“We were flat out,” Mrs Beks said.

Mrs Beks, of Port Fairy, and Mr Power, of Port Campbell, were part of an 11-member team from the Warrnambool and Wantirna congregations of the Seventh Day Adventist Church that refurbished several community facilities at Balolava on the Solomons’ main island, Guadalcanal. 

The recent aid mission continued the strong links built up between the two congregations and the Balolava health clinic since 2008.

Mrs Beks said the congregations had chosen Balolava as part of the church’s “adopt a Solomon Islands health clinic” program. She was part of an aid mission that reroofed the health clinic and installed solar lighting five years ago.

Before the program started, the clinic was delivering babies by torchlight and had no running water, she said.

On the recent mission that returned on November 7, church members repainted the clinic, put in insulation and more powerful solar lights.

“We also painted two nurses’ homes, put in solar power and insulation,” Mrs Beks said.

“We also put running water on in two villages,” she said.

Pipes were laid to carry water from dams to the villages.

In another village, the church members painted four school rooms, lined and painted the school library and installed louvre windows.

Mrs Beks said the big work program was particularly arduous in the hot and humid conditions.

The two congregations shipped over a container full of building materials to undertake the work.

Mrs Beks said getting the shipping container by barge to Balolava was a painstaking logistical exercise and unloading it by hand took three-and-a-half days.

However, despite the hard toil, she said the experience had been very rewarding.

Mrs Beks said there were reports the Balolava health clinic would be upgraded to a hospital and she expected the congregations would continue their support for that facility.