Finally, at a mission conference in January 1904, it was decided that a Solomon Islands branch of the Queensland Kanaka Mission would be formed. A committee was appointed to oversee the new work, and the committee insisted that Florence become the superintendent of the new branch. By now the deadline for the Kanaka workers to leave Queensland was fast approaching, and Florence felt that this was what God wanted her to do next.
Florence realized that if she was going to lead the work, she needed to see the Solomon Islands for herself. She volunteered to accompany the first group of missionaries going to the Solomon Islands, where they planned to base themselves on the island of Gavutu. The group consisted of three men: Owen Thomas, James Caulfeild, and Hedley Abbott.
Some of the men on the new mission committee questioned the wisdom of a single woman traveling around in the islands. The Solomon Islands could be a treacherous place. But Florence reminded them of some of the situations she had encountered in China. She pointed out that manning her mission outpost during the turbulent days of the Boxer Rebellion proved she was up for the challenge.
The members of the committee finally agreed, though they suggested that Florence take a female companion with her. Helen Fricke, a mother of five children, the youngest just two years old, offered to accompany Florence. At first Florence tried to discourage her. Helen and her family had already sustained the death of her husband, Walter, who had served as superintendent of the mission, and Florence knew that this trip to the Solomon Islands was a dangerous assignment. But Helen was sure that God had called her to go along, so in the end Florence welcomed her company on the trip.
A month of intense preparation for the trip to the Solomon Islands followed. Enough money had been donated to the new branch of the mission to allow for a ten-ton ketch to be built for use in the islands. The new vessel was named the Daphne, and a prefabricated mission house was stowed away in her hold to be erected at the new mission station.
The Daphne had been built in Sydney, but the vessel was too small to sail all the way from there to the Solomon Islands. So Florence, Helen, and the three men who would staff the new mission station set out for Sydney, where they supervised the Daphne being hoisted onto the deck of the SS Moresby for the trip to the Solomon Islands. The Daphne was lashed down securely to the deck. When the Moresby got to Gavutu, a small island off Florida Island in the Solomons, the ketch would be lowered into the water for the missionaries to use.
Four days out from Sydney, Florence was beginning to wonder whether she would ever see land again. The Moresby had run into a howling storm in the Tasman Sea, one of the roughest stretches of water in the world. Frothing waves washed across the deck and flowed into Florence’s small cabin, which faced out onto the main deck. Soon everything in the cabin was drenched. As the ship pitched and rolled, the captain and the missionaries alike became concerned about the Daphne. The ketch strained against the ropes lashing it in place, and on more than one occasion, everyone thought that the vessel was going to break loose and tumble into the angry ocean. To Florence’s relief and amazement, it somehow managed to stay put.
As the ship sailed past Lord Howe Island, the storm began to abate. By the time it reached Norfolk Island, the weather was bright and sunny and Florence was able to go ashore for the day while cargo was unloaded from the Moresby for the residents of the island.
From Norfolk Island they sailed north into the tropics, and Florence soon discovered how poorly suited to the tropics the Moresby was. The vessel was poorly ventilated, and there were few places on board where the passengers could cool off. To make matters worse, forty-five pigs were housed in a pen on the main deck outside the door to Florence’s cabin. Not only did the animals squeal constantly, but in the tropical heat, they also began to stink, filling her cabin with an unbearable stench that made it nearly impossible to be inside.
Despite the perils and extreme discomfort of the voyage, Florence contented herself by keeping her eye on the goal of assisting the thousands of returning Kanakas to share the gospel in their homeland. By late March 1904, to her delight, the Moresby was finally approaching the Solomon Islands.
Chapter 11
The Solomon Islands
On March 25, 1904, Florence sat on a barrel on the deck of the SS Moresby looking out over the Pacific Ocean as the ship navigated its way among the Solomon Islands. With great anticipation she wrote in her journal:
Our first sight of Malaita!… At 6 A.M. we were passing the SW coast of San Christoval [Cristobal]. At 8 A.M. we sighted Guadalcanar [Guadalcanal], and 10:10 A.M. saw Malaita. Since then we have been steaming all day past San Christoval, Marau Sound, and the NE coast of Guadalcanar, with Malaita clearly visible in the distance.
Three days later the missionaries landed on the small island of Gavutu. The entire island was a trading station owned by a Captain Svenson, who ran a coaling and watering station for the British naval vessels that patrolled the waters of the newly declared British protectorate. Captain Svenson greeted the missionaries and offered to make them as comfortable as possible.
The only house on the island was a long two-storied building with an unlined iron roof. Florence and Helen were given a room on the second floor of the house. When they were shown around the trading post, Florence’s heart sank. None of the eighteen huge water tanks had lids. It was no wonder that malaria was so prevalent in these islands.
