American Samoa is accessible by plane & ship; we took the ship from nearby Western Samoa—an overnight journey of about 12 hours.
here's the (Japanese) Lady Naomi ship that we travelled on--a nice, clean ship unlike some of the Pacific rustbuckets we've been on!
As is frequently the case, we arrived in this new country ‘by faith’ & had to pray that the Lord will supply donated accommodation. Here, we were really blessed as the first hotel—walking distance from the port where we arrived—said ‘yes’.
The very agreeable owner of the hotel, Tia, gave us bed & breakfast for 5 nights while we searched around for somewhere where we could stay for several weeks. Thankfully, ‘Teen Challenge’ helped with this part, & thus we had a base from which to operate & conduct our programs.
Like their Western counterpart, American Samoa is full of uniquely colourful buses! However, the fales (pronounced ‘falays’) in the background are no longer lived in but have become meeting places for traditional ceremonies.
Our mission in American Samoa is to conduct our various programs in the schools & colleges, starting with the Baptist school here.
Although we have a number of different programs available, this particular school was interested in our program on ‘Evolution vs Creation’. As Christian missionaries, we believe that God created the world, but at the same time we find that many Christians are not sure about how to tackle evolution…
This DVD, by Dr Kent Hovind, is educational but also extremely funny—we get great reactions from school & college students, as well as from the teachers!
This Baptist school liked our program so much that they wanted us to come back & show it to their other classes.
As we have a number of programs to offer, we often have a vote & let the students decide which one they want to see.
Getting interviewed for the evening news on American Samoa Television. We were also able to put the Family DVD series ‘Treasure Attic’ on TV.