On Stage, and a Storm at Home

A Bangkok friend, Chawaliet, brought a solar expert to repair the school's old panels, and suddenly there was light in the classroom on the dark, rain-heavy days — the children delighting in whose turn it was to switch it on. He offered to put two lights in every Moken home for a modest monthly fee, teaching the village to take responsibility for its own power; a meeting after a Sunday service (held in the school because the church was under floodwater) found everyone keen.

The Moken children were then invited to Sea Link, the annual gathering of Southeast Asian missionaries in Phuket, to share their culture and music with the world. Despite the usual last-minute stage fright — deciding, one plan at a time, that they no longer needed to dance, or introduce themselves — they performed songs and dances they had choreographed themselves; Wud spoke and explained in English, and Philip described the island work. In the middle of the preparations his uncle Frans died, and he flew to South Africa for the funeral, entrusting the whole arrangement to Ieang and two of the foster sons, who managed it perfectly.

He came home to devastation. A great storm had driven the sea through the house, leaving five centimetres of sand on the floor; the electrical equipment on the ground had burnt out, the garden was killed by saltwater, the chicken coop wrecked and four hens drowned. Over the following weeks the children helped him dig out the sand, build a sturdier coop, and start a sea-wall.

And through it all came the breakthrough he had waited seven years for. Having tried preaching and other methods and largely missed the Moken, he had found that they remember Bible stories best — and now the children not only hear the stories but retell them to one another and say what they have learned. Jieab, a foster daughter who had left school, returned to study and finished her maths level. "Step by step," he wrote, "we will get to what we believe is the best way for the Moken to learn more of our Lord."