Our friend Robert that met us two days earlier and also picked us up on Saturday came and helped arrange a ride for us from the Yachties Dingy dock at Tahauku Bay to the town of Atuona. Two separate vehicles came to pick our large family up and so we didn’t need to squish quite as much as before. The ride to church was only about 10 minutes and we arrived just a few minutes before the meeting started.

The church main meeting room is only about 20 feet wide by about 30 feet long with a small 10 x 10 office and primary room attached. Outside there is a small covered cement patio area and about 2 years ago they added on an attached tin roof with bamboo railing for extra meeting space. It was a unique experience to have our Sunday School class outside in the open air on such a warm day. I loved the bamboo half wall and pebble floor that surrounded the room. The chickens and roosters running around the yard added a special touch to the Marquesian Island life experience.

Everyone we met was so genuinely gracious and accommodating. One of the speakers in the main meeting also had someone do some translating for us as he presented his sermon in both Marquesian and French. Kirsten and the older three kids said that they all managed fairly well in understanding the French part of the discussions thanks to our family French scripture studies over the past few years.

As church was finishing up we were invited by a few people to join them for dinner following the meetings. They were kind enough to drive us back to our boat so that we could freshen up and get a change of clothes before picking us up again and bringing us to their home for a truly Marquesian feast. I was absolutely flabbergasted by the quantity of local dishes they had prepared. They had dried bananas, fresh bananas, rice, wild pig, wild beef and coconut milk beef. I was informed that the meat was all things that they had hunted themselves and that they go hunting every month to get the meat that their family eats.