A pledge of millions of dollars in aid from the United States has raised false hope in one of the world's most enduring cargo cults, causing a headache for authorities.
For 60 years, the Jon Frum movement in Vanuatu has believed that the great wealth or 'cargo' that the US military brought to their island home during the second world war will one day miraculously return.
Villagers worship a Christ-like figure, Jon Frum, as in John 'from' America, believed to be a complex mix of an ancient spirit and one of the US soldiers who were based on their island during the war.
Carrying wooden rifles and with the letters USA daubed in red paint on their bare chests, they parade in homemade GI uniforms beneath a tattered Stars and Stripes in the hope of somehow persuading the US to shower them with money and gifts.
As part of its Millennium Challenge fund, Washington is giving Vanuatu US$65 million in development, prompting cult followers to believe that their decades of prayer have finally been answered by President George W. Bush. The fund, announced by the president in 2002, aids developing countries that adopt political and economic reforms.
But local politicians have the delicate task of explaining to the cult, based in a village at the foot of an active volcano on the island of Tanna, that the money will be spent on infrastructure projects throughout Vanuatu's 80 islands rather than paid directly to them.