How did I ever end up Catholic?!? Pt 3

And so to Tonga and more “happy hours”, school teaching, leading the Wednesday morning service…and being very –incredibly lonely! To not speak your own language for weeks at a time makes you lean in very close to the Lord. Especially when you are the only palungi(non-Tongan) in the village and very much “under the spot-light”.Again this was a year of learning about

community and also receiving so much wisdom from the very giving hearts of the people of “the friendly islands.”

During the year a friend visited, as did the missionary ship “the Anastasis”. Said friend and I returned to New Zealand and were married in his Anglican church.

Then it was back to Tonga and work there until the end of the next year when on the advice of a midwife in Tonga we returned to New Zealand to have our first child.

Just a word on church in Tonga, if you

have never heard the wonderful music of a Tongan church choir you really have missed something!

In New Zealand we settled in the small rural community of Dargaville where we attended the Baptist church. We taught Sunday school, attended a home group and felt at home in this small community. Our church was a hodge-podge of people who had left other Christian communities; (Brethren both open and closed; Presbyterian, Anglican ,Salvation Army, and “non-denom. Charismatic”) so learning to “meld” did make for some interesting times!! At this period my thoughts on the Catholic church wnt something like “its not even a Christian faith…they add and take away from God’ word, they blend truth with untruth…the Pope is probably an antichrist”!!