Moderator Rev Salesi Faupula and President Rev Charissa Suli were part of celebrations marking 200 years of Christianity in Tonga.
Every so often, God allows us to step into a moment where our own story and the Church’s story meet.
Last month, I returned to Tonga as one of three invited guests from the Uniting Church in Australia to celebrate the bicentenary of Christianity in Tonga. Our President, Rev Charissa Suli, the Moderator of the NSW/ACT Synod, Rev Faa’imata Hiliau, and I were invited by our partner church, the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga. All three of us also happen to be of Tongan heritage.
For me, it was more than an official visit. It was, in many ways, a homecoming.
I was honoured to address the General Conference on the theme, ‘Ko ha Siasi Mā’ui’ui mo Tupulekina’ – A Living and Growing Church, as the Church marked 200 years since the arrival of the Gospel. Yet the deepest theological lesson came not from the conference floor, but around the tables.
A significant part of the celebrations was devoted to feasting. Through a Western lens it could easily be misunderstood. Head tables, places of honour, members of the Royal Family, fine china and tables overflowing with food. In a nation with limited resources, it could appear way too extravagant, even wasteful.
But that would be to miss what was really happening.
Behind every table stood a village.
Each meal was entrusted to a different community. Families spent days preparing, cooking and transporting their contribution. This was not surplus food. They brought the finest they had. Their offering was not hospitality from abundance, but generosity through sacrifice.
Tongans often say that if your giving costs you nothing, have you really given? True generosity is not measured by what remains, but by what is willingly placed into God’s hands. For many, giving their best meant quietly going without, trusting that God would provide.
Watching this unfold, I found myself remembering the widow whom Jesus praised. Others gave from abundance; she gave from her livelihood. These feasts became acts of worship.
What struck me even more was that everyone was welcome. There were no tickets or barriers. Church members, visitors and passers-by all shared the same tables. Not surprisingly, these meals attracted the largest crowds, and it was around them that many of the conference’s key addresses were delivered. The church understood something profoundly biblical: people often gather around a table long before they gather around a pulpit.
Throughout Scripture, God’s kingdom is revealed through shared meals. Jesus fed the hungry, ate with sinners, and spoke of the Kingdom as a banquet where unexpected guests found their place. The Lord’s Supper reminds us that grace is first received around a table.
As I watched village after village serving thousands, another image came to mind: piki piki hama, kae vaevae manava. When canoes meet in distress, they bind themselves together and share the very provisions that sustain life. It is an image of sacrificial solidarity.
The villages were living that proverb before our eyes. Their generosity reflected the rhythm of the Gospel itself. God gives. Christ gives himself. The Church learns to give likewise.
The story of Christianity in Tonga began in 1826 when missionaries crossed the ocean believing Christ had already gone before them. Two hundred years later, that same church now sends its own sons and daughters throughout the world.
My own family is part of that story. For five generations before my father, our family served as ministers in the Free Wesleyan Church. In 1972, the church sent him as a missionary to Australia. Today, two further generations continue that ministry within the Uniting Church.
I’ve come back from Tonga deeply grateful, not only for the hospitality received, but for the reminder that the Gospel is never more visible than when God’s people prepare a place for others.
Perhaps that is what pilgrimage teaches us.
We inherit faith from those who have gone before us, and we pass it on not only through our words, but through lives of generous hospitality. For every table prepared in Christ’s name offers a glimpse of the Kingdom, where all are welcomed, all are fed, and all discover the abundance of God’s grace.
Rev Salesi Faupula
Moderator, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania
