Charles Dickens in his most famous novel ‘Tale of Two Cities’, opened up his story line with this most historically popular and famous statements – “It was the best of times and it was the worst of time”, writes Bishop Tutai Pere.

On one side of the coin we can rightly say that our time right now and today is the worst of all times. Our world is moving into its third year under a most frightening and devastating effect of Covid-19 pandemic, with as of this month over 5.9 million already dead.

Never in the history of mankind have we seen our Global Airspace just so suddenly came to a halt. All airlines grounded, travellers ceased to travel, huge tourist cruise liners turned into breeding grounds for Covid, global socio-economic and political systems were kinda-like held at ransom and hostage by unexplainable adverse effect of Covid-19 pandemic.

It appears to me like a prophetic message and writing is already on the wall, like as in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar of the Great City of Babylon around 6^th Century BC. With the words which read, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN – YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED, which the prophet Daniel interpreted in Aramaic or Hebrew to mean – MENE = God hath numbered your kingdom and finished it, TEKEL = Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES = plural of UPHARSIN – a prediction that the kingdom shall be divided and given to the Persians.

We may ask the question, are we in the ‘worst of times’ where our world is being numbered and coming to its end, are we being morally weighed and evaluated by God and found lacking so much in Him? With all so much, lockdowns, quarantines and isolations here and there, is that our new life’s norm? Flip our coin over, can there be any hope for ‘the best of times’ for us at this juncture?

But watching our three successful candidates and applicants come forward to sign their licences to allow them to carry out Exploration and Research Expeditions on our Nodule Mineral Deposit on our seabed creates an historic milestone achievement for our country and people of the Cook Islands.

We have reached the stage of adoption as sons and daughters of God, we become heirs and joint-heirs with right of inheritance, ownership and custodianship of our very own mineral prosperity.

We become masters of our own destiny. We cease to keep running to beg and borrow from foreign lenders. Carefully and wisely managed and administered with ultimate fear of God on our backs – we fulfil what God has promised all His adopted children (God don’t have grandchildren), all heirs and joint-heirs unto Him as in Deuteronomy 28: 12, “The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure … will bless all the work of our hands … and we shall lend unto many nations, and you shall not borrow. 13, He shall make us the head and not the tail; shall make us above only and not beneath…but only if we hearken unto his commandments and observe them”.

Our successful companies for Exploration and Research Expeditions only, 1. Mrs Shona Lynch, representing CIC Limited; 2. Mr Michael Henry representing CIIC Limited; 3. Mr Des Eggelton representing Moana Minerals Limited, who together with their overseas partners throughout the many months of vigilant and diligent assessment and evaluation screening process have already shown and positively proven, not as novices nor amateurs in the business but have had decades of practical exercises and experience with total confidence in what they are capable of doing.

Equipped with state of art, sophisticated exploratory equipment, latest technological capabilities, as such that can minimise or eliminate as much as possible the much-feared damages and harm to our Marae Moana marine biodiversity and deep sea environment. Yes! I still dare say that we the Cook Islands is at ‘the best of times’ to begin exploring and researching in not what might be but will most certainly and eventually become ‘precious treasure’ deposited down there, in our very own Seabed Minerals Bank for us to work our faith out in order to obtain in due time.

1. Though this may seem or appear to be ‘The Worst of Times’ – in this Covid-19 pandemic global climate, with climate change, environmental impact and socio-economic, travel and political challenges verses our Seabed Minerals Exploration Expeditions – I positively still say, ours is ‘The Best of Times’.
2. The potential wealth that lies at the depth of our ocean – in our very own EEZ Marae Moana far outweighs all major and much feared risk factors and all doomsday prophetic messages against Seabed Minerals Exploration or harvesting – We shall pursue and march on forward to prove the rest of the world wrong in all whatever adverse and negative presuppositions are made.
3. Many who have turned into mighty rich, affluent and wealthy superpower countries of the world today have all had their turns of mining, harvesting, and extracting all kinds of God-given natural resources – many sadly and very unfortunately out of much greed, abuse and exploitations of wealth have turned into hungry money-mongering-tycoons – but leaving behind and in the wake of it and in their very own backyards trails of millions upon millions of the world’s population living under the poverty line, dying of malnutrition, disease, homelessness, unaccountable innocent human lives lost in wars, abortion, crimes of abuse and violence and the rest.
4. Somebody, someone, some people, some country somewhere must rise up to show and cause a difference and change for a better, brighter and fair distribution of this wealth to all. We shall rise up to do so not just for our little tiny nation of the Cook Islands, but the whole of our Pacific island nations and the whole world at large. The God and faith of our forebears, passed on to us the new generation of today and those who shall follow after us shall pursue with vigour, confidence and trust in each other for this our very own promised blessings and with God on our side we shall overcome.
5. Finally, the prophet Elisha’s servant despaired when he woke one morning and saw himself and his master Elisha surrounded by hosts of an enemy’s army. “Oh no, my Lord, what shall we do?”, he exclaimed. The prophet Elisha calmly responded, “Don’t be afraid…those who are with us are more than those who are with them”. Elisha then prayed, “Lord, open my servant’s eyes so that he may SEE”. “The Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked, and behold, the hills were full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15 – 17). Although things at first seemed bleak to the servant’s eyes, God’s power ultimately proved greater than the enemy horde. This our Seabed Mineral Exploration Research Programme that we have just signed, authorised and soon to be activated may seem a difficult task, an impossibility and may lead us to believe that it may end nowhere, God desires to open our eyes and reveal to us that He is Greater – with Him alone, nothing is ever impossible.
6. As chairman of our Seabed Mineral Advisory Board, I would like to invite all our very learned, educated, specialists and experts in whatever fields you are specialised in – to please, come on board, let us work together for a better, brighter and prosperous future for our children, their children and all generations who shall come after us. This is uniquely yours, nowhere else in the whole wide world is this type of mineral deposit to be found with such immensity, density and of enormous value.

Let’s not be distracted nor be despised by the size of our country, population, wealth and whatever way we think we lack – let our Faith in our God and His Word be our rock of defence and offence.   

If God be for us, who can be against us – Romans 8: 31. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us – Philippians 4:13. We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us – Romans 8:37.

God bless our beautiful paradise Cook Islands.

Kia orana e kia manuia rava.

Bishop Tutai Pere, BA, Lth, is also the chairman of our Seabed Minerals Advisory Committee.