The singer and the song

from w
This afternoon one of the Fijian ladies in our afternoon church service gave us an interesting insight into her love of singing. When she first arrived in Melbourne she was too shy at first to lead the hymns but now she's confident and I wondered why the change. She told us that she is so grateful for the casual work she now does for pocket money that she sings hymns all day long as she sweeps, vaccuums, dusts, and tidies up her clients' homes, one she said was a palace, better than the house of a Fiji Prime Minister! Now she sings like an angel with all of that practice and of course the women of the households ask her about her songs and she explains that she is so grateful to God for her present-day life. Va is one of our newer migrants in Melbourne and she is always smiling.

A day up in Melbourne

from w
Yesterday I went with some of the family up to Melbourne by a very slow train, then we caught two trams, and got to an appointment just in time, then Hungry Jacks for lunch, walked past the Myer windows in 30 seconds, saw a white stone man, then a homeless man selling magazines, then took another tram where I fell into someone's lap when the tram sped off, then at the Southern Cross Railway Station three of us dashed to the toilets in a hurry. Something was wrong with the hamburgers perhaps! However it was a good day and the boys now know that Melbourne city is quite a strange place.

Visiting a newborn

from w
Last night we had the pleasure of visiting friends in the Werribee region to take a woven mat, bundle of kava, and small gifts for a four day old baby boy. In this inter-generational home, usually very neat and quiet, suddenly there are the sounds of a budding Pavarotti demanding attention and piles of baby needs around. When he yelled the seven women in the house leapt to attention to rock, pat, sing to, change or feed the little fellow. What a blessing this little boy will give to the family. Congratulations Kitione and Lutu for your first child and welcome to the bonny lad of over four kilos. The custom last night is called 'vakabogiva' which means four nights after a significant event in the life of a Fijian family. We had prayers and a delicious dinner and the men drank kava and some of us women became nostalgic about other times, a long time ago, when we had the very best moment of our lives when we said hello to a newborn child.