Memories of the Cook Islands

IN APRIL 1980 one of Jehovah’s Witnesses from New Zealand served at an annual convention of the Witnesses in the South Pacific island of Rarotonga, one of the Cook Islands group. Upon his return, he jotted down what he called his Cook Islands experience:

. . . being greeted by happy Christian brothers and sisters at the Rarotonga International Airport at 4 a.m. and garlanded with leis (wreaths) of richly perfumed pink and white frangipani, flowers that grow wild on the island;

. . . the “kia orana” (welcome) spirit, i.e., being hugged and kissed in the accepted form of island greeting;

. . . showing slides of the Watch Tower Society’s world headquarters and the Lower Manhattan skyline on a screen mounted on the back of a truck, against a backdrop of coconut palms swaying in the moonlight;

. . . children using their Bibles during assembly sessions, eagerly trying to look up all the scriptures;

. . . a realistic Bible drama about a “fatherless boy,” with brown people playing the roles of brown people . . . looking around and seeing that many others, like yourself, are unashamedly shedding tears;

. . . a woman breast-feeding her baby in the front row during an assembly session;

. . . witnessing a baptism in the picturesque, turquoise lagoon;

. . . being commended by a little seven-year-old girl for a talk you gave and being told why she liked a certain illustration you used;

. . . roosters crowing to one another at all hours of the night . . . barking dogs . . . “in sleepless nights often” (2 Cor. 11:27) . . . with reference to the island’s many dogs, hearing a local radio announcer say, in jest, “You better stay home today, you may be run over by a dog”;

. . . children, during assembly intermissions, playing a form of baseball with a green tennis ball and a piece of wood . . . and when called from the game for a meal​—instant obedience;

. . . sisters wearing the same dress on three consecutive days . . . brothers bringing their neckties neatly folded in their shirt pockets, putting them on for their program parts and, then, back in the audience, removing them and returning them to their pockets;

. . . finding joy in simple things . . . boys fishing in the lagoon with homemade equipment (and catching fish) . . . little girls happily skipping and using as a “rope” a vine readily procurable on the beach . . . no television;

. . . brothers coming to the assembly from the outer islands at great personal cost (in their circumstances) and bringing their whole families . . . island families are generally large;

. . . no work in the assembly cafeteria during sessions, yet two nourishing meals each day . . . served in varied and imaginative ways . . . taro, raw tuna marinated in lemon juice and served with coconut sauce, goat meat, pork, chicken, breadfruit, avocado, island oranges, pawpaws, bananas, fruit cocktails;

. . . fathers, mothers and little ones, uncomplainingly being loaded on to the back of a truck for their homeward journey at close of each evening session;

. . . a colorful, never-to-be-forgotten farewell at the airport . . . flowers, island seashells, firm handshakes, warm embraces, wet eyes . . . a lingering sadness, and yet a heart filled to overflowing on the return flight to New Zealand . . . a silent prayer on behalf of the dear brothers and sisters in the Cook Islands and in the interests of the continued expansion of the work of Bible education in this remote South Pacific area.