Solomon Islands in 1914

The Advent Hearld, used by Captain Griffiths Jones when he first entered the Solomon Islands in 1914. Photo courtesy of Glynn Lock. Solomon Islands MILTON HOOK Milton Hook, Ed.D. (Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, the United States). Hook retired in 1997 as a minister in the Greater Sydney Conference, Australia. An Australian by birth Hook has served the Church as a teacher at the elementary, academy and college levels, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and as a local church pastor. In retirement he is a conjoint senior lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has authoredFlames Over Battle Creek, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora, Desmond Ford: Reformist Theologian, Gospel Revivalist, the Seventh-day Adventist Heritage Series, and many magazine articles. He is married to Noeleen and has two sons and three grandchildren. The Solomon Islands are a double chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls in the southwest of the Pacific Ocean. Background In the sixteenth century Spanish explorers entered the group and generated rumors that they had found King Solomon’s gold mines, leading to the name Solomon Islands. The inhabitants are Melanesian with the exception of a small population of Polynesians on a few eastern and southern islands. The capital is Honiara on Guadalcanal. Christianity was introduced to the Solomon Islands by Anglican missionaries in the nineteenth century, and they retain the majority among religious faiths. In 1893 the country was made a British protectorate and was given its independence in 1978. British rule witnessed a rebellion in 1927 among the Kwaio clan on Malaita, an uprising against tax collection that was put down, with many islanders losing their lives and homes. Later, in World War II, American marines reversed the advance of the Japanese army in the Battle of Guadalcanal.1 Entry of Seventh-day Adventists Some activity had taken place prior to 1912 with Victor Stratford, a clerk at the Australasian Union Conference (AUC) office, regularly mailing copies of Life and Health to English-speaking traders and government officials throughout Melanesia.2 Favorable replies encouraged the AUC in 1913 to determine to dispatch a missionary party.3 Arrangements were made to have an auxiliary ketch built especially for the mission. By May 1914 it was completed, and Griffiths and Marion Jones were chosen to use it in their pioneer work in the Solomon Islands.4 The ketch was christened Advent Herald.5 It was loaded onto the deck of the island steamer Minindi and lashed down for the trip from Sydney. The Joneses accompanied it and arrived at Gizo Harbor on May 29, 1914. Jones was not a marine engineer or very familiar with the boat. The captain and crew of the Minindi lowered the Advent Herald into the water, obligingly fitted the masts and rigging, and tested the engine.6 Before Jones was about to sail and explore for a suitable mission station, a planter named John Statham fortuitously arrived and offered to help Jones get started. Statham had been a patient at the Sydney Sanitarium, where he had met Jones. He and his native assistant from Malaita led Jones out through the treacherous reefs to the Roviana Lagoon on New Georgia Island, where another planter, Norman Wheatley, was stationed. Wheatley suggested Jones try to establish himself on Rendova Island, opposite Roviana Lagoon, because no other mission was operating there. Wheatley also released Kusolo, one of his trusted workers, into the employ of Jones as a deckhand and interpreter. Kusolo became a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) and remained a loyal member of the mission.7 Jones found the people of Rendova to be unwelcoming, so he sailed back to New Georgia and into Viru Harbor. The Viru people were cordial but preoccupied with a feast at the time. He sailed on into the Marovo Lagoon and found a government district officer who, like himself, came from England, and they immediately became friends. The officer was keen to assist Jones and went back to Viru with him and persuaded the islanders to accept Jones. He had the chiefs sign a document, donating a plot of land for the mission. He also recruited seven young men to erect some huts of native materials and a prefabricated home Jones had brought with him for his own accommodation.8 The Spread of Mission Stations Before the year was out, a delegation of Marovo people went to Viru to tell Jones they had cleared a site for a mission station and started to erect buildings. They asked for a resident missionary who would start a school for them. 9 In early 1915 Jones welcomed Oscar and Ella Hellestrand to teach about forty students at Viru and provide medical services.10 It enabled Jones to sail in search of further people willing to establish an SDA mission station. In the same year Donald and Lilian Nicholson arrived at Sasaghana village on the Marovo Lagoon. In