Florence gasped. She had no idea that such a collection had been going on while she was away in the islands. With tears in her eyes, she addressed the crowd once again.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said. “When I think of the tiny and insignificant beginning of this mission, my heart is filled with gratefulness toward God. I can almost see the tumbledown little building with its shingle roof at Fairymead. There ten men and one woman formed my first class twenty-four and a half years ago. I knew nothing then of missionary work, but the Master had said, ‘Preach the gospel to every creature,’ and these people had never heard the Good News.”
Florence paused for a moment and looked around at all the bright, smiling faces.
“I thank God that beginning was made, and through His grace the work has gone on to this day. How many objections were raised at the beginning! How difficult it seemed. And when no one else would take up the work, my sister-in-law Ellen Young and I went forward together, believing that the little we could do, combined with God’s blessing, would be enough.
“Just think, it is only two and a half years since that first visit of the Daphne, and now we have a staff of nineteen European missionaries, over one hundred native teachers, a weekly average attendance from six thousand to seven thousand at Bible classes, and best of all, 2,484 men and women have been converted and baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
“The work which we began here among the Kanakas is being redirected now toward the islands they are returning to. On my last visit poor Mrs. Ruddell was tried sorely when she was tossed about in high seas. When she got to One Pusu, she told me she was going to pray hard for a vessel with an oil engine, which would make the voyage both safer and more comfortable.
“Thank you all for this wonderful gift. It is an answer to Susan Ruddell’s prayers and my prayers, and I know that many of you will be blessed by the vessel when it visits your villages in the future.”
Florence found it impossible to sleep that night. She lay in bed and thought about how scared she had been all those years ago to pray out loud and how daunting it had seemed to teach a Bible class to a handful of people. She thought about her mother and father and her sister Constance, and how amazed they would all be at what she had become a part of. She also thought about the last of the Kanaka men going home. It was only a matter of six months now before they would all be gone from Australia. There would be no more gatherings like the one tonight in Queensland.
As the months rolled by toward Christmas, hundreds of Kanaka men left the plantations and made their way to Brisbane to embark on the steamship voyage home. Florence arranged for the Brisbane City Mission to care for the workers and hold meetings while they waited for the steamers to arrive.
It was too heartbreaking for Florence to see the men leave. Instead she went to Sydney to supervise the building of the new boat. She had settled on a ketch-rigged, fifty-five-foot-long yacht with a twenty-horsepower oil engine. Although the boat, which was to be called the Evangel, would use wind power as much as possible, the engine would allow the vessel to move against the wind, or in the absence of wind, and make maneuvering to dock much easier.
By the beginning of 1907, there was no more evangelism and teaching work to be done among the Kanakas in Queensland. As a result, it was decided to change the mission’s name from the Queensland Kanaka Mission to the South Sea Evangelical Mission. With the departure of the Kanakas from Australia, all of the European workers with the mission were faced with the same decision: did they now go to the islands to minister to the Kanakas, or did they retire from the mission?
One of the longest serving and most tireless workers with the organization was Florence’s niece Kathleen Deck. While she had suffered through poor health for the past twelve years, Kathleen still wanted to go and work in the islands. Unlike most mission directors, who would not send a person in ill health overseas, Florence welcomed Kathleen into this new phase of the work and advised her to do what she could and rest as often as she needed to.
In mid-June 1907 the two women set out on a steamer for Gavutu, where they planned to rendezvous with the Evangel as she made her maiden voyage. The Evangel had been shipped to the Solomon Islands upon her completion several weeks before. All went according to plan, and Florence and Kathleen transferred to the new mission vessel and set off on a voyage around Malaita. They planned to visit all of the mission’s outstations to see what the various needs of the missionaries and teachers serving there were.
Along the way they stopped in at the only mission station on the island of Nggela, located at a place called Tulagi. Florence learned very quickly that sending the Kanakas home had upset the balance of power on the island.
Barnabas had moved from One Pusu to Tulagi to man the station, but things had been very difficult since his arrival. He told Florence of how a local chief had died and in usual fashion a witch doctor was consulted as to the cause of the chief’s death. The witch doctor declared that a Kanaka couple named Piri and Polly and Piri’s father had conspired together to kill the chief. Piri and Polly were not Christians, but they knew they were in deep trouble, and they fled with Piri’s father to the little Christian community on the southern end of the lagoon.
Barnabas explained how he welcomed them and promised to do his best to protect them, though there were no weapons in the community. Soon twenty warriors paddled a large canoe down the lagoon. They stopped on the beach in the distance and lit a huge fire, which would be used to cook the three runaways.
According to Barnabas, he could see the smoke rising from the fire and watched as the warriors got back in their canoe and began paddling closer. There was nothing the Christians could do except pray.
As it turned out, their prayers were answered. At the moment they prayed, a ship sailed into the lagoon and dropped anchor. Barnabas urged the three refugees to board the ship and ask for work, which they did. An hour later the ship sailed away with the three aboard. The warriors, who had watched the events transpire from a distance, were furious and threatened to destroy the whole village.
