Hello lovely people,

Good news! Despite a few minor roadblocks we received our work permits and health council registrations (i.e. we can now legally work in Fiji). There wasn’t much for us to tell last week as we were mainly occupied sifting through a TON of medical and dental equipment- it had been randomly packed away and was crying out to be sorted, cleaned and inventoried. Here is a peak at just some of the dental supplies, lying on the lounge floor of the Marine Reach base:

This kept us busy for the last couple of weeks, but we were uplifted by a visit to a local Fijian church on Sunday. Click on the video to sample a flavour of the energy of the church kids!

In contrast to our recent Fijian village experience, we had the privilege of staying with an Indo-Fijian family this weekend. A large proportion of the Fijian population is originally from India, having been brought here to work the sugar plantations by British colonialists. The Indo-Fijians have preserved their own culture and customs, and are mainly of Hindu and Muslim faiths. Vijay and his family (wife Sashi and daughters Ruth and Hannah) own a farm in the hills and unlike the close-knit Fijian village life, families are more independent and industrious. Vijay works hard and sells their produce mostly in the town market. They host a small home church every Sunday morning and take every opportunity to demonstrate God’s love to their neighbours. Here are a couple of pictures:

The family were gracious hosts. Vijay showed us how to till the land with his bulls, while Sashi treated us to a variety of curries- pumpkin, goat, fish and jackfruit. Yum! Meanwhile their two adorable girls made sure we didn’t get too much rest.

Starting from tomorrow team members will begin to arrive from all over the world for a fortnightly outreach to two remote villages, where we will provide medical and dental care, health education and spiritual counselling. Ben and Kaba are in charge of cooking all our meals and helping us honour village customs. We’ll see you after our adventure in about 3 weeks!