the context of World War I Jones desperately called for more missionaries to assist him in view of the fact that the world’s probation, he said, was soon to close, for “the end of the world was in sight” and a lot of villagers were calling for gospel teachers.11 Expansion began to gather pace in 1916. Hellestrand nurtured an outstation at Nono, south of his base.12 Jones located a bachelor nursing graduate, David Gray, willing to pioneer a station at Pejuku on Gatokai Island.13 Another boat, christened Minando (“love” in the local language), was positioned at Sasaghana for Nicholson to service the Marovo Lagoon region.14 And Lilian Nicholson’s school officially opened on September 13, 1916.15 Young men such as Pana, Kioto, and Peo, who were later to take leading roles themselves, were mentioned among the early students. 16 Late in 1916 Jones sent a young man named Hite to prepare a station at Ughele on Rendova Island, where he had first called in 1914.17 Chief Romiti had initially rebuffed Jones, but then changed his mind. Late in 1917 Samuel and Florence Maunder settled at Ughele to further develop the station.18 Back in the Marovo Lagoon a second station was opened in 1917 at Telina. The Nicholsons transferred to this site to open another school. It became the headquarters for the Marovo region for some years because of the enthusiastic support that Chief Tatangu rendered.19 He and his wife, Sabenaru, were happy for their boys to attend the school. Those youngsters included Rini, Ghusa Peo, Kata Ragaso, Jimaru, Kulobura, and Joseph.20 When a new mission boat, the ketch Melanesia, was added to the fleet in 1917, its initial home anchorage was Telina station.21 The vessel proved to be one of the most dependable for decades. The first annual council of the Solomon Islands Mission was held at Sasaghana, December 29, 1917, through January 2, 1918. It was like a camp meeting, three hundred people attending, including 21 chiefs from all the stations. During the assembly ten young people from Viru, Sasaghana, and Telina were baptized, something that the people had never before witnessed.22 It was a brave step for the candidates to abandon the spirit worship so prevalent in their culture.23 After four years of work Jones summarized progress up to 1918. Viru station, he lamented, was somewhat neglected but managing under local leadership. The earliest results of the elementary training schools were beginning to surface as such men as Kere were given charge of Nono station. In the Marovo Lagoon Telina served as the headquarters for nearby Rukutu, Sasaghana, Loloha villages, and Ramata to the north. Further away the outposts on Gatukai Island and Rendova Island were well established with expatriate leadership. Jones desperately appealed for more workers because invitations from communities were being made at more northerly islands, such as Kolombangara and Vella Lavella.24 In 1919 Henry “Harry” and Emily Tutty, both nurses, opened a station at Doveli on Vella Lavella Island. Barnabas Pana assisted them25 until, on March 15, 1920, he went by canoe over to Ranonga Island to begin another station on the west coast at Modo.26 Soon after, Harold Wicks was transferred from the Cook Islands to replace Jones as superintendent.27 Jones baptized eight more young people at Viru station28 and ten at Pejuku, Gatokai Island, before the changeover.29 One of the last milestones that Jones engaged in was to conduct the wedding of Panda, at that time the missionary at Ughele station.30 Jones had supervised the establishment of five central stations and 17 outstations, with a total Sabbath School membership rising to 1,108 during his six-year pioneering term.31 Further Progress At Telina headquarters Peo was active as the supervisor of the immediate area and deacon of the Telina church, in addition to translating hymns, the Sabbath School lessons, and John’s Gospel. He was proficient at cutting stencils on the typewriter and printing limited copies for distribution among the outstation workers.32 In 1922 the Signs Publishing Company donated a printing press for the mission,33 Gray setting it up the following year.34 The Solomon Island missionaries had no more than three years schooling and were heavily dependent on the printed lessons that they used with the Sabbath School Picture Rolls donated by Australasian members.35 Persistent invitations kept coming from Choiseul Islanders, so Jugha, who was assisting Pana at Modo, was taken to the south of the island at Kuboro Bay on August 28, 1921, where he established a well-designed station at Ghoghombe.36 The following year Kioto and Nagaha pioneered two further stations on the east coast of Choiseul.37 Two more young men, Goropava and Manovaki, pioneered the west coast soon after.38 The rapid spread of the mission attracted criticism from another denomination, who persuaded local people to dispute three different land leases at the main centers of Viru, Ughele, and Telina.

Load more