Then Barnabas lowered his eyes as he spoke. “During the night the village chief, who is not a Christian, became very afraid that the whole village would indeed be destroyed, so he threw his teenage daughter out to the warriors, and she was cooked and eaten the following day.”
It was a sobering story, and Florence’s heart was heavy. She had the feeling that she would hear many other similar stories before the voyage around Malaita was over. Her feeling proved to be well-founded. The Evangel’s next major port of call was Malu. Florence arrived to find the Christian community in mourning. Just four days before, Charley Lofia had been murdered. Charley was a beloved Christian leader who had been the first person to come to Peter Ambuofa’s aid on the island. James Caulfeild explained that Peter’s parents, who were very antagonistic to the gospel, had consulted a witch doctor, who told them that Charley had caused the death of one of their other sons a year before. When Charley learned of this, he sought refuge with the Christians at Ainiuke. But he had just recently returned to Malu, and as soon as Peter’s parents heard that Charley was back, they sent someone down from the bush to murder him.
Florence and Kathleen stayed on at Malu to help comfort the community after Charley’s death. They took up residence in the newly completed mission house, a two-room affair built of bamboo and lined with scrim, with a commanding view of Malu, the lagoon, and the ocean beyond.
Despite all the difficulties, the number of Christians at Malu began to grow. Twice each day the local Christians would meet together to pray.
During Florence’s stay at Malu, six of the local men came to her and asked if they could be sent out as missionaries to the island of San Cristobal. Florence reminded them that there would be many trials and difficulties ahead for them if they went. Regardless of the dangers ahead, the men all pledged themselves to go and start a mission outpost on San Cristobal or die trying.
Florence and Kathleen, along with the six new native missionaries, set out on the Evangel for San Cristobal.
Chapter 14
A Growing Mission
On the evening of May 12, 1909, Florence Young once again stood on the deck of the Evangel surveying the coastline, which was illuminated by the full moon. They were entering One Pusu harbor, and Florence’s nephew Northcote stood beside her. He had just given up his medical practice in Sydney and joined the mission as a traveling doctor and the trainee captain of the Evangel. Florence thought it was a perfect combination, and she was very grateful that her nephew had so many practical skills to offer the mission. She was sure he would quickly become an indispensable part of the work.
Two new missionaries, a woman and a man, were on board with them, as well as two missionaries returning from furlough.
“What are you thinking, Auntie?” Northcote asked Florence.
Florence sighed. “The southeast monsoon is late this year, and I was wondering whether we had time to visit David and Rhoda at Talise.”
“That’s on the south side of Guadalcanal, isn’t it?” Northcote asked.
“Yes,” Florence replied, “and seven months of the year it’s quite impossible to land on the south side. The sea is rough, and there are no harbors to be found. I know the monsoon could strike any day, but I am worried about David and Rhoda. No one has heard from them in over a year, and the last time James visited them, he said they were disheartened. I really do wish we could go and encourage them.”
“Well, should we risk it?” Northcote asked.
“I really think we should,” Florence replied. “If we started right away, we might make it in and out before the swells start.”
The rush began. First they had to unload the four missionaries and all of their supplies at One Pusu, then check out the Evangel for signs of wear and tear from the last voyage, and repack for Talise. By going without sleep, Florence and Northcote achieved their goal in less than twenty-four hours. Northcote’s sister Kathleen and Hedley also came along on the trip.
They traveled all of the following night and reached Marau Sound on the eastern tip of Guadalcanal by daybreak and Talise Point by four o’clock the next day. As they approached the point, Florence scanned the shoreline through her binoculars and smiled at the commotion the arrival of the Evangel was causing. People were running in all directions. Soon she spotted two adults and two children wading out into the water. As the boat got closer, Florence saw that it was Rhoda and David and their two children, Jessie and Ruth, who were wading out into the water to greet them.
The Evangel dropped anchor, and by the time the dinghy made it to shore, a large crowd had gathered to welcome the missionaries. Many pairs of hands grabbed the dinghy and dragged it ashore.
David and Rhoda surrounded Florence and clung to her like a mother. They wept for joy as they introduced her to many of the people crowded around them.
“See,” David said to the crowd, “we told you Miss Florence would come and teach us.”
Florence could hardly hold back the tears herself. David and Rhoda looked gaunt and weak, yet their dark faces were radiant, especially when they showed her around the new church building. How glad she was that they had taken the risk and visited.
Florence was even happier for the visit after the couple told her of the trials they had been through. They explained how they had been very sick since coming to Talise. Still, they had used what little energy they had to build a large church. David had few tools, so he had split large trees with stones, and when he and Rhoda were too weak to stand, the couple had crawled into the bush and gathered sticks for the walls of the building. The result was a large, airy structure in which twenty natives now attended school regularly. Florence felt humbled by the sacrifices this Kanaka couple had made and the way in which they had endured so many hardships.
