Fiji

 16 – New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, New Caledonia, Hawaii

After our South Island tour, we ended up back in Auckland. Our next destinations were to be the South Pacific islands of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. They had recently been hit by a devastating hurricane and New Zealanders had donated supplies for relief efforts. They had also donated some fire engines, which were loaded onto our forward deck.

It was July by now and even though it was beginning winter where we were in the Southern Hemisphere, we were on the American school system and it was coming up to our summer vacation. The ship was going to come back to New Zealand after the South Pacific so we talked about me staying to work and make some money. I’m glad it didn’t work out as I have great memories from our time in the islands.

Before we left, some of us kids were playing games in the Aft Lounge as we often did. My father had been running what they called the Outreach Team which was a team dedicated to evangelism. One of the guys on the team named Ron Musch became like a son to my parents and a brother to me. But there were a couple of other guys on the team named Patrick and Mark who were particularly zealous. They had been watching us kids playing our games in the lounge and they were about to do something that helped alter my life, once again for the better.

Patrick and Mark challenged us about time-wasting and gave us a tract by Keith Green called, Will You Be Bored in Heaven?. Keith Green was a famous singer who had visited us in Greece and agreed to promote us when we got to the States. Tragically, he was killed in a plane crash before we arrived. But the tract talked about how, if you don’t enjoy being with God now on earth, what makes you think you will enjoy Him in heaven? I was convicted.

I decided that I needed to stop wasting my time on frivolous things and take time to get to know God better. My father had a cabin on the ship he used as an office and study. When he was away, I began to spend time in there studying and praying. I decided that I wanted to really live for God. I wanted to honor Him with my life. I also went out with Patrick and Mark and the Outreach Team to do evangelism on the streets. And off we went to the islands

Our first stop was Fiji but on the way we hit another storm with all the aforementioned results. One night, we got a particularly rough jolt when we hit a wave in just the wrong way and a horn started blaring. It sent a number of people into a panic. Some thought we may have not noticed another ship in the storm and we were heading for a bad collision. Fortunately, it just turned out to be one of the fire engines up forward that had gotten its horn set off by the wave.

Fiji is another group of tropical islands which can be paradise if you have plenty of money and not so much if you don’t. Tourism and sugar exports are Fiji’s main sources of income but it also has one of the richest economies in the South Pacific islands because of its abundant forests, mineral wealth, and fish resources.

It has an ethnicity and culture unique in the Pacific Islands. In their early history, Fiji was marked by continual warfare and rampant cannibalism between its many warring tribes. In 1874, it became a British colony, which in turn, led to its unusual ethnic mix. 

The British created huge sugar plantations but outlawed using the natives as a labor force or interfering in their way of life. Instead, the British imported large numbers of East Indians as contract laborers. Soon after, measles decimated about a third of the native population so that at one point there were almost as many Indians as native Fijians. It eventually led to political unrest and coups over the native’s concern for too much Indian political power. In the backlash, many Indians decided to migrate away, which created economic difficulties but assured native dominance. By law, native Fijians own 86 percent of the land. A very large percent are subsistence farmers, growing enough to feed themselves and their families. 2

In 1983, the government and native chiefs welcomed us, our supplies and evangelistic work to Fiji. We delivered the supplies and the evangelism team went to work on the streets, in schools and churches. They also targeted the vibrant shopping area dominated by small Indian-owned shops. The native people welcomed us with ethnic foods, which is considered rude to turn down. Although I am not an adventurous eater, I found turtle to be quite tasty, if a little rich.

2. “Fiji.” Wikipedia. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc.. last edited 18 July 2008, at 13:44 (UTC). Web. July 19, 2018. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji>.