When I wrote “Becoming a chicken farmer and other unexpected developments” we were one year into COVID19 border closures in Vanuatu, and hopeful that borders would soon reopen. How wrong we were, in hindsight it was another a year before Vanuatu began opening up.

With borders closed our ministry operations had transformed dramatically: outreach teams scheduled for 2020 had cancelled within weeks meaning the evaporation of thousands of dollars of cashflow, and more seriously, the loss of a chance to share V2 Life’s stories, sights, sounds, and smells with scores of young people. More personally, as I became a chicken farmer, I was trying to work out how I fit into the picture without yachts to organise and teams to host.

I did what every good missionary should do when they know that they are where they should be, but not what to do. I looked around, saw the most immediate needs, and set about giving my best efforts.

As you may have read, aside from our founding vision of encouraging and equipping young islanders for a life of Christian mission, V2 Life also runs a small chicken/egg farm and a primary school – Teouma Christian Academy.
So although a big chunk of our training and outreach ministry was on hold thanks to COVID restrictions, there was still a school to run, chickens to feed, and eggs to sell.

I’d had involvement with the chickens before the borders closed and this became a core part of my routine: each morning the chickens had to be fed, and each afternoon the eggs collected, cleaned, and packed for sale. A few days a week I was off to town selling eggs to our most loyal supporters.

On top of that part-time farm responsibility, in 2020 we made the decision to upgrade the ministry bookkeeping system, moving from offline legacy software to online cloud based accounting. Being full of willingness and ready to learn and grow, I spent a fair portion of time on that. By the end of 2020, I’d settled into a new routine: the COVID19 routine, it went something like this:

Get up early for breakfast and quiet time. Kiss my wife and walk the 300 metres from our container house to the office. At 0715, join the teachers’ devotional time, led by our founder and school principal, Roger, before a quick chat with him at 0730.
By 0800 I’d be at my desk checking bank balances and emails. For the next hour or two I’d focus on recording payments and donations received by bank transfer, receiving cash payments from school parents, recording expenses we’d incurred in the previous few days, and responding to emails of various kinds.
By mid morning I would have switched to more tricky work like resolving bookkeeping errors, updating or fixing website issues, or chasing up other weird and wonderful administration in a small charity.
By late morning I’d be fed up with the office, so after a brief check-in with the boss, I’d go and get a bag of chicken food. Feeding the hens is not a very complicated task, which makes it something of a relief from the brain intensive office work, but it can be very smelly.
By midday, with the chicken feed topped up, most of the eggs had been laid so I’d collect those and take them to the kitchen for cleaning and sorting. Broken and cracked ones would go into the fridge to be used for ministry consumption, while the rest were packaged for sale. By now I was sweaty and smelly so I’d wander home for a shower and some lunch.
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, after a brief lunch it would be off to town to sell eggs. Far from simply selling eggs, these trips often included banking school cash, dropping off equipment for repairs, shopping for school lunch supplies, and visits to various government offices.
On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons life was a little more varied: I might have a group visiting for some training in chicken farming, some days I’d be found repairing damaged fencing, others cutting grass, and others still at home doing study or a home improvement project.
There were plenty of days during this season when stopping for lunch became secondary to the many tasks I had hoped to achieve that day.

One thing is certain: COVID19’s Vanuatu border closure did little to ease our workload, nor encourage us to slow down: it was full steam ahead.

Now that border closures have been firmly assigned to history, teams have begun to visit again and it is time to reconsider how we work. I may not have been the most logical person to run our bookkeeping, though finding a self funded missionary to take up the role is no simple thing. Yachts are back on the radar, but years of not having any around dented my confidence, both in my capacity and my certainty that I’m the right person to nurture that dream.

What do we “do” now? Well, we’re still missionaries in Vanuatu. And V2 Life is still the ministry we call home. Exactly how our days look may be different, but one thing is for sure: if you show up to see us, you’ll find us working at Kingdom business.