Couple leave on a Vanuatu mission
In late January Ali and Brian MacKay will leave Dannevirke to participate in a year-long mission in Vanuatu.
Passionate teachers of mathematics at Dannevirke High School where Brian was also Head of Faculty, they have taken a year’s leave of absence to “spend a year doing something cross-cultural for the poor now their children have left home,” in Brian’s words.
The opportunity rose through a combined New Zealand and Vanuatu Presbyterian partnership to provide the Talua Theological College on Espirito Santo Island with assistance.
It is a school with 80 senior students set in a small town totalling just 200 people 20km from the second largest city of Vanuatu Luganville.
It may beclose to a city of 16,000 people but it takes an hour on the back of a ute to get there and there is a whole lifestyle of difference.
The village has generated electricity between 6pm and 9pm but the MacKays are in a house with solar panels on the roof which will run electrical appliances.
Ali will predominantly teach English to the students who have to sit their examinations in it. Most islanders speak Bislama — a mix of French and English due to Vanuatu’s colonial history.
She expects she will provide pastoral support wherever needed.
Brian expects to work developing IT as the island has the internet but he may also teach and do administrative work.
It is a big jump out of their comfort zone for Ali and Brian but they visited the country last year and “absolutely loved the people,” according to Ali.
Vanuatu in area is the size of Hawkes Bay but made up of 80 islands stretched over a distance spanning the North Island. Espirito Santo is the second largest.