The Daphne had been damaged by the high seas and intense tropical sun on the trip from Sydney and needed repairs to the sail and hull planks before it was fit to sail. Once the prefabricated house was unloaded from the boat’s hold onto the island, Owen, James, and Hedley set to work on the ship’s repairs. Soon the Daphne was ready for her maiden voyage to Malaita, one of the larger islands of the Solomon group. Several local men were hired to sail the ketch, with Owen serving as captain, since he was the only missionary with any sailing experience. Fifteen hours after they set out from Gavutu, Florence spotted a huge white cloud. Owen explained that each of the large Pacific islands had a cloud that hung over the trees and mountains of the landmass. Sure enough, as they sailed closer, the west coast of the island of Malaita emerged from under the cloud. Malaita was a large, mountainous island one hundred miles long, with mountain peaks that reached up four thousand feet from the sea.
As the Daphne sailed closer to Malaita, it passed a small inhabited island. The residents of the island beckoned for the missionaries to come ashore. The missionaries dropped anchor, clambered into a rowboat, and went ashore. On the beach the people crowded around them. The dark-skinned natives were naked, and most of the men had shards of bone and shells threaded through their noses and ears and bands of shells and leaves tied around their legs just above their knees. The natives were particularly intrigued by Florence and Helen, never having seen white women before. They crushed in around them and clamored to touch the two women. They explained that they were saltwater people and that the island offered them refuge from the fearsome bushmen that lived on Malaita. The people lived in small huts made from coconut fronds that lined a muddy track leading across the island. As Florence walked around the small village, children and pigs scattered in front of her.
After the visit to the island, the Daphne sailed north along the west coast of Malaita toward the village of Malu, where several Christian Kanakas had returned from Queensland. As they made their way along, a large dugout canoe approached the ketch. Florence and Owen were not sure whether the men in the canoe had friendly intentions or not.
“Come on, let’s sing,” Florence finally urged. “That’s one way to find out what their intentions are.”
“O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise,” she began belting out.
The others on board soon joined in.
“The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace,” they all sang.
A cheer went up from the men in the canoe, and spray flew off their paddles as they raced toward the Daphne. They laughed and sang as they came alongside the ketch. As they approached, Florence instantly recognized many of the men. They had been laborers on the sugar plantations in Queensland. How good it was to see their shining faces again.
Shouting above the sound of the ocean as it lapped against the side of the Daphne, the men in the canoe explained that they were on their way south to Taravania. They were taking food to a missionary outpost they had just opened there. Before long the men were on their way again, waving and exclaiming how glad they were to be the first islanders to welcome the missionaries and their ship to Malaita.
Two hours after encountering the canoe, the Daphne dropped anchor in the lagoon off Malu and went ashore. A crowd of islanders soon gathered around to shake the missionaries’ hands. The entire community then escorted the missionaries through the forest to a Christian village at the top of a nearby hill. Florence walked beside Peter Ambuofa, who had been a laborer on the Kalkie plantation at Bundaberg. Peter had been one of the mission’s early converts, and Florence had heard snippets of information about him in the ten years since he had left Queensland. But now as they walked together, Peter told Florence his entire story since returning to Malaita.
“When I came back, I think me land’im Urasi, but father’im kill me, ’im see me.”
Florence nodded. She knew that Peter was the second son of a bush chief who was very opposed to Christianity. She had no doubt that his father would have killed him had he seen him.
“The chief Urasi, say’im me, ‘You sleep under hut with ’im pigs.’ I say, ‘My Jesus He been come down along place belong stable. Me all right, thank you.’ So I pull’im out rubbish, I sleep there. Then the chief he say, ‘Run away along or men kill me.’ I think hymn, ‘Jesus of Nazareth passeth by,’ and I cry and I go out and I pass by. I go away, get’im Malu.”
“The people of Malu, they are your people, aren’t they?” Florence asked.
“Yes’im. No like me here. Four years I praying in hut on sand. Then men come to kill me. I say them, ‘Suppose you kill’im me, I go home along heaven.’”
Florence stopped for a minute to catch her breath. The climb up to the village was steep, with many tree roots in the path.
Peter went on to tell Florence that the men of the village had drawn guns on him. Just as they were about to shoot, they heard a peal of thunder and heavy rain began to fall. The rain wet the gunpowder, and the men went away shaking their heads, convinced that some great power protected Peter.
Peter continued to tell Florence about other wonderful things that had happened during that four-year period. He had made a garden, which had flourished even during a drought. The people began to think that he was blessed, especially when their own crops failed. First the children, then the women and men, came to him for food. Peter fed them all and still had some food left over. Florence was also touched to hear that he had written John 3:16 on a piece of paper and fastened it to a tree. He agreed that no one else on the island could speak English. “But I think, might God He see, and might devil he see, and might he say ‘Man belong God here, more better I clear out!’”
Florence laughed. It took four years, but the devil finally got the message. Now Peter was the head of a thriving Christian village.
Finally the procession of missionaries and locals reached the village at the top of the hill. Peter led them into a large, open church building, and the entire village of about two hundred people thronged around and began singing hymns to officially welcome the missionaries to their village.
