My friends, I am writing to you from the beautiful islands of Fiji where I have been for two weeks now and will remain, God willing, until October, so that the mission to the tribes of the Pacific Islands can proceed. As I write to you sitting outside St. Friday’s Chapel here at our Fiji Mission Center in Sabeto, Fiji, my face is clouded by the cool winter breeze and my spirit by the grace of St. Friday’s, I turn my thoughts to you and I see you all mentally in unison, reading the letters of the missionaries that come to you from different parts of the world and studying their problems and needs with all your interest and selfless love.
I do not know to what extent you understand the magnitude of your mission and your contribution. We, those of us, who are in the field of the Foreign Mission, see you as equal partners and competitors, we are proud of you and we ask our common Father and God to bless and support you by increasing the reserves of your mental and physical strength and your love for Him and for your neighbour.
With God’s help, he found in Laotoka, Fiji’s second largest city Viti Levu, a suitable plot of land of 50 acres in a very nice location and in a residential area. The owners are relatives of Father Bartholomew, the first Fijian Orthodox priest, and they are selling it to us at a very good price. From $10,000 FJ per acre (=4 acres), they brought it down to $6,000 FJ, a very good price, according to the experts. So we are waiting for your decision to make the purchase. We have sent Father Bartholomew’s daughter Anastasia and her cousin Sophronia to the female monastery of Panagia Ypsénis in Rhodes, where they stayed for four months, because they do not have a visa for longer, and during this time they made great progress in learning the Greek language and chanting. We will send them back in September on an educational visa to stay for a year and, as you understand, when they return they will be very useful in the operation of the large church of the Holy Trinity with the orphanage where they will sing, do catechism and teach Byzantine hagiography and the Greek language. They have finished high school and are both very bright.
With paternal feelings of honour and love to all of you.
†O New Zealand
