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The World Day of Prayer is also known as the Women's World Day of Prayer. This is because it is committed to girls and women so that they can live in peace, justice and dignity. It is an ecumenical project. For this year, women on the Cook Islands had prepared the World Day of Prayer. And on March 7, 2025, we were able to hold a service in Schleiden (Eifel, Germany) under the motto “I Made You Wonderful” [1].
You might now ask yourself what I was doing there? Yes, men are often hesitant at events organized by women. But that was not the case with me and I also believe that men must stand up for women's concerns.
I had been to the Cook Islands in 1988 and 1995 and so I am taking the opportunity to do some reminiscing [2]. The pictures are from the second trip. The flight took off from Frankfurt 8 hours late due to a problem with the thrust reversal. Therefore, all connecting flights from Los Angeles could not be reached. We passengers were asked to stay on this flight and so I did not fly to the Fiji Islands, but instead flew past the Fiji Islands to Auckland. The entire detour was the same as the route from San Francisco to Havana or from Berlin to Timbuktu. But that was not important to me, as I had a very long vacation. The larger part of my visit to the Cook Island has been on Aitutaki.
World Day of Prayer
I was just about to start with the settlement history, but the figures are inaccurate. The 8th to 10th century AD is given, while the beginning of Polynesian settlement is probably around the 15th century BC. [3] Be that as it may, the Cook Islands had a long history before the Europeans invaded the Pacific. Captain Cook was only on the uninhabited island of Palmerston, by the way. Reverend John Williams of the London Missionary Society was the first to christianize in the region. The first to accept Christianity were the islanders of Aitutaki. There are a few books about Christianization that have also been reprinted [4].
The service began with the sound of the sea to get us in the mood. We called out the greeting “Kia orāna!”, which Mana Strickland [5] translates as “May you live!”, but which in the current context was more broadly understood as “May you live long and well, shine like the sun and dance with the waves!”
The core was Psalm 139 (verses 1-18) [6] and the stories of three women. The motto goes back to verse 14: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” My favorite verse is verse 9 and you can now look it up for yourself.
After the service we showed a short video about the Cook Islands and then we ate, as far as the cuisine of the Cook Islands can be imitated here; Schleiden in the Eifel and Avarua on Rarotonga are 16,541 km apart. I would like to thank the organizers of the ecumenical service for their commitment.
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Reminiscing [7]
I don't look at my analogue images nearly as often as at my digital images and eb´ven though I have already digitized large parts of my archive, these were the APS films, an even larger parts are in albums and still wait digitalization. So I gladly took the opportunity to get out the old albums about this trip and scan some pictures.
It had rained a lot on Rarotonga, but the mountains collect clouds and then you have better conditions for agriculture. But there were also sunny days. I passed by St. Joseph's Cathedral [8] and was surprised at the time that this beautiful but modest church was called a cathedral. I went so far as to say in a monologue: „But they have to write it down!“ But they did, as you can see. The cathedral had only been completed and consecrated the previous year. I only found out later that the name had to be like that because it is a bishop's seat. The altar is designed like a boat. Burials take place not only on cemetaries, but also on private property. This is not permitted in Germany, for instance.
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I then flew to Aitutaki and arrived at Paradise Cove; it was a small guest house. The reception was no longer manned, but one of the guests said to me: "Just pick a room." And so I did. The next day Tutai came to keep things tidy, which usually took an hour a day. From the second day on I was the only guest in this guest house. The next guests only arrived the day before I left. It was a beautiful, huge property with access to the lagoon. It was as close as you can get to any dream of the South Seas. Today there is a whole holiday complex on the property - the dream is over. I could get coconuts from the palm trees or papayas from the trunk. In the nearby village of Amuri or a little further Arutanga there were shops where I could buy more fruits or something to eat. Nearby was also Mount Maungapo. It is only 125 meters high. But from there you had a great view, especially of the sunset. Then there were also performances with dance and music, as you would normally expect from large hotels, once in the Rapae Hotel and then in the restaurant/bar Ralphies, whose show I liked even better. You have to imagine that it were amateurs who performed there and not professional performers that you find in holiday resorts elsewhere in the world. That was pleasant to see and especially because towards the end the audience joined in, regardless of whether they were tourists or locals.
