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I was born a Protestant on my home island, Nanumea, in Tuvalu, on 7 August 1948. I attended school in Tarawa, Kiribati, from January 1963-1968. On 12 January 1980, I made my final vows as a Catholic Nun in the Congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, in the Cathedral, Tarawa, Kiribati. In taking this step, I had chosen to serve as a Catholic missionary and Kiribati to be my home.
Kiribati and Tuvalu were evangelised by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) and the London Missionary Society (LMS) in the mid- and late-19th century. Reverend Hiram Bingham and a handful of Hawaiian missionaries arrived on Abaiang on 17 November 1857 and from there evangelised the northern islands as far south as central Kiribati.[1] In the 1870s Protestantism was brought to Tuvalu and the southern islands of Kiribati by the London Missionary Society through Samoan pastors. Catholicism was brought to Nonouti, in Kiribati, first by Betero Terawati and Tiroi in 1881. They had gone to work on the coconut plantations in Tahiti during the labour trade era and had embraced Catholicism. On returning to their home island of Nonouti in 1881, they sent a request to Rome for priests. In response, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, priests and brothers arrived in May 1888 and the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in August 1895.[2]
Tuvalu and Kiribati became a British Protectorate in 1893. From 1916 until 1975, they formed the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, when they separated to prepare for independence.[3] The Ellice Islands became independent on 1 October 1978 and took the name Tuvalu which literally means ‘a line of eight’ and the Gilberts changed to Kiribati, the local version of Gilberts, on 12 July 1979.
Tarawa with its good anchorage was the main island in the colony and the centre of colonial administration and commerce. On each island there was a Magistrate who presided over both the island and lands courts. He was assisted by four other men, three Kaubure (Councillors) and a Secretary. All were elected by the people and had to be approved by the Resident Commissioner, with the help of the District Officers for each section.
Nanumea is the northernmost island in the Tuvalu group and, therefore, the closest to the southern islands of Kiribati. In the 1960s, the LMS had one secondary school for boys in the Ellice Islands on the island of Vaitupu. It had two secondary schools—Rongorongo on Beru in the Southern Kiribati, Morikao on Abaiang to the north of Tarawa—and a Theological College at Tangintebu on South Tarawa. The Catholic Church had two secondary schools, St Joseph’s College, Tabwiroa, Abaiang for boys and Immaculate Heart College, North Tarawa, for girls. Both churches had been engaged in primary education since the arrival of their early missionaries. By the 1960s, the LMS in Kiribati handed over its primary schools to the colonial government. The Catholics continued with primary education until just prior to independence in 1976. The Seventh Day Adventist also ran one secondary school, established in 1949, and one primary school on Kauma, Abemama, in central Kiribati. The colonial government secondary schools for both boys and girls were located in Bikenibeu in South Tarawa.