Sunshine Coast Hinterland Times

The highlands of Malaita in the Solomon Islands is a long way from Montville, but it’s a journey that Montville resident, Doug Reinhardt is well used to. Doug is helping to set up a Bible and vocational school in rugged and isolated country, where modern resources are few and far between.
 
Doug came back from Malaita at the end of last year having helped put in the foundations for two buildings – a two storey residence for the Fer’abu Bible school principal and another house for visiting missionaries and teachers with special skills. Doug has joined members of the Bridgeman Baptist Community Church near Brisbane who have funded this project for the people of Nafinua.
Attached to the Bible school will be opportunities for community members to learn vocational skills in order to broaden opportunities for growth and development in this highlands region.
“Things like animal husbandry would be important”, says Doug, “and some agricultural extension type work as well as the practical trades like welding and carpentry”.
There is only a subsistence  economy in this community of about 1500 people. But there’s a hunt around to get some kind of cash crop to raise money. They are looking at cocoa and other food crops that will make them self-supporting.

Doug and his Nafinua team peg out the ground for the School Principal’s home.

Doug says a visitor from Nafinua brought the vision for the Bible school to Bridgeman Downs about five years ago, although it was clear the church would have to commit resources over at least a ten year period in order to see it through. Doug was living in Brisbane at the time and was invited to take part in the project.
“I have taught a lot of rural skills in high schools and I trained as a geologist, so I have those surveying type skills that are useful for levelling and setting out projects of this kind.” 
 “It’s interesting to see how these people adapt our technology”, Doug says with an amused smile. “Up at the Bible school they’ve put in solar panels to get a bit of light to study by. What the locals have done is buy basic motor cycle batteries, and they charge them up from the solar panels. They take them home and hook them into a low voltage fluro so that they can light their homes at night. Before that it was either lanterns or pressure lamps.”
Doug says the project group is sensitive to community and cultural values and the spiritual values of the Malaitans.
“There are a number of villages in the area and they all have their hierarchical structures, with a chief, pastor and a whole social structure in each village”, explains Doug. “Our team leader spends a lot of his time just sorting out community and cultural issues, about whether we can do this or do that. He always has to check with the chiefs. They’ve got to own projects like ours and you’ve really got to work with their cultural and spiritual values.”
Christianity came to Malaita mainly through the South Seas Evangelical Church which was started in a Sunday school near Bundaberg at the turn of the 20th century. When Federation came to Australia Malaitans working on the Queensland sugar cane fields were sent back. They took evangelical Christianity back with them, and it now sits alongside their own spirituality.
“They believe in demons, evil spirits and good spirits. So a belief in the supernatural is pretty strong in their culture. I can recall one night we were sleeping in one of their houses in the village and there was a terrible racket a few houses away; a lot of people talking and yelling. Eventually it calmed down and when I got up in the morning I asked what all the noise was about. I was told there was an evil spirit in a woman’s house and they had had to get this spirit out before anyone could go back to sleep. So they recognise a spiritual world that’s for sure and we should try to use that.”

Doug and his Nafinua team on the site for the School Principal’s home.

Doug is challenged yet stimulated by the Nafinua building project. Retired and in his 60s nevertheless, he says it’s given him some new perspectives on what makes for a successful community.
“I’ve recognised here’s a chance to lend a hand to try to improve the lot of these people. They recognise that development is going to change their way of life and there’s a real debate amongst themselves about what are the best directions to take. But they’re determined. For example,  I’ve seen them carry 30  cubic metres of gravel up a steep muddy hill for a mile and a half in 30 pound lots. So, they want things done, and I’m glad to lend a hand.”
The Solomon Islands is an independent country, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands covering 28,400 square kilometres. The capital is Honiara, located on the island of Guadalcanal.
The Solomon Islands are believed to have been inhabited by Melanesian people for thousands of years. Thousands of Solomon Islanders were brought to the Queensland sugar fields from the 1860s in an indentured labour practice notoriously described as “blackbirding”.  The United Kingdom established a protectorate over the Solomon Islands in the 1890s.
Some of the most bitter fighting of World War II occurred in the Solomon Islands campaign of 1942–45, including the Battle of Guadalcanal. Self-government was achieved in 1976 and independence two years later. The country is also Commonwealth realm.
Since 1998 ethnic violence, government misconduct and crime had undermined stability and civil society. In June 2003 an Australian-led “multinational” force, the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), arrived to restore peace and disarm ethnic militias.