Festival of Pacific Arts, FINAL DAY (for me)

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Today (Sunday) was a day of rest for the Festival of Pacific Arts. Most of the venues were closed for the day. The National Museum auditorium featured a few performances, and I attended one. It was one of the first-ever performances of a duo of Maori (New Zealand) men who are reviving an ancient form of Maori puppetry. I didn't know what to expect when I went, but I enjoy indigenous puppetry forms. This performance was different than anything I have seen before. The narrative was a mythological origin story. The puppets--mostly small, and held with the puppeteers in full view--doubled as musical accompaniment. One puppet's head was removed to become a rattle, another puppet was also a flute that the puppeteer played, one puppet concealed a jew's harp that the puppeteer removed and played. The slow, somber performance was captivating.

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Yesterday I wrote a bit about the place of Christianity among the traditions on display at the Festival. I mourned the lack of meaningful interaction between the artistic traditions and the Christian faith. Today I met a Solomon Islander who shares the same vision I have for indigenized Pacific Christianity. His name is Malcolm, and he is from the island of Malaita. Last week he was working with a Wycliffe Discovery team running "Arts for a Better Future" workshops on Malaita, and this week he and the team have come to Honiara to run similar workshops here for the second week of the Festival. Malcolm and I had a great time together. His enthusiasm for bringing local artistic traditions into the Christian faith is contagious. He wants to open people's minds to the possibility of using their beloved cultural traditions in their worship of Jesus. In our time together today, he and I began thinking about ways that we could work together to foster engagement between indigenous traditions and the Christian church in the Solomon Islands. Would you pray for Malcolm, his colleague Eddie, and their families, as well as for the church on Malaita and throughout the Solomons? We can't predict exactly what challenges Malcolm will face as he encourages the worship God through distinctive Solomons cultural traditions. But I know I'm encouraged to meet a fellow brother in the faith who shares the vision for revitalized Christian worship in the Pacific.


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The Festival continues for a second week, but today was my final day. Tomorrow I'll head to Honiara International Airport (at Henderson Field--a key location in World War II). I'll be sad to say good-bye to Guadalcanal; I've had a marvelous week in the Solomons. But I'll be very, very happy to return to my family in Ukarumpa (who have all been doing very well in my absence). Thank you for reading along with me through the Festival, and for your prayers for my return journey to Papua New Guinea.

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