Alex S Currie, Lord Howe Island Signal
Clothes are like gold to many of the 720,000 people in the second poorest South Pacific nation – the Solomon Islands. Three quarters of the population live as subsistence farmers – they eat mainly what they grow, which is their full-time work.
During the last two years Lord Howe Island residents have organised pallets of clothing for these islands. Residents drop clothing off at the Seventh-day Adventist Hall where it is sorted, boxed and placed on pallets to be shipped to Port Macquarie where Pastor John Wells and his wife Judy collect the pallets and deliver them to a 40ft container in Sydney.
Retirees in and around Sydney collect goods for schools, clinics and hospitals which are loaded into these containers. Last year the Solomon Island Educational and Medical Support Team dispatched 11 40ft containers and raised $315,000 for the operation. This year we will have dispatched 8 40ft containers by early November. The team designed and shipped a prefabricated 40m x 15m steel multipurpose hall which was erected by a group of Australian volunteers earlier this month. This is the sixth such hall they have erected in different schools. This whole program of service is coordinated by Dr. Alex S. Currie who is currently the visiting pastor at the Seventh-day Adventist Church. While on the island Pastor Alex is sharing photographs and stories from the Solomons each Saturday morning at 11:15am.
Photos courtesy Lord Howe Island Signal
Clothing from Lord Howe Island has been distributed to villages in Malaita, Santa Isabel Island, Guadalcanal and Western Solomons. People of the Solomon Islands wish to thank the residents of Lord Howe Island for their kindness, thoughtfulness and generosity. Clifton Oliver, a treasurer in Honiara wrote in an email to me recently “Please thank the wonderfully kind-hearted people of Lord Howe Island for their generosity in sending clothing for our island people. The clothing is good and is being sent to remote villages on Santa Isabel Island and many other distant places. We value their gifts immensely.”
This article appeared in The Lord Howe Island Signal, 31 October 2023.
