Best Ever Mosquito Catcher

One Sunday morning, while Theresa was having a bath in the shower, she asked if I could reach her bath book for her. So I took it down and out jumped a frog.

Theresa screamed. She is a girl, after all. And I screamed too. I don't know why, I love frogs. And Jair came to take the frog outside in the tree.

Frogs are quite rare in the Solomon Islands, so I love it when I see frogs here. Not usually in my bathroom though.

Anyway, after Jair took him away, I realised that I hadn't seen any mosquitoes in our shower recently. Obviously I don't want mosquitoes in my shower because they carry and pass on things like Malaria and Dengue fever. But since I had come back from being away, there hadn't been any in there. Aha. It's because we happened to have the Best Ever Mosquito Catcher in there - the frog. Doh. The Best Ever Mosquito Catcher that we had just rehabilitated outside to a tree. 

No worries. Five minutes later when Theresa had come out of the bath, I shut the shower curtain and out jumped another frog:

So he stayed in our shower for a few days. It was kinda creepy being spied on having a shower by this little frog. 

And after a few days I think he was getting sick of it because he was jumping around, and we tried to catch him and put him back to no avail. The next morning I found him by the kitchen, sitting on a louvre, looking out longingly through the fly screen to the wide open space of our backyard. 

So, reluctantly, I picked him up and brought him outside to a tree.

And every day when I go outside, there he is on the same tree, catching mosquitoes.

Maybe I should put the tree in a pot and back in our bathroom.

Now there's an idea. 

the Real key

This photo doesn't really relate to this post, but I uploaded it, so I might as well include it as a prelude: 

Iron Bottom Sound 

Ok. So, the post. Recently I was with some people who had done a significant amount of development work in a isolated village. They had built a clinic, tapped running water from a river 45 minutes walk away to the village and given a number of helpful resources to the school.

In the closing speeches before we all left, amongst the thank yous and last words, one resounding message rang out clear. Education is the key. If you can get a good education, then you're set. Value your education, work hard at school, look after and use the resources well, because that makes up a good education and if you have a good education then you can get a good job, earn a living, pay for things you need or want, be responsible, have a part to play in the future of Solomon Islands. If you're educated, it opens up better job opportunities. You can become a teacher or a doctor or the next prime minister of the Solomon Islands. Education is it. Education is the key.

Jair had a similar experience a few nights ago while he was in Auki, staying in a transit house with a whole lot of principals. They kept talking about how education is the key to lift Solomon Islands out of its current state. One of them mentioned that he wanted to run for parliament so that he could do a better job than the current politicians. But when Jair asked how he, an educated man who ostensibly wants to do what is right, would stop himself from being corrupted by the influence of power and money, he had no answer.

As I sat listening to the speeches, it didn't sit well with me. Education isn't the key. Education won't solve the problem, I mean, the real underlying problem of poverty, discrimination, hardship, corruption and the wantok system. There are plenty of people with a good education who work as teachers, and fail to fulfill their responsibility to teach their students well, or even to turn up to class most of the time. There are doctors here who have a good education, who don't treat some needy patients because they don't have the time, don't think they get paid enough, so they busy themselves signing medical forms (without even checking the patients first) at the detriment to people who really need help. The prime minister has a good education and he (hopefully I won't get in trouble for saying this on my blog (read the papers!!)) is constantly getting in trouble for corrupt dealings. On Solomon Islands currency, there's the motto ' to lead is to serve'. Sadly, most people, people with a good education, who are in power lead by serving themselves, not God, and not the country.

Clearly, a good education isn't the key. It might help somethings, but it's not the key. If people don't have Jesus and don't actually follow Him, then sadly, education is just going to help a corrupt person do corruption more deviously.

While I sat listening to the speech, I remembered something I read in John 7:15. Some people had been asking "How has Jesus become learned, having never been educated?" Many people in the Solomon Islands fit into that category. They would say "Me man me no school". Though they know many things and have learned many things, they never have had a formal education. And it struck me, listening to speeches on how education is the key, how misguided that thought is. Jesus is the key, not education. Education might lead to better job opportunities, but it's not going to make you a faithful doctor, or a faithful teacher or a faithful prime minister. The current prime minister has an education and... well, read the Solomon Star! He has an education but he doesn't seem to have Jesus. Jesus didn't have a "good education", he could have said "me man me no school", but He had fellowship with God, God taught him and He was faithful before God to his calling. 

So in my speech, though I had planned initially to say other things, this is what I shared. And then I said this and this was the amazing part - the last word just came out and I didn't even think of it. I said, "it's good to have a clinic, but we can't forget that it's Jesus that heals. It's good to have running water, but we can't forget that Jesus is the living water. It's good to have an education but we can't forget that Jesus is the Truth." 

Talk about good rhetoric, a sterling example of the use of tricolon, ripper parallelism. Not that I can take the credit for it. 

Jesus is the Truth. And Jesus is the only Way. The only way to salvation, but also the only way to a life here on earth where, empowered by the Holy Spirit, you won't be a slave to sin, a slave to corruption, but set free for a life of holiness and obedience. 

Jesus really is the only hope for the Solomon Islands.

And for me.