If there was one thing that American Samoa and Samoa both had plenty of --
other than packs of stray, rabid dogs (which they were working on solving),
and mosquitoes -- it was churches. In populated areas I think it would be
safe to say there was a church of some denomination at least every half mile.
At least. I read that there were 700 churches on Tutuila alone...and it is
only 56 square miles in size.
Catholic, Jewish, Methodist, Baptist, Mormon, London Missionary Society/Congregational,
Seventh Day Adventist, Pentecostal, and a lot more than that. Only a few of
them had signs, but after a while you began to notice that the churches of
the same denomination looked similar to each other.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In front of the Congregational Church in Sapali'i, Savai'i was the monument above that commemorated the landing of Reverend John Williams who arrived in 1830. He was essentially the first missionary to the region beating the big missionary rush by about 45 years. While the Samoans had their own religion before Williams arrived an ancient prophecy told them that a better religion would come from above. Christianity fit that bill perfectly. Actually, the story of the creation of everything by the god Tagaloa was pretty close to the story in the book of Genesis, so the conversion of the islanders was quite quick.
2018-02-03