Day 151 Church

Prayers answered
At 0730 a policeman came to the boat to report that they had recovered most of our stolen items. He came aboard and showed us some examples in order to confirm that these were our belongings. Indeed they were. He then requested we come to the police station to reclaim the rest and even gave us a ride in his van.
When we got to the police station we found 90% of the items including the cell phone, iPods, the camera and the clothing items. Still missing was my watch and my USB memory stick which the policeman indicated may still turn up.
We were a story consistent with very standard police work i.e. "round up the usual suspects" and question them in such a way that one of them confesses. The actual perpetrator was apprehended on Saturday evening as he tried to board the ferry to the island of Sava'i. He eventually confessed and turned over the items he had in his possession. The policeman told us he was 19 years old and had a history of petty theft. He did not tell us how they got him to confess but we suspected that part may not have been pretty. Maybe we have been watching too many cops shows on TV.
Mark pointed out that this kind of effort would not have happened in most of the place we had visited so far. As he mentioned, in Mexico they would not have even looked for the bad guys but instead would have chided us to be more careful. It was not clear if the newspaper article had any significant effect but even if it was a catalyst for action on the part of the police, they did their job and did it well.
With lightened spirits, we headed off to attend Andy's church services at the Baha'i Temple. This is one of 7 such structures in the world and is a spectacular 9-sided arched dome. The Baha'i faith was born in Persia and believes in all of the major prophets including Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, and others. They read the scriptures from the major religions of the world and their service includes sections from many of them. Also, this congregation has a marvelous choir whose voices are amplified and blended by the natural acoustics of the building to produce a beautiful effect. We have heard Polynesian choirs practice in other places and they all seem to have an excellent and pleasing quality. We all enjoyed the service and it gave us an opportunity to meditate on the surprising events of the last few days.
After the service, there was a small gathering where we met a range of people including a man from New Zealand who is involved in trying to establish micro-finance on the island. Since I had just recently learned that Goodwill in the U.S. is also looking into this activity, our conversation was topical and instructive.
After the church gathering, we were invited to the home of Andy's host Samoan family to have lunch. We were driven by on of Andy's "brothers" and were welcomed into the home of by his "father" who is a second level chief and quite influential even at the age of 73. His is one of the small circle of chiefs who selects the top chief of Samoa. Also present was his brother who was visiting from his current home in New Zealand. We ate a traditional Samoan Sunday lunch including fish, beef, breadfruit, taro and various coconut and banana dishes. It was tasty but very filling because to the very starchy ingredients. After the meal we talked a bit but had to fight off the food-coma of the heavy meal.
Finally we returned to the boat and a welcome nap.
In the evening we joined with Jim and Wendy from Liahona for dinner at the Apia Yacht Club. Like most of the yacht clubs we have visited, this is not the St. Francis but rather a simple, open air, waterfront structure. The food, however, was good and very reasonable so we marked it as a place we would probably return.