In any country's history, there are special times that lay foundations or mark directions for the future. For Vanuatu, the period from 1970 to the end of the century was one such period, when the people of Vanuatu freed themselves from the colonial strangle-hold of the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides and established the independent Republic of Vanuatu. One of the men who took a leading role in that struggle was Sethy John Regenvanu, a man Malakula from the small island of Uripiv, who was born in the 1940s, grew up under Condominium rule, studied to be a pastor in the Presbyterian Church and worked in that role during the difficult 1970s as the country made the agonizing transition to independence. He represented the Hew Hebrides Christian Council (later Vanuatu Christian Council) in the Constitutional Conference, was elected to Parliament from Malakula in the key 1979 election and held several ministerial portfolios in various governments over the following 25 years.