It was