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The Saints of Kiribati

Posted on April 29th, 2007 by JonathanLIVE.
Categories: Faith, Stories.

Sam-Lynde-TranterThe Republic of Kiribati is situated on the Equator in the Western Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Guinea. It used to be known as the Gilbert Islands and it is remembered for the epic battle that took place at Tarawa atoll in World War II. More recently, Kiribati made television news when it became the first nation to welcome the dawn of the year 2000. For Bahá’ís, Tarawa remains forever tied to the memory of Samuel and Lynde Tranter, their complete devotion to Bahá’u’lláh, and their great compassion for their fellow men.

It was the future Hand of the Cause John Robarts, who was so impressed by Sam’s unfailing courtesy and trustworthiness at his service station in downtown Toronto, that he persuaded Sam to switch careers and to join his group of insurance consultants. Next, he urged Sam to study the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, and then he invited him to join the Bahá’í Community.

Sam and his wife Lynde soon became pillars of the Ontario home front, frequently to the point of exhaustion. When Sam “retired”, they decided to pioneer to the Pacific and live among islanders who seemed forgotten by the rest of the planet. Plagued by a severe lack of education and surrounded by poverty and decay, these people clung to a meager and often precarious existence on barren atolls that surrounded shallow lagoons.

Lynde settled in as a schoolteacher and Sam went to work with practical help, while both prayed for the region’s progress. We have all seen places where wrecked cars are simply dumped and left to rust. But here it was not at all unusual to discover dead persons who had been abandoned without funeral. Sam was regarded with high esteem, almost with awe, when he made it his business to gently collect the dead and give them a decent burial in the hard coral.

Amid such conditions, disease could be of epidemic proportions. Sam once caught a terrible virus while on a visit to a neighboring island. His life was saved when a priest who traveled on the same boat happened to carry with him the only medicine that could have helped.

After struggling and praying for five long years, Sam and Lynde began at last to notice promising change. They had firmly made up their minds to live out their lives in Kiribati to help her people until their energies were spent. Just one more year and they would be given permanent residency status. But God had willed otherwise. Their permit to stay that crucial extra year was denied and they eventually returned to Ontario’s Haliburton. There, in quiet moments, they would converse in Gilbertese as their prayers took them back to their beloved islands.

Samuel Tranter passed to the Abhá Kingdom on November 15, 1999 in Lindsay, Ontario, not far from where he was born 82 years earlier almost to the day. Sam and his cheerful, stalwart, and ever-loving companion Lynde, shall always be remembered for having belonged to that small band of truly great Canadians who had set out to conquer the world with the love of Bahá’u’lláh.
- Harry Liedtke, Central Okanagan G, January 6, 2000

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2 comments.

Len Limpus AUSTRALIA

Comment on June 18th, 2007.

Dear Jonathan,

I stayed with Sam and Lynde for 12 months in Bikenibeu, Tarawa during 1976. I arrived on Tarawa on 20 Decemer 1975 as a member of a four person travel teaching team. On our first few days we stayed with Sam and Lynde. On the way we had passed through the Solomon Islands and it was there I got the idea of staying overseas for a year helping out in a Bahai National Office, but I thought I would return to Australia at the conclusion of the 6 week travel teaching and then apply to go to the Solomons. Sam befriended me and persuaded me to do what I wanted to do in Kiribati as I was needed there and I was after all already there. Sam encouraged and emboldened me to stay and offered that I could stay with him and Lynde. So that is exactly what happened I did not return to Australia but remained in Kiribati for another year.

I am eternally grateful to Sam for this. It was my greatest life changing experience besides joining the Faith. Both Sam and Lynde were like parents to me, I still to this day some 31 years later recall our conversations, and good humour, but greatly treasured is the genuine love and the rich advice I was given as a young person. Some of their conversations play like tapes in my mind to this day and I play them over often. There is not a day when I do not remember Sam and Lynde with great affection, and am saddened by my physical separation from them.

At the end of the year 1976 I married a Kiribati girl, to whom I am still married we have 4 children and 2 grandchildren. We live in Brisbane, Australia, in the Bahai Community of Logan. We have founded an organisation called the Kiribati Australia Association which aims to foster good relations between Kiribati and Australia, as well as show case and preserve Kiribati culture. We have even entertained the President of Kiribati in our home twice. During 2004 I set up an economic and social development project which sent computers to schools in Kiribati, and then later and still current a project sending books to schools in Kiribati.

Sam and Lynde are people are in my Prayer Book who remain my special friends in Abha Kingdom that I pray for. Once after failing some very severe tests I just lost the capacity to be active in Bahai for a long time and what suddenly snapped me out of it was a dream about Sam. In my dream I was in Kiribati and speaking with Lynde (this was after Sam had passed away and while she was still living) and then I saw Sam boarding a huge ship, I was so excited to see him I called out to him “Sam! Sam!” and Sam dutifully turned around come to me but as soon as he did it caused him excruciating pain and I felt guilty for having called him.

Later I realised that Sam was demonstrating love and how pain is worth it when there is love, and I was instantly cured of my estrangement and lethargy. Four months later by strange and unforeseen events my wife, Wanita, and I found ourselves entertaining the President of Kiribati in our home, then came the economic and social development project, and all that has continued to now.

I continue to serve Kiribati in memory of Sam, if not for him I would not have stayed in Kiribati. My earnest wish is that the full credit of all I do will be directed to Sam, because he really did and does have a major part in what I am doing, and in helping me become the Bahai God wants me to be.

A book should really be written about Sam and Lynde, and I am more than happy to make a contribution base I what I know and saw

Neda Najibi UNITED STATES

Comment on September 30th, 2007.

Dear Jonathan!
Wow, what an amazing family. The amazing courageous behavior of Samuel Tranter (may he rest in peace) to bury the dead was well, it touched me and caused this acknowledgement.

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