Ronan missionary headed to Fiji to help his own tribe
Linda Sappington
Emosi Tatukivei, Ronan missionary, left April 3 for his homeland of Fiji to help villagers build using natural resources.
courtesy photo
Using professional-grade Stihl chainsaws, a crew of volunteer loggers will help teach the Vuni Ive Sere tribal villagers to thin the forest they planted 25 years ago, and build strong homes with their wood resource.
courtesy photo
Funds are still needed to weld a log-moving arch — a wheeled log mover with a handle to enable one or two people to pull a log to the sawmill for planing.
courtesy photo
Volunteers from The Church on the Move in Plains fabricated, built and shipped a sawmill to Fiji to help build homes.
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There’s an island in Fiji, Moturiki Island, that lies next to Levuka, the second largest island and the old capital. With 320 islands, the main source of income for the tropical country is tourism, yet Moturiki remains undeveloped.
There are no roads, vehicles or horses on the island. One tank saves rainwater for drinking, and one generator provides electricity from only 7 to 10 p.m. There are a few tin roof houses, some grass houses, some block houses; yet none are structurally sound. Hurricanes and cyclones are common during certain times of the year, and they “take a lot of things out,” according to missionary Emosi Tatukivei, who was born in Fiji and grew up on Moturiki. As a member of the Vuni Ive Sere tribe, Emosi is the well-respected right-hand man and spokesperson for their tribal chief.
For 24 years, Emosi has traveled the globe, training missionaries in America and building and restoring communities in foreign nations while sharing the love of God through his concrete actions. He and his family live in Ronan, where he teaches discipleship training through Youth With a Mission, Mission 21 Africa. Throughout the past eight years, the local community has supported their mission in the West Africa nation of Guinea Bissau.
Yet through his ministry years, Emosi’s longed to return to his home island.
“For 24 years in the missions, I’ve been praying, asking the Lord, ‘When will be the time to bless my tribe?’ until God said, ‘This is the time,’” Emosi said.
Although his island is still primative, villagers had the foresight to plant pine trees 25 years ago. Now that the wood is ready to be thinned and harvested, Emosi’s new mission will use muscle, chainsaws and a sawmill to rebuild houses in the 10 villages on the island; build a health clinic, a church, and a community center; plus bring clean running water and create simple roads that will help bring the villages together.
“We just want to bring a clean living environment, proper sanitation, toilets and bathrooms,” Emosi said.
Some remote areas on other islands have allowed outsiders in to help villages modernize, but in the process the visitors have used up the scarce and valuable resources, leaving villages pillaged, according to Emosi.
“We want (villagers) to take initiative, to build using resources they already have, and create an awareness that they can do it themselves,” Emosi said. “They don’t need to wait 10 or 20 more years for someone else to build roads, they’ll just make it happen.”
Emosi and his volunteer crew will build alongside the villagers, teach them how to use and maintain the logging equipment and manage their forest by thinning and replanting in preparation for the next generation — and in the process, change history.
Emosi’s prayer to return to Fiji and bless his island was answered through a church he had never heard of, and a pastor he had never met.
Jim Sinclair, pastor of the Church on the Move in Plains, learned about Emosi’s desire to help Fiji through friends Joe Darlington and Dale Flora of Ronan and Pastor Lynn Lapka of Cornerstone Faith Center in St. Ignatius.
Pastor Sinclair believed he was being called to help.
Sinclair’s church has a firewood ministry to assist elderly and disabled people in the Plains community who heat their homes with wood heat, but are unable to cut or purchase enough wood for the winter. By harvesting timber sales on Forest Service land, their ministry has been blessed with all the professional equipment necessary to run a full logging operation. The wood ministry gives out an average of 150-180 cords of firewood every winter.
So while Emosi was finishing up his work in Africa last month, the Plains church took action. They built a sawmill, then packed it in a crate and shipped it to Fiji. Sinclair and five other church volunteers will travel to Fiji with five professional-quality Stihl chainsaws.
Additionally, teams from Montana, Alabama, Tennessee, Iowa, Oregon and California will join the Plains group in Fiji to help Emosi and the villagers build.
Emosi left for Fiji on Thursday to prepare before teams arrive. He’ll build a concrete pad for the sawmill. Then he’ll get the sawmill out of customs and find a way to transport the mill in pieces to his island, most likely using three small pontoon boats.
Because there are no roads, all logging will be done by hand. Still needed are funds to purchase a generator and a welder to build a log-moving arch — a wheeled log mover with a handle to enable one or two people to pull a log to the sawmill for planing.
Support for the project has also come from Pastor Shawn Madsen and others at New Life Christian Center in Polson, and from many people throughout local communities who financially blessed the ministry via raffles and fundraisers.
“This community is so involved internationally helping other people, and helping people locally,” Emosi said.
Emosi hasn’t been to his island since 2002, when he traveled with wife Silvana. Airfare is still needed for Silvana and their three children to fly to Fiji at the end of May. This will be the children’s first visit to their father’s homeland, the first opportunity to meet their tribe.
Emosi expects the logging project will take about one year to prepare the wood for building, but the building project will be ongoing. Each year teams of volunteers will return to continue construction.
While the Fiji project gets underway, big plans are on the horizon for Emosi’s next endeavor. With the mission in Guinea Bissau flourishing under trained leadership, Emosi will return to Ronan in early October to prepare a new group of missionaries for an expansion of the Guinea Bissau mission on Cape Verte, an island off the west coast of Africa.
The relentless ministry doesn’t come as a surprise for anyone who has come to know Emosi and the Tatukivei family, has seen them serve people unselfishly, and has observed their willingness to continually live by faith. To help support the project, contact Joe Darlington at (406) 212-2203, Laura Silgen at (406) 675-3353 or Silvana Tatukivei at (406) 210-1233.
