village at the end of our day was the fact that if you
build a concrete house it can take 20 to 25 years to be able to earn enough to
afford it, but if you are able to work in Australia or New Zealand you can earn
enough in 2 years to build a similar house.
He has been trying to get approval to go and leave his current job to do
that, but he hasn’t been given the release from his current employer. Concrete homes are what they want to live in as they will withstand
the cyclones and earthquakes better. He is
currently living in a tin house with a wooden frame. Tin doesn't hold up well during the big storms they see on this island.
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| Our senior missionaries posing with Koko and his son. |
We did have a light custom lunch of small chicken wings (you never see chicken breast served here, we think they export it to other places), sweet potato, rice, watermelon, and some grapefruit, which taste more like oranges than grapefruits in the USA.
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| Lunch and Koko photo bombing the background |
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| One of Koko's sons showing us how to eat an orange/grapefruit. It looks like a grapefruit but tastes more like an orange. |
It was a relaxing and informative Saturday with the senior missionaries. I skipped the last snorkeling site, thinking it would just be more clownfish. Darleen and others, however, saw two turtles — a reminder that I should have gone!
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| Walking around the town after our snorkeling & lunch. |
Succeed in School (SIS) Classes
Our Succeed in School (SIS) classes continue in the Erakor Branch, Etas Ward, and the Stake Center (Port Vila Ward 2 and Blacksand Ward). They keep us busy Monday through Friday! We’ve especially focused on resurrecting the Etas classes, and attendance has grown to between 13 and 20 youth each week — now the largest SIS class across the Vanuatu islands. Erakor, in its third week, had 13 in Darleen’s younger class and 9 in my older class, a huge improvement from the two students each of us had during our first week.
Darleen and I often talk about how rewarding it is to see the students catch on to a concept — their faces just light up. Her younger class eagerly raises hands to answer questions, while I sometimes have to draw responses out of mine. There are times when the students don’t quite grasp the lesson, but the beauty of SIS is that we can revisit it in the next session. I always begin with a 5–10 minute review to reinforce what we taught previously. If they struggle, I focus on that material until it sticks, ensuring everyone continues progressing forward.
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| Darleen's Erakor Branch SIS class. |
This week one of the Erakor young women asked if she could take her book home to keep studying during the week. While we don’t usually allow that — since books often don’t make it back — I loved seeing her desire to learn. I decided to bring her a photocopy of the book we had made a few months ago so she can continue studying at home. The one area that left us a little sad was our Stake Center group on Friday, which had only seven students between the Foundation and Intermediate classes. Many of the youth we taught just a month ago are no longer attending. We’ll work with the current teachers to see how we can help bring them back without stepping in as the teachers ourselves. We feel the teachers are capable, but the youth have simply chosen not to come. We’ll do what we can to support them, because we love those young people and know how much they gain if they stick with it.
As we’ve mentioned before, we also provide snacks for each SIS class using humanitarian donations. This week Darleen decided to make peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwiches for our Thursday and Friday classes, six different groups in total. Between them all, she made over 90 sandwiches! I was busy preparing lessons, so she did most of the work. The kids absolutely loved them, and it was worth every effort to see their excitement and hear their gratitude. We even had a few extras to share with our Friday Institute class, which were just as well received.
Institute and YSA
On Friday, I taught one of four Institute lessons from Restoration of the Gospel on following the prophet. About 15 YSAs attended, and participation was good, though many are still hesitant to speak. Earlier in the day we posted on the Facebook Messenger site that we would stay afterward to show them some card games. Unfortunately, the YSAs had choir practice for next week’s Stake Conference. What we thought would be a quick 30‑minute rehearsal stretched into 1.5 hours. By 8:30 we decided to leave — we hadn’t eaten, and the YSAs needed to head home before buses stopped running.
We’ve been hoping the Stake would call a permanent teacher for Institute, but after four months that still hasn’t happened. We realized that by stepping back, we were actually hurting the YSAs, so we’ve decided to keep teaching until a local full‑time teacher is called. We’ll continue working with the Stake to help make that happen.
