Some of his parishes are nearby, of course, but some are a difficult journey away-perhaps a couple of days in a car, many hours in a canoe, and finally two or three days walk into the bush. This hard-working missionary bishop has a tough row to hoe. I begin to understand just a bit of their pidgin language, which adds to the universal sign language we all use to communicate when words fail us. The bishop provides them with a social and moral compass in their formative years. It's not uncommon in this part of the world for young men-too old to remain at home, but not yet ready for marriage-to live in men's households, and nearly a dozen such young men live here. The only sign of twenty-first century life is a small laptop, hooked up to an agonizingly slow dial-up connection. Rats the size of cats appear just outside the doorway. Hard-shelled bugs scamper across the floor. Each of us has a spoon-the only cutlery in the house.Ĭold water is available for about two hours here and there during the day. There is almost no food, but somehow, as if by magic, meals seem to appear-bread bought at a local bakery for breakfast a handful of meat for supper, cooked into a stew with vegetables and poured over a huge bowl of rice. The bishop's residence is hardly a palace he lives in a sparely furnished, modest house, partly covered with a thatched roof. In the Solomon Islands, in the Anglican Province of Melanesia, staying with a diocesan bishop on this remote Pacific island. I'm as far away from home as I've ever been.

I am the eye of the storm