Fiji Choir visits Australia

About seventy-five members of the Centenary Methodist Church choir from Suva, including many young people, have spent the past three weeks in Australia. They first visited Brisbane, performed a concert there, before journeying in two air-conditioned buses to Sydney where they participated in the Fijian Uniting churches conference at Merroo Conference Centre in the Blue Mountains. Two issues raised at the conference were Resolution 84 about 'gay' ministers which was dealt with quickly thank goodness, and sharing church property with an Australian congregation which causes difficulties at times when the original congregation wants to sell the building. Churches in Australia are in trouble, diminishing in numbers and hardly having any youth work these days. Only the ethnic churches in the Uniting Church seem to be flourishing. Of course the Penticostal churches gather huge numbers in certain places with their bright music and simplistic messages.

Then the choir group spent the last week in Melbourne and stayed at a Backpackers Hotel for the first three days, enjoyed the hospitality of the Melbourne Fijian community. Their concert at a Catholic Church hall in Yarraville was excellent, with many meke items, choral anthems, sere ni cumu folk songs, and even a lakalaka, the Lauan standing dance for men and women. Their costumes were beautiful and it was a lovely night of entertainment. One item was extremely funny about a Papua New Guinea version of the yaqona presentation, though some people thought the boys went overboard in their antics!

Some of the women from the choir visited Geelong yesterday and were taken to an op-shop to buy gifts for their relatives. Last night the whole group flew back by Air Pacific and that company kindly allowed them to carry their excess luggage for free thanks to a word from George's Dad.

Over the years, several choirs from Fiji have visited Australia, including the Labasa choir in 1985, the CBM choir in 1988, when they entertained the children at many local schools in the Geelong region. Other choirs that have visited Australia include the Kadavu Choir and the Centenary Choir two years ago. Such choir visits are good for the local Australian community in presenting a South Pacific culture and for the travellers to enrich their knowledge and networks, as well as present their Christian faith in song and dance