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| Friday night institute class. |
This week marked our last time teaching the full‑time missionaries' Wednesday night Institute class. We’ve been teaching this class since late last year, which has been held between two of the Pathway sessions (101, 102, or 103). With our evenings becoming so busy, we felt it was important to free up time to focus on seminary classes we haven’t been able to visit. We’ve truly enjoyed working with these young missionaries — most often from Papua New Guinea, Africa, and occasionally Vanuatu — but teaching via Zoom across the islands has been challenging. While there is some interaction, the missionaries tend not to speak up as much as we’d like, and we miss the energy of face‑to‑face lessons. By handing this back to the mission office, we’ll now have more time on Wednesdays to visit seminary classes, provide training, and strengthen relationships with the teachers.
The Port Vila Stake President, President Kaun, also asked me to help organize the request for a YSA Gathering Place at the Stake Center. Elder and Sister Payne, the previous Seminary & Institute missionaries, had prepared a proposal before we arrived, but it wasn’t approved. The Area Presidency asked that construction items be removed and the focus placed on equipment needs. On Saturday, I walked through the building with President Kaun to explain that such a gathering place requires a large dedicated space. The room we had planned to use has already been committed, and he initially thought one of the vacant offices might suffice. I explained that these spaces should be able to hold 30–50 YSAs, so offices simply wouldn’t work. We’ll see if approval comes once the revised proposal is submitted.
Father's Day teaching Primary in Eton
As Darleen mentioned in last week’s letter, we went out to the Eton unit to teach primary, however, because it was raining so hard most members didn’t show up. So, we decided to go back this Sunday to try again. Darleen led the children in singing, and I did the lesson on Samuel hearing the Lord when he was sleeping and Eli telling him to say when the Lord spoke “Speak for thy servant heareth”. I picked one of the boys to be ‘Samuel’, and as I told the story of how he was sleeping and then he heard someone speak, he woke up and went into see Eli and asked what he wanted. Then I would walk him back to another part of the room when Eli told him to go back to bed. The children were laughing as I explained what happened until finally Eli, after 3 times of Samuel visits, tells him what to do if he hears the voice of the Lord again.
After telling the story quickly, I had made these paper head bands that had the words “Speak for thy servant heareth” written in Bislama on the front with some big ears attached to emphasize the need to listen to the Lord. We had them color the head bands and then I stapled them together to fit on their heads. You could tell they enjoyed wearing them and learning about Samuel.
| Darleen helping with one of the songs. |
Darleen did such a great job teaching the children different
songs like, “If you are happy and you know it”, “Do as I’m doing”, “Popcorn
popping”, “Tell me the story of Jesus”, and “A child’s prayer”. For children who have never sung these
songs, they sang very good. Darleen
would say, sing loud so God can hear, and then they would sing louder. It was fun to watch how they loved singing. They also loved just having us there to be with
them. At the end, parents were smiling,
and the kid didn’t want to leave. Darleen
finally said, “you can go home now!”.
Parents said to her, “they just want to stay”.
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| This little girls dad was so happy she was allowed to participate in primary. |
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| The Eton Primary children with their 'ears on to hear the Lord speak' to them |
As we drove home from the meeting out in Eton, we had to stop and watch the waves crashing on the beach areas up the road from the church building. As we have said many times, it is so relaxing and helps us see God's hand in the beauties he has placed before us. I am amazed at how each time we see it, we see something a little different.
And before I close, I want to wish all fathers a very Happy Father’s Day. My own dad is no longer with me, but I’m deeply grateful for the lessons I learned from him. Many of the qualities I’ve tried to live by came from his example. I’m also thankful for the privilege of being a father myself, and for the wonderful children Darleen and I have been blessed to raise.
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| The 12 grandchildren posing at the lake. |
This past week, all of them gathered at Lake Keowee, South Carolina, enjoying a home Nicholas rented for the family. They made fun memories together, and we prayed daily for their safety — prayers that were answered. While we couldn’t be there in person, we loved seeing their joy through the videos and pictures they sent. We look forward to joining them next year and sharing in those traditions once again.
That’s about it for now as we sign off from the beautiful islands of Vanuatu.
Love, Mom & Dad, Nana & Papa, Sister & Elder Lovelace, and Darleen & Mark
Additional pictures from the week
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| Love the imagery of the Hen with its chicks. You see them always next to each other to give protection to their babies. |
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| Thought was fun to see a hen looking for food scraps among the outdoor kitchen preparation / dish washing area. |
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| Flowers are beautiful on the island. |
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| Sister Maringhi one of our dear Sister Missionaries who goes home to Papa New Guinea this week. She was also in our full-time missionary Institute class for the past 21 weeks. |
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| Boats we road over to Lelepa Island to do some snorkeling around |
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