Pray with the Marshall Islands, July 28, 2024
Lectionary Selection: John 6:1-21
Prayers for the Marshall Islands
God of Creation, thank you for the waters that bring us together from distant lands in common mission. We celebrate the history of engagement that Global Ministries’ predecessors have had with our partners in Japan and the Marshall Islands in schools like Marshall Christian High School. Thank you for all those students in the past and who today are being educated and nurtured at the school in Rongrong.
Bless the students at Marshall Christian High School today that they may grow in wisdom and understanding, even as they encounter difficult circumstances at home, in school, and in their vocations after graduation. Thank you for the teachers and Principal of the school for their dedication and commitment to comfort and care for the students along their journeys.
We pray for the Jarin Rarik Dron, or United Church of Christ in the Marshall Islands, as it meets the needs and fears of its church members. Thank you for their ministry and mission in Micronesian and around the world, and bless their endeavor to reconnect and rebuild their relationships with the United Church of Christ in Japan.
Amen
Mission Moment from the Marshall Islands
I recently traveled by fishing boat to visit Marshall Christian High School on Rongrong, a small island on the northern edge of the Atoll encircling the Majuro lagoon in the Marshall Islands. Since the school is only accessible by water, the visit and boat ride there was a memorable experience.
On the way, I thought about the journey across those waters. Generations of Marshallese kids had crossed not just the lagoon but more distant waters to go to the school on Rongrong. What was it like for them to grow up on these small spots of land in the middle of the Pacific? While the ocean was surely familiar to them, the expansive sea looked ominous to me, being on such a small boat with no life vests. I could imagine how terrified the disciples felt when their boat was caught in a storm.
In this week’s scripture, we encounter Jesus caring for and comforting his followers. That has been the church’s role since Jesus commissioned us to carry the Good News to the ends of the earth. The mission workers who founded the school on Rongrong were committed to caring for the basic needs of students sent to study there. Students from the remote outer islands of Majuro Atoll still attend what is today Marshall Christian High School. It is one of the only schools where families with few resources can pay just a couple hundred dollars a year for food, housing, and largely remedial education for their children.
The school sits prominently on the shore of Rongrong as you approach it by boat. The Principal, Rev. Mark Luke, greeted us when we arrived and then promptly pulled out a machete to cut the top off coconuts to sip on as he showed me around the small campus. Despite small government grants and a modest budget from the Jarin Rarik Dron, or United Church of Christ in the Marshall Islands, the school is in tremendous disrepair today. Tables and fixtures are broken in the dorms, classrooms, and cafeteria. Windows let in the elements. The roof of an old multipurpose building leaks too much to use.
The school on Rongrong is one of the oldest schools in the Marshall Islands, and many Marshallese church leaders were educated there over the years. Notably, for many years after World War I, missionaries from Global Ministries predecessor bodies taught there alongside missionaries from Japan, as they did throughout Micronesia until the conflict between the U.S. and Japan during WWII drove out first the Americans in 1936 and later Japanese mission workers in 1939. The churches in the Marshall Islands, Japan, and the U.S. feared their ministry together in Micronesia would end due to the storms of war. However, Ms. Eleanor Wilson, an American Board missionary who had taught in Japan and who served in Micronesia before the war, was recruited to serve as Principal of the school in Rongrong when she returned to the Marshall Islands in 1946. And for many years after that, both U.S. and Japanese churches sent mission workers to Rongrong and other Micronesian schools. However, today the three-way relationship between the Marshallese UCC, the Protestant churches in Japan, and the UCC and Disciples of Christ through Global Ministries is not nurtured as it once was. As a result, the Jarin Rarik Dron has reached out to Global Ministries to help them rebuild not just the Marshall Christian High School but also over the next couple of years to help them rebuild their relationship with the United Church of Christ in Japan.
Written by Derek Duncan, Global Ministries Global Relations Minister for East Asia and the Pacific
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