Richard Clutterbuck, rainmaker

For nearly five weeks I passed through the Pacific islands accompanied by nearly constant rain. Deluge, flood and storm in quick succession. I'm now in Australia, staying with long-term friends Leigh and Corina. They live in Queanbeyan, near Canberra, but picked me up from Sydney and have now taken me to their holiday home on the coast. At first Australia seemed the opposite of the islands, even though it's approaching winter: full sun with cold nights and warm days. On Sunday that all changed. I preached in the Uniting Church in Queanbeyan (my third gig there over the last 12 years) before we headed for the coast. Cue for the end of a long,  dry spell, with rain lashing the mountains as we drove through them. Parts of Australia have been in the grip of terrible drought, but in some areas the last 24 hours have seen the heaviest rain in decades. Is it me bringing the rain or the fact that a general election campaign has just started? 

 Evidence of a successful morning's fishing.

  Looking to Broulee Island from Mossy Point

The emphasis this week has been on relaxation before the long flight back to the UK. 35 years ago I was best man at Leigh and Corina's wedding in the Catholic basilica in Tonga. Leigh's father was a Methodist minister missionary in Tonga in the 50s and Corina's family moved to Tonga in the 60s. Leigh's a retired economist who, even before the last recession, was telling us that the world's economies were built on unsustainable debt. Corina, among many other gifts, is a superb gardener. She has a growing bonzai tree collection, an orchard full of citrus trees and several raised beds for vegetables. As a couple they're wonderfully hospitable. Oh, and they have world's best-behaved Labrador, Benji. Conversation ranges over the three cultures - Philippino. Tongan and Australian - embraced in their household. 

Broulee is about 200 miles south of Sydney, right on the coast, with miles of pristine beach backed by forest. Wombats and kangaroos (both bigger than you might think) roam the roadside after dark, a strong incentive for daylight travel. Leigh took me fishing, with enough success to avoid embarrassment but not so much as to make us boast. 

I know human beings have been in Australia for 50,000 years +, but they don't seem to have had the same impact as their European counterparts. Almost anywhere in Europe - including Ireland - you can see how humans have shaped the landscape: cutting down forest, draining bogs, growing crops, building monuments of one kind or another. Here, the landscape feels more elemental. Add to that the completely different flora and fauna of Australia - marsupials on the ground, gum trees instead of oak and beech, raucous flocks of cockatoos flying above you - and this does feel very alien. More so, in some ways, than the Pacific islands. This is a wonderful and awe-inspiring world. 

 Corina's new wicking bed for growing veg in a dry climate. 

Farewell Polynesia

I'm writing this at 36,000 feet, surrounded by Tongans who are travelling to Australia. Many will have been attending funerals or other family events in Tonga, some travelling for work or study. There's a complex relationship between Tonga and its expatriate communities- they send welcome funds back to families and churches but also draw off talent and develop a life of their own.

My last day in Tonga provided meetings at Dr Moulton House, the Church HQ. I was able to say hello to Tutu'aleva, former teaching colleague of Diane, now training people in counselling. It's reassuring to meet someone after many years and they are as  attractive a personality as when they were younger. A useful talk with 'Ahio, the Church President, focused on setting up some courses on Methodist theology, an idea that has been around for several years but has been frustratingly difficult to put into practice. It's just possible that I'll be back in a year or so for this: we'll see. 

Saia took me on a drive out to Toloa, home of Tupou College, the flagship church boarding school for boys, founded by James Egan Moulton in 1866 on the model of an English public school. Moulton's brother had founded the Leys School in Cambridge, and J E obviously didn't want to be left out. Boys are housed in large dormitories and live a strict life with plenty of work on the food plantations in the nearby bush - something that probably doesn't happen at Eton and Harrow. It's the 150th anniversary in a few weeks and the campus is full of furious, last-minute building and road-mending. We went into the vast chapel/hall where a new pulpit was being constructed behind the biggest communion table I've ever seen.

 

Seeing Tonga through the eyes of Saia, newly returned from 20 years in New Zealand, is fascinating. He can't understand why things aren't better organised! Driving back from, we found ourselves behind a car with an upturned bathtub on the roof. After a While we realised that the only thing holding it on were 3 brown hands (one of them belong to the driver) that emerged from the windows to grip the bath's sides. Saia wasn't impressed! 

