Solomon Islands Students Allowance delay

The current delay of allowance faced by Solomon Islands students studying at the university of the South Pacific (USP) has raised concern over the student body (SISA). It is now week 3 however, the students have never received their monthly  allowances.  

Students are faced with real issues that without money, it will continue on. Those residing off-campus have been chased off by their landlords for non payment of monthly rentals. Most of the rentals are for the months of June, April and August. Besides that, others manage to stay on since their landlords are too lenient but have difficulties with electricity and water bills. Others even do not have cash to pay for their empty gas. Apart from those residential hiccups are the classroom ones. Approximately 99.8 % of the students are without text books. Most attended tutorials without knowing which questions the tutor refers to when he/she said, turn to page 115 exercise 7 for instance. The minute the tutor picked a student to answer the question, situation get worse and so embarrassed when the pick was a Solomon Islands student. Most get fired when they could not answer the question. The usual response was, "we do not have text book that is why we cannot answer the tutorial questions". Learning in such an environment without having proper learning materials is indeed very difficult. From the general observation, most SI students are still roaming around the campus without stencils like pen, text books ,exercise and tutorial books.

A recent meeting organized by the SISA aimed to find ways to settle the issue was not attended by the majority of the student. Although the agenda of the meeting was to find resolution to end the issue, the SISA body finds it pretty hard to submit formal report to NTU since the quorum is not met. However, SISA will still pursue the issue until it reaches NTU.

Is Faith an Action?

Since I was a kid, from my Sunday school class, I was told to have faith. My Sunday school teachers always emphasize the importance of having faith. An action with no faith attached, is dead. One Sunday morning, as I can recalled, my teacher stood in front with her yellow cover bible opened, she raised her voice and begun reading from Hebrews 11:16. But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

The scripture highlights two important concepts about faith.The first is about pleasing God. To please God, we need to have faith. The second is believing in God. We must believe that God is the rewarder to those who seek Him. Yet these explanations does not disclosed the realities about Faith. The question, what is Faith is still a mystery? Today -5th May 2013, after 30 years,finally I came to a complete realization that the word Faith is an action word. We can say, it's a verb, a doing word. An action word. Understanding the definition is different from putting into practice the word Faith.To illustrate, let's analyze the story of Abraham (Gen 22:1 - 19). God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. How Abraham response to God's command was an interesting act. The bible told us that Abraham, on the next day, took his son up to the mountain for sacrificial. Abraham does not think about the road or the climb to the mountain or even how he's going to sacrifice his son. His response was an act of Faith. He put God's command into action. That's where Faith comes in. Putting God's command into action is Faith. Understanding, analyzing and studying God's command is not Faith. This is where most people fail in life. We know Faith, we know how to believe but we don't know how to practice God's command.

Is Faith an Action? Yes, from our analysis, we discovered that Faith is an action based on God's command. Now here's another God's command that many people have been blessed by putting it into practice. It's about tithing. Bring the full amount of your tithes to the temple, so that will be plenty of food there. Put me to the test and you will see that I will open the windows of heaven and pour out on you abundance all kinds of good things (Malachi 3: 10). To cause God to open the windows of heaven, we need to give our tithes. Understanding the command will never open the store house of heaven, studying it daily with out action is useless. God's store house can only be opened when we start giving our tithes.

I believe you know how to have Faith. When and on what to apply faith on. If you understand these simple formulas, blessing will be on your way. Blessing will be your disaster on every season. 

Solomon Islands Introduces New Coins

SI New Coins

Across the Islands of the nation of Solomon Islands, a set of new coins are circulating with in the businesses, organizations, wholesalers, retailers, families and individuals. The Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) introduces the new coins at the beginning of the new year 2013. The changes includes the replacement of $2 note with $2 coin, reducing the size of $1, 50 cent, 20 cent and 10 cent coins.  

However,  after CBSI releases the new coins to the banks, heavy criticisms were raised against these new coins as it circulates. The general public especially, realized that the size of the new coins are too small hence, people experience difficulties with handling of the new coins. Some complained that the coins are too small that it becomes uncomfortable to use when buying. Others further stated that when it falls, there was not even a sound to be heard, signifies the tendency to get lost so easily. These are complains raised against the new coins as it continue circulation across the islands.

