Peter Ambuofa story Part 1

 

Peter Ambuofa’s upbringing

 

Peter Ambuofa grew up with his six brothers and one sister in a village called Gwa’atolo in the mountainous northern tip of the island of Malaita, one of the larger islands of the Solomon Island chain.  His father Foakwailiu, a tribal chief and renown warrior, was deeply entrenched in animist worship of the ancestral spirits, prevalent in his Toambaita tribes and the wider Solomon Islands.  After accidently breaking a ‘tabu’ while helping to repair his father’s house, Peter was cursed and was in danger of being injured or possibly killed as a punishment.  He was forced to live some distance away from his family.

 

Escape to Queensland

 

Peter grew up during the black-birding days in the 1880s, when Australian ships often made journeys to the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to enlist or sometimes kidnap Pacific Island people and take them to Queensland to work as virtual slaves in the Sugar plantations at Bundaberg in Queensland. To   announce a ship’s arrival in a region, gunshots were sometimes fired.  Ambuofa having heard two gun shots, made his way down to Silolo just adjacent to the spot the shots were fired. He boarded the ship along with other Solomon Islanders, and after several weeks of sailing arrived in Queensland.

 

Working on the plantations

 

Peter Ambuofa worked as an unpaid labourer for the Fairymead Sugar Company plantation in Bunderberg, Queensland, although when they finished after three years they were given a box of goods, including a gun.  Labourers were provided with basic food and accommodation in a workers’ camp, but the different tribal groups from different Pacific islands were all housed together.  This created tensions among the workers which often turned into verbal arguments and physical violence.

 

Florence Young

 

Florence Young, from Nelson New Zealand visited the Fairymead plantation from time to time, since it belonged to her brothers. During these visits, Florence often came to the camps where the plantation workers men used to live, and their hostility towards to each other greatly disturbed her. She was deeply concerned about the plight of the labourers, both their lack of ability to communicate and their spiritual bondage to animist beliefs.  She decided to offer the men regular evening classes to learn the English language and to learn about the gospel through reading the scriptures.

 

At first most of the labourers, especially those from Malaita, were reluctant to join Florence’s programme because it offended their cultural beliefs that women should not usurp leadership and have authority over men. However, after the few that initially joined the classes enjoyed the benefits of learning to speak and read English, others joined in including Peter Ambuofa, who became a regular attender.

 

Peter Ambuofa becomes a follower of Jesus

 

Peter eventually discovered a totally new life in Jesus Christ that changed his personality and way of thinking, and freed him from the fear the ancestral spirits and the cycle of revenge that had plagued him all his life.  He discovered a renewed sense of purpose and calling – to share the light of the gospel of Jesus with his own tribal people, and especially his own family, in Northern Malaita.  Ambuofa was baptised in the nearby Burnett River in Kalkie, Bunderberg in 1892 and given a new name “Peter” to indicate his new calling to serve Jesus as his Lord.

 

Peter Ambuofa returns to Malaita

 

After his baptism, Peter felt a strong sense of urgency to return to his own people to share the gospel.  Returning to the Solomon Islands from the Queensland plantations was a risky business.  If the ship dropped the returning labourers on the wrong stretch of coastline, hostile tribes were likely to kill them.  In Peter’s case there was additional risk because he had left under a curse, and there was no way of knowing what kind of reception his family would give him, especially when they found out he had abandoned the tribal beliefs in the ancestral spirits.

 

However it took another 2 years before he was able to find a ship that would return him to North East Malaita. This ship landed at Urasi in Lau, North East Malaita, but Peter Ambuofa was unable to set foot ashore, because the local leader, Chief Kwaisulia, had forbidden his passage, so he returned back to Queensland. Two months later in June 1894, after finding another ship, he tried again to go ashore at Urasi. This time he was accompanied by two men from the local tribe who were also converts returning home from Queensland, and the chief let them come ashore. 

 

Peter escapes a death threat and arrives home

 

While waiting for a canoe at Funafou, Chief Kwaisulia’s village, Peter was warned by Kamoda, a local villager, that his life was in danger.  So with Kamoda and another villager as an escort, Peter escaped the same night and after travelling by canoe finally arrived safely at Malu’u, a coastal village not far from his family village. On arriving in Malu’u, Peter saw two young boys collecting salt water for use as a food preservative, and on questioning them found out that they were close relatives from his village.  So he sent the boys back to his home village to inform his parents that he had arrived.

 

Peter’s Mum responds

 

So Peter Ambuofa sent word to his father Foakwailiu at Manafiu to inform him that his son had arrived at Malu'u.  Peter's parents recalled a disturbing revelation given to them some years earlier while conferring with their ancestral gods, that their son Ambuofa would return with a new religion.  Foakwailu sent his wife down first to try to persuade Peter to return to the ancestral gods. Maelilia, Peter's mother, walked several hours downhill to Malu’u market to seek out her son. As she approached Malu'u market, she could see from distance someone dressed quite differently from the normal traditional clothing. Drawing closer she noticed that the figure speaking to the market audience was her own son. So she quickly walked through the crowd towards her son and exclaimed "Is that you my son". Peter Ambuofa answered, "Yes Mum, it is me". So his mother hugged him and said “It is enough, son, that I am able to see you again.”

 

 

Peter Ambuofa explained to his mother that his reason for remaining at Malu'u was that his new God now determines where he should go and what he should do. With such words, he tried to persuade his mother not to accuse him of being a disobedient son.