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One day I went as far south as a village that you could reach via a dirt road. It was called New Jerusalem. Another traveler, Dr. Georg Giebel, who had been there a few months before me and had written extensively about his trip after completing his studies [9]. He is a physicist and has posted his travel diary online, which is much more extensive than my own notes, but just as idiosyncratic and erratic as mine. In any case, he writes about this place, because it is a sect that worships Mary and Joseph in addition to the Trinity. I cannot get used to this idea, but I did not meet anyone there, so I could not ask anyone and there is nothing else on the Internet. Below is a quote from his text with a translation. A map in a brochure showed "Faith Healers' Church and Village". Everything was made of natural materials, but they wanted to rebuild later with concrete. I found out what became of it from a TikTok post [10]. All that is left is the dirt road and everything else is gone. The TikTok post was about 25 years later. Nevertheless, it was extremely interesting to see the utopia or vision that had been realized.
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The trip to the small islands of the atoll was also very impressive, especially because you could see that survival on these islands is almost impossible. You simply need more land mass to be able to grow anything other than coconuts. A British caretaker once wrote about a time he spent on one of the islands, but he claimed to have lived on snails with his children and wife. I can't find the book anymore because I had thrown it out because it sounded too improbable.
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Hopefully I will be reminded of this holiday more often and start reminiscing.
Links and Annotations:
[1] This is a quote from Psalm 139:14
[2] 02.07.-28.07.1988: CGN – FRA – LAX – HNL – AKL – NAN – RAR – PPE – DFW – FRA – CGN
10.10.-28.11.1995: FRA – LAX – AKL – NAN – ULI – NAN – RAR – AIT – RAR – PPE – LAX –FRA (08. Nov. Rarotonga, 13.-22. Nov. Aitutaki, 25. Nov. departure from Rarotonga)
RAR – Rarotonga / AIT – Aitutaki
[3] https://cookislands.travel/islands/history-people „Polynesians arrived in Rarotonga around 800 AD ….“ And a contradiction in the next paragraph: „The Maori migrations to New Zealand began from Rarotonga as early as the 5th century AD.“
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookinseln 9th century AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Islands 10th century AD
[4] The Rev J. P. Sunderland, The Rev A. Buzacott, B.A., eds.: Mission life in the islands of the Pacific. John Snow, London 1866. Reprinted by: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific (SUAV) & The Cook Islands Library & Museum Society, 1985.
William Wyatt Gill: Myths and Songs from the South Pacific. Henry S. King & Co., 1876.Reprinted by: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific (SUAV), 1995; but you can read the book here:
https://archive.org/details/mythsandsongsfro013889mbp/page/n7/mode/2up?view=theater
[5] Mana Strickland: Say It in Rarotongan. An Instant Introduction to the Common Language of the Cook Islands. Pacific Publications, Sydney, New York 1979. ISBN: 0-85807-041-3.
The author lived from 1918-1996. Te Ariki Terau Mana Strickland was a Cook Island educator and politician. "He was the Minister of Education in the first Cook Islands government after self-government was obtained in 1965." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana_Strickland
[6] Ps 139:1-18 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20139&version=NRSVUE
[7] I like the word reminiscing as much as the song. Little River Band - Reminiscing (1978) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBETVhHpcPk. BTW, John Lennon also loved this song. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reminiscing
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Joseph%27s_Cathedral,_Avarua
[9] "... und nach New Jerusalem: das ist ein Dorf im alten Stil; ich traf dort zwei Frauen, die gerade dam it fertigwaren, Palmenblätter zu Hausdächern zu flechten und jetzt darangingen, Besen zu flechten. Das ganze Dorf formt die sog. Free Church, die 5 Götter anbeten: die klassische Trinität plus Josef und Maria." ["... and to New Jerusalem: that is an old-style village; I met two women there who had just finished weaving palm leaves into roofs and were now busy weaving brooms. The whole village forms the so-called Free Church, which worships 5 gods: the classic Trinity plus Joseph and Mary."]
http://www.drgiebel.de/Reise/cook.htm
[10] https://www.tiktok.com/@decomte/video/6995479429841472769
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