The members of the out spoken social media group - Forum Solomon Islands International on Facebook expressed similar sentiments. Nearly, 90 percent of the members pointed that the coin size was really too small to handle.Others said, from experiences it was not suitable buying with these coins as it was too small. But some members of the group express satisfaction saying it will take time before the general public gain adaptation. Let's be patient as time will come when people feel comfortable with handling of these coins. 

The coins will continue circulating among the general public although criticisms were raised against the CBSI. The coin size was not the decision of the CBSI but people's choice. CBSI chooses the size based on their survey carried out in 2008/2009.       

SI PM being accused.

PM Lilo

The leadership of Mr Gordon Darcy Lilo has reached another level of accusation following a sex scandal believed he was involved in. Since came into power, PM Lilo has been accused of several allegations claiming he stole tsunami money, computer money, bech-de-mer money, had started the disbanded black-shark and recently the payment of compensation. PM believed that these are mere allegations to tarnish his clean leadership record and requested people to respect the mandate given to by majority of leaders to lead the country. He was unmoved by the latest sex scandal that has hit the integrity of his leadership.

The recent assertion came into public interest after Forum Solomon Islands International (FSII) posted an article on it's page on the sex scandal that spark the general out cry of the citizen. Members of FSII believed that such leader should refrain from creating problems such as in sex issues. A prominent layer stated that our leaders should stop from involving in sex issues but to concentrate on the interest of the state. This nation will never move ahead unless our leaders refrain from slitting marriages with their lust.

The truth of the matter is, our parliament house has been filled with people who exercise and involve in polygamy. We refer to such practice as 02, 03 and 04. Nearly, 90 percent of the parliamentarians have been on board the ship MV. 02. This is an insane way of life. God has intended life to be simple with the simple begging with Adam and Eve. There was no Adam to Eve and then Mary. It was mend to be a one on one ratio, Adam to Eve ratio.  

Dr. Myles Munroe stated that Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by a passion, generate by a vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose. He further concludes that leadership comes down to two things: who you are and how you think.

Let us wait as the Leadership code commission pursue the matter and see how they going to settle the matter to rest.

Cell phone against Custom

Cellphone or mobile phone has increased the efficiency of communication among people within a family, community, society, nation and the entire world. You can be in South America and make a call to someone in Fiji over a few seconds or someone in Thailand can dial a call to another in the Solomon Islands. These mobile devices have enabled communication among people over vast distance as if they were sitting around a table with a cup of coffee.

The Solomon Islands has joined the international community with the usage of cell phones for passing messages, communication and chatting. These newly introduced devices are received with gratitude, however, as it continues to expand influence in communication, it does interrupt and damage custom and tradition of indigenous Islanders by creating an increase in the level of dating, marriage breakups and domestic violence.

Before the introduction of cell phones, communication among opposite sex is regarded as prohibited to certain degree by Solomon Islanders. In Malaitan societies especially, boys are not permitted to chat with girls whether they related to or not in a circular environment. It's a serious offense and once get caught by girl's relatives, would cost a large sum of money as in a form of compensation. In the traditional era, dating is a secret game and has always been played secretly at the back of both parents and brothers. With the introduction of mobile phones, these taboos are no longer effective as the boundaries has been violated. Dating is not a serious game any more as these devices creates an easy way of doing it with out being caught. It can be done anywhere at anytime. You can be in your room or among family members but when your lover calls to say hi there was no boundaries and fear to scare you of since the communication was secret between both your phones. 

Marriage breakups is another issue that has been on the rise since the introduction of these mobile devices. There are many issues among people of the Solomon Islands where fights break up between husband and wife. Resting after a hard day at home, there the phone rings, it was a call for the father. The mother quickly picked up the phone to answer. As usual, the caller asks for the father and requested a conversation, the mother raised her voice with a reply, who are you? After the conversation, the mother turns around with an angry look on the face and start questioning the husband. It all ends up in a fight, separation and of course death. This is a typical situation these devices introduced us with. Hence, it is wise to be mindful of how we use these cell phones to avoid such problems which will lead to divorce.

Nearly, 80 percent of Solomon Islanders have owned a phone and these issues are getting higher and higher each day, the problem of interest is shall we adjust our custom against the use of these devices or should we continue to adopt the way it was used by the international communities.