Joining us on our outreach were the National Office Leader of YWAM Fiji and his family. Not long after the news of the Vanuatu cyclone damage he received a phonecall requesting assistance from RescueNet’s National Coordinator, Mark Cockburn. RescueNet is yet another branch of YWAM, existing solely to provide disaster relief in situations such as this. They had decided to lend their efforts towards helping the people of Vanuatu in the immediate aftermath of the category 5 cyclone.

Initially Mark had requested only a place to stay overnight and some assistance acquiring medicines to take to Vanuatu, but when he heard that we had medical personnel available he asked if any would be prepared to join them as they were rather short on doctors for this trip. We met for breakfast the next morning and were briefed on the details. For those not already aware, disaster relief is an area Dani has been interested in for some time, so no prizes for guessing how long it took for her to decide! I was also keen to help wherever possible and another emergency doctor on our outreach, Fen Moy, jumped on board also. Before we knew it we had less than 24 hours to return to Lautoka, pack our bags and medicines, book our tickets and get to the airport… Continue reading A Series of Unexpected Events →

A big thank you to everyone who has supported us this last month, we’ve so very much appreciated all your encouraging thoughts and prayers! It has truly been a bit of a whirlwind 🙂

Barely having surfaced from the daze of jet lag we found ourselves on our second international team outreach. During the briefing we had Mike, an Australian mental health nurse working in Fiji come to talk to us. The statistics for depression and suicide are pretty shocking, with Fiji having the 3^rd highest rate of suicide in the world. It is an immense task to change attitudes and provide care when people still see these illnesses as being the result of evil spirits. Continue reading Blown Away! →