In the Evening I was taken out to dinner by a former student, Fale Lomu, and his wife. Decades ago Fale had been my student assistant in the Sia'atoutai library as we laboured through hot afternoons to create a catalogue using a card index and a typewriter with wonky keys. As a minister he's served on the staff of the college, written a commentary on the Psalms in Tongan and now works with the evangelism team. Hearing him talk about the joy of discovering pastoral ministry and the need for the church to serve the poor was another heartwarming moment. 

 

 

Saia picked me up from the Tungi Colonnade at 4.45am. Church bells were already ringing - probably for an early Ascension Day mass at the Catholic Cathedral. In the airport departure lounge I found Siotame Havea, until recently principal of Sia'atoutai but now troubleshooting the Tongan church in Australia. It turned out he was the one person I should have been talking to in my visit! He'd initiated the idea of funding for Methodist theology courses and had a clear idea of what they should do. 

Visiting and leaving Tonga is a mixed experience. The three years there were intensely important at a key stage for my life and ministry. So there's an element Of reconnection - and, of course - wondering what has happened to all the intervening years. There's joy in meeting people again and receiving generous hospitality. There's sadness, too. You sense that Tonga has been left behind in development and that many of the signs of apparent progress - the huge number of cars, for example - are actually reducing the quality of life. But Tongans cope with the world as it is, even if it's different from the way they'd like it to be. I guess that's something we all need to learn. 

Life, death and longevity in Tonga

To be at home in Tonga you need to tear up your diary and forget your schedules. Like it or not, going with the flow is the only option. I booked just a few days in Tonga because I really had only one specific task to do. I should have known better. Just before I left Samoa I had news of the sad death of the wife of the General Secretary of the Tongan Church. As Tevita was really the person I was coming to see, that was a blow. Now that I'm here, the funeral of Sela has dominated everything. It's a privilege to be with people in this situation - you just have to trust that this is more important than your own plans. 

Faka Me

Sunday morning I was back at my old college, Sia'atoutai, where I taught in '79,80 & 81. I'm welcomed as a long-lost relative - Diane and I were married in the college chapel and made our first home on the campus. There are a couple of my old students on the staff. I was preaching (in place of Tevita ) at the annual children's service, always held on the first Sunday in May. Children are dressed in white and take most of the service, reciting the scripture readings and hymns. It's one of the big events of the year - everyone wants their children to look gorgeous. At the feast afterwards  several speeches praised the simplicity of my sermon, which made me wonder if I had been disappointingly simplistic. I'd tried to speak of the way children teach us about God. The feast, by the way, included a first taste of the freshly-harvested yams, I impressed people (I like to think) by successfully identifying them as the ufi kahokaho variety. 

 

Monday I had been due to teach at the college. However, the students had been up most of the night cooking food for the coming funeral, so were too sleepy. I had a day off, getting some writing done, having a haircut (by a young Chinese man called David) and reacquainting myself with Nuku'alofa's best coffee shop, Cafe Escape. Sai'a, who's looking after me, says he's grateful I'm showing him some of the good places to eat in town as he hasn't had chance too find them yet. In the evening I ate spaghetti con frutti di mare in Little Italy, a lovely Italian restaurant by the shore. 

Tuesday morning saw me joining the crowds at Centenary Church for the funeral. I couldn't really take photos, so I've used a picture from the web to give an impression. I'll try and paint the scene. The church (and it's a big one) is packed. Everyone is in black and wearing a ta'ovala, the woven mat that signals respect. There are special versions for funerals, including some that almost cover a person. This is for those who are tu'a to the deceased - socially inferior according to the complicated family structure. Unusually, the King, queen and princess Royal are all present. I found myself on the front row with Kini, wife of the church president. The students of Sia'atoutai were there in force (as well as General Secretary of the church Tevita is also Prncipal of the college) and so were the brass bands from various Methodist schools. Sela's body lay on a pile of tapa cloth and mats, covered in a white cloth but not in a coffin. The funeral itself was a mixture of church service and complex Tongan tradition, with every task carefully allocated to the appropriate relative. My old principal, Lopeti Taufa, still dignified at 89, offered the opening prayer. Other dignitaries led the hymns and readings. 'Ahio, the president preached for about an hour. The adopted children of Sela, both from Fiji, spoke. They only looked about 12 and were amazingly brave. From the Church the body was borne to the cemetery, accompanied by bands playing Abide with me. The grave had been built as a cement tomb and the body, wrapped in a mat, was lowered in. and covered with sand. After the prayers and the formal thanks we  were all invited to take a flower and drop it into the grave and then were given a hymn book in memory of Sela. When it was all over the mood lightened. I was approached by a group of women who had been teachers with Diane at Queen Salote College. Now they are senior ministers - Tonga being more advanced in the area of gender equality than 

Samoa. 

 

I spent the afternoon with Lopeti, simply delighted to have one more chance to meet him. His daughters were our bridesmaids and he and his late wife Mele acted like parents to us while we were at Sia'atoutai. Lopeti still does some teaching, he's part of a team working on a new translation of the Old Testament, and he's promoting a tree- planting scheme for the outer islands. Pretty good for a 89 year-old! 

 

Goodbye Samoa

3.30 am Saturday I said goodbye to Piula College and set off for the airport. I'm very glad I came. Samoa is a beautiful country with a proud sense of culture and a stable social structure. It feels very safe. There was no lock on the house I stayed in. By comparison Everyone in Fiji is very concerned about security - especially in the city. 

Hospitality was overwhelming. Thursday evening was my last night eating with my 'aiga (pronounced ayinga). Each tutor has responsibility for a group of married and single students. They have a large communal cooking, eating and meeting house. Children and dogs mill around. They  kept telling me how much they enjoyed having me as it meant they were cooking better meals than usual. It made me aware that I was using valuable resources, so I did pass on a donation for their funds. I wondered how some of them had coped. One of the student's wives had been brought up in New Zealand, hadn't known much Samoan and had had to fit into the demands of a very strict way of life. She said she wept every night for the first month, but was happy now. 

 My 'aiga

Friday night the faculty had a farewell feast for me and for Viliami, the educational consultant from Fiji. Formality was the order of the day. Everything, from the kava ceremony beforehand, through the seating arrangements (separate tables for guests of honour, the principal, tutors, prncipal's wife and tutors' wives) to the speeches and presentation of gifts. I suspect that protocol in the Prussian court of the nineteenth century was casual by comparison. Of course, you feel totally out of your depth when you don't know the conventions. My little gift to the principal seemed puny in comparison with the heap of souvenirs and lava lava cloths piled up in front of me by a line of dancing women. I would have needed several extra cases to bring them with me, so could only take a sample and leave the rest to be recycled through the gift- giving system. 

 The end of the 5.00 am prayer meeting, complete with sleeping children!

All of this traditional culture is combined with an impressive programme of academic development. Piula probably leads the way among national theological colleges in the region. It has staff members who are completing PhDs overseas, so the faculty is being strengthened all the time. 

 From the end of WW1 until independence Samoa was annexed to New Zealand. That means it has been relatively easy for Samoans to stay and work in New Zealand. I wonder, long-term, how people - including the students at Piula - will cope with being split between two cultures.

I flew first back to Nadi in Fiji (transport between Pacific countries is expensive and rarely straightforward) then had a 5 hour wait for a flight to Tonga. Ah, Tonga! In some ways it's very different from when I first arrived in January 1979. Horses and carts (and bikes) are replaced by cars, mobile phones are universal, ATM machines dispense cash, new concrete and glass offices and stores have sprung up. Yet I suspect that John Henry Newman's description of the Catholic Church also applies to Tonga: it changes in order to stay the same. Building and development schemes come and go, but there's a strong sense of inertia compared to the energy in Fiji. Compared with the orderliness, beauty and communal pride in Samoan villages, There's a makeshift quality about Tongan settlements. Perhaps that's because so many families around Nuk'alofa have come from elsewhere in Tonga.

I was met by Taliai from Sia'atoutai and Sai'a from the Church Office. Sai'a is a young minister who has recently returned to Tonga after 20 years on New Zealand and He is charged with looking after me. He took me to my room at the Tungi Colonnade - part of a commercial complex owned by the church in the centre of Nuku'alofa - still being built last time I was here. Then we went for a meal at the Billfish down by the fish wharfs at Ma'ufanga - something of a Tongan jewel. I had eaten there my last night in Tonga 4 years ago. They still do great fish dishes. 

More on Tonga in the next post.