Tuvalu is being swallowed by the ocean. Its people face a difficult choice

In a suburban cream-brick church in Melbourne’s outer west, 5000 kilometres from a homeland facing extinction, the mellifluous voices of a congregation of Tuvaluans rise in song.

The service is mostly in Tuvaluan, a Polynesian language spoken by only 13,000 people worldwide.

This Sunday afternoon service at Melton Baptist Church is a thread that connects the Tuvaluan diaspora in Melbourne to their homeland, a tiny country in the South Pacific Ocean that many see as the canary in the climate change mine.

“Rising seas threaten to drown this island nation – a sign of what’s in store for us all,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres tweeted in 2019.

The existential threat to Tuvalu is profound.