Yeah, yeah, it was a couple of weeks ago.

 But I totally forgot that I could share it this way (without putting a load on the Nomoa server)

From: SIONE LAMIPETI TUIHALANGINGIE [mailto:panatonga@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2009 2:58 PM
To: samt@nomoa.com
Subject: Mr Curtis Tuihalangingie First Tongan to attend Beijing University interview with Global time

Curtis Leonard Tu'ihalangingie wearing the Tongan ta'ovala. Photo: courtesy of Tu'ihalangingie

It's not often that The Kingdom of Tonga has been honored in a ceremony at Peking University. Most of the student body might not even know where this island nation is located, not to mention what a Tongan looks like.

Good luck with the effort CLT and best wishes this Christmas and the following new year.

Sam T

We got the CD whilst in Tonga, and have been to non-tech to realise that music videos exist of these things let alone that pirated copies are viewable to anyone on youtube.

some how doesn’t have the same impact as one of my favourite “PI Action Films”

There are apparently more cut scenes of the movie on youtube, and you can probably get the full thing on video.google.com or other enterprising means.

Of course we generally don’t have slick productions coming out of Tonga, and are more into just wacking things together when getting around with friends and family. So, well done to the Mascot youth for their posting.

Well done. Amazing how the kids have grown up.

My Grandma went to this Church and may even be one of those ladies with the white hats. Intresting production, some of the photos are really old but some of them aren’t that old and are probably colour changed to b & w.

Somewhere out there someone knows how to spell that word.

Tonight/Last night Fiona and Kalisitoni unwrapped a special evening they’ve been preparing with the Petersham youth.

Which begins with the ever present feeding, in the Ozzie style BBQ (no puaka? where’s Tonga gone when we can’t even get puaka for a get together?) Thanks to the fire tending by Rose and ‘Anau.

The kids were having a blast playing around outside, while the final touches were being put up on the stage with Ilavalu and ‘Ita putting up the ‘star’ and getting some lights up for the outdoor, evening show.

Soon enough, there was enough food not yet eaten to invite all the adults and the invited Petersham neighborhood guests to the table to share in the frivolity.

Hey, some of those people look like they’ve gone back for seconds already!!

The youth band started us the formal program for the evening with some Christmas music, hymns, and popular tunes (well, as popular as some of the Tongan music can be.) Sisitoutai got up during the band session and did a shimmy disco that endeared him to the crowd (ma’u he tangata ee mafana ‘a Ngalo’afe)

But soon enough it was time to get off the mats and get ready for tonights performance.

The children replayed the nativity scene in a very well presented play. And the prize for the weary is more work. The parents agreed they wanted to see it all over again, so everyone has to dust off the dirt from tonights performance and we can go through it all again tomorrow noon for the regular church service.

http://www.freedomkeys.com/vigil.htm

"As long as human beings are imperfect, there will always be arguments for extending the power of government to deal with these imperfections. The only logical stopping place is totalitarianism -- unless we realize that tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell

"Well, who is more likely to volunteer to take a job in a bureaucracy that has little to recommend it except that it gives you the power to use government force to control the lives of others? A dispassionate scientist or a zealot? In government, the zealots eventually take over." -- John Stossel

This past Sunday was our children’s day at church and the kids really had a great time.

Is Sione Halasika related to Mohenoa Puloka ?

While the rest of the Sunday School were off on their Action Songs, Sione Halasika was doing a Haka version of the songs.

Hmmmm, or it might be his relationship with Salesi 8-)

With Sione’s revisited Actions, all the kids were involved

See the rest of the photos, over at:

Something seems to have gone without mention on the globe. Windows Mobile 6.5 build 23075, as accounted for in the cooked roms from xda-developers.com … supports flash!!

Woo hoo, now I can just click through on my mobile to flash video content and just watch it there on my phone.

• Windows Mobile 6.5 build 23075
• Internet Explorer
  • ROMs HTC Elfin (Miky, AHEN)

No one seems to have made any noise about this, but the Zune HD browser doesn’t support watching videos (strange for a music/video/entertainment device) so here’s hoping that Microsoft will soon release a firmware update to resolve this abnormality.

Edit, (cue: some hours later) I guess I should get more intimate with mobile tech. It seems that what I am observing is not flash players, but some sort of integration of Youtube Player and IE. I tried one of my other online video haunts (http://www.stupidvideos.com) and things weren’t so moviesh.

‘Ofa introduced Taufa #4 into the world this evening (January 25th circa 11:30 pm)

Mum and Baby are doing very well. Kid looks like he’s going to be a Titan. He’s pretty big (forget the measurement, things kinda went blurry for a while there.) He’ been kicking around in mum’s stomach pretty actively and he got out just as active.

WIthin minutes his mouth was moving seeking out food like a heat seeking missile in the sun, pointing everywhere at once.

Hope to see you two out of hospital real soon.

Thanks for the well wishes and be catching up with you all soon.

Funny I was listening to this old Rock n Roll piece about getting into trouble and not believing what was taught in Sunday School, but that’s another story.

We’re doing the Sunday School thang with the kids, and they absolutely love going to Sunday School. So much so, that they get up in the morning prepped to go, and as soon as Sunday School is over there’s a million reasons why we have to come home.

Funny to see how far we have come, not, when it comes to the Sunday School and the Tongan congregations.

The farthest I recall back with the Tongan community church services, is back to when services were held at the Pitt St. Chapel (hmmm, I’ll have to visit there some lunch time next time I’m in the city.) and at the 5 Rogers Avenue, Haberfield, Mission Centre (long since sold to the heathens with better financial management skills. (smiling)

The thing I recall is that we didn’t really have Sunday School for the Tongan Language at the Pitt St. church, and Sunday School at 5 Rogers Avenue was on a Monday evening.

On Monday evening’s the Sunday School members would gather with our teachers at the 5 Rogers Avenue Chapel (a small room part of the complex.)

Sometime later the Sunday School moved together with the main service to St. David’s Haberfield where they actually had a hall and separate rooms. So Sunday School developed into having separate classes and being in different parts of the hall. There were some material, but I’m not sure they were ours or ‘left-overs’ from the palangi church.

Something or someone did something and the congregation moved again to the Ashfield Uniting Church, and they too had a hall and rooms. Sunday school got bigger as we had more kids and plenty of volunteers to be teachers.

Bill Crews expanded his Exodus Foundation on the premises so Sunday School programs moved to the Minister’s Manse (i.e where the faifekau lived) but again we have plenty of space to spread out the classes.

I went on vacation into la la land and came back 10+ years later to find out that we’re back to using the main chapel for our Sunday School program, with only a single volunteer teacher.

Fiona’s busy being creative with a program that fits everyone, and the youngest children get activities they can do on the seats, or on the floor, while she puts in some more in depth time with the older kids.

Petersham Uniting Church – Tongan Congregation is definitely very fortunate to have Fiona on the team.

Well done Fiona.

The 3^rd Annual “Battle of the Bands” is a music festival of ethnic youth and young people within Victoria. The night will include ethnic action dancing, sway of the pacific, the glitter of Asia, Bands from the church groups will range from heavy rock to gospel country.

Many of the stars of the music festival will be “Second Generation” Australian born children of immigrants and refugees as performers.

Everyone is welcome to come and join in the fun and audience members are encouraged to come in costume of your ethnic heritage which include Anglo, European background.(Dutch, German, Scottish, English, Wales, etc)

It is proudly supported by the Uniting Church in Australia.

Date 22 November 2008.

Location Box Hill Wesley Uniting Church in 2-6 Oxford Street, Box Hill, Melbourne.

Times 3pm to 9.30pm

parking details Street parking

Tickets secretary. Tee Makoni - talaheumakoni@hotmail.com

Adults $5.00

Young people 12 to 25 Goldcoin donation

Children under 12 free.

Food stalls will be available

New Performers wishing to join in should contact:

Don Ikitoelagi (03) 9251- 5287 email Don.Ikitoelagi@victas.uca.org.au