Pioneering in the New Hebrides

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 14, 1916

Pioneering in the New Hebrides

Early in 1916 Brother C. H. Parker wrote of further advance into new heathen cannibalistic territory. At that time he was entering the larger island of Malekula, adjacent to Atchin. Brother Parker is now in Fiji, but the following letter continues the story of his getting over into the Big Nambus tribe farther inland on the large island. He writes:—

“Our work is steadily reaching out to other places, and now we are building a new mission station thirty miles from here, around the coast of Malekula, which will be but a resting place for two or three months, when we shall go on a distance farther, and ten miles inland (rather upland, for it is about four thousand feet to the table-land above), where we have a most favorable opening among the Big Nambus people. They are the most numerous, most savage, most cannibalistic, and most warlike of all the tribes on Malekula. We would go right away if it were possible to put a worker there. It is very hard to get suitable young men for such mission fields as this and the Solomons. A young man was obtained, but the New Zealand government

would not let him come, on account of the war. Now we shall have to break up our forces here, and let my fellow-worker fill the Matanavat station, preparatory to going on and making the Big Nambus his field of operation a little later. It will make greater burdens for each of us to bear, and we shall have to combine as much as we can.

“Matanavat is the place where Satan tried to check our work by rousing the bush tribes to lay in wait for me several months ago. We have felt urged on from above, and now Matanavat has turned to us, and several of the bush tribes around it are calling us to labor in their towns. Matanavat has been the key in the Lord’s hand for opening the door to the Big Nambus.

“While I have been building at Matanavat, a tribe only a short distance away threatened Matanavat with destruction, and the missionary with death. The Matanavat people delegated six of their men to stand guard over me during the night. These slept in my eight-by-ten-foot room with me. When I went down to bathe in the sea after dark, a man stood guard on the beach. The people intend that no harm shall come to me if they can help it. What a change! We praise the Lord for it.

“This people have now finished a twenty-four-by-thirty-six-foot church building, which we hope soon to dedicate. Just now the work is very hopeful.

“It is hard for us to leave the work here and go back to Fiji to take up work there again. But the brethren of the Australasian Union have voted to form Fiji into a conference, and they ask me to act as its president. There are better men than I for such a position, but then I believe that my brethren in council are guided by the Spirit of God, and God has his reason for taking us away from the work here and placing us back in Fiji. We bow our heads in submission, and rest in the blessed assurance that he has sent us.

“We expect to leave in two months’ time, reaching Fiji about the first of July, when that mission will be organized into a conference.

“Pastor A. G. Stewart, who is superintendent of the Fiji Mission, takes my place here. He is in Sydney now, and will reach this island the latter part of next month.”