Description

‘Leaving a comfortable life in north London in 1972 to go as a missionary teacher to live and work on a tiny island in the Vona Vona Lagoon in the Western Solomon Islands proved to be an amazing, exciting, and challenging experience for Sylvia. It was a step into the unknown, moving to a beautiful but remote island accessible only by canoe or small boat. This book is the story of the eighteen years that she spent there at a United Church boarding school, teaching and helping to provide pastoral and practical care for the students. There were frightening journeys by sea and in small planes, alarming encounters with wild life such as snakes, poisonous centipedes and sword fish, tussles with kerosene fridges and hand sewing machines, a lack of basic resources including water and electricity, and all sorts of new and unexpected skills that she needed to learn. This book tells of the challenges, ups and downs and joys, of working with wonderful students who went on to be become pioneers and leaders in their own church, country and even world-wide, and of the friendship, love and support of both colleagues and kind and caring local people. ‘