Rev. G. H. Eastman, Obe
pp. 37-38 · Read in the full issue
, and Mrs.
Eastman, of the London Missionary Society, recently passed through Sydney on their way to England. Mr. and Mrs. Eastman have spent 35 years in the service of the LMS in the Pacific, first in the Cook Islands, and for the past 30 years in the Gilbert Islands, where Mr. Eastman has been Principal of the well-known Rongorongo Training Institution of the LMS.
During the war years Mr. Eastman made some adventurous journeys among the islands during the Japanese invasion, and he and Mrs. Eastman were among the first British residents to return to the Gilberts early in 1944.
During the past nine months Rev. G.
H. Eastman and his wife have been re siding in Suva, where Mr. Eastman has completed the revision of the Bible in the Gilbertese language. This work has been carried out under the aegis of the American Bible Society of New York, who will print the revised version in Gilbertese.
Mr. Eastman has been called home to England to take part in the campaign to raise funds for the new mission vessel, “John Williams VI,” which is to be named on August 5 by HRH Princess Margaret; and which will then visit British ports before coming out to take up work in the Islands for the London Missionary Society.
The Bishop in Polynesia, the Rt. Rev.
L. S. Kempthorne, left Suva in mid-April for New Zealand, en route to the United Kingdom, where he will attend the Lam beth Conference,
Dr. Francois Mangeney, Director of Meteorological Services in New Caledonia, was French delegate to the International Meteorological Conference held in Wel lington, NZ, in April. He is an Alsatian and, as a lad lived under German rule.
The family, however, were French in sen timent and when war came the eight sons, including Dr. Mangeney, joined French services. At the time of the out break Dr. Mangeney was with the Meteorological Service at Lake Chad, in
Equatorial Africa. He joined the Fight ing French air-force and was one of those assigned the task of keeping open the air route along the African coast, via Khar toum and Cairo. Later he was attached to General Leclerc’s forces, and, later still, was posted to Tunis. He received his present New Caledonian appointment in 1946.
Captain J. R. Grey, of Suva, Fiji, a well-known resident of the Lau Group, arrived in Sydney in April.
Mr. Ted Smith, of Redondo Beach, California, bought the “Vaihinano,” a 103-foot APC boat, and was scheduled to leave in February, with a Tahitian crew, for Papeete. The boat is to be sold to a Chinese syndicate in French Oceania, to replace the “Potii,” of Raiatea, which went on a reef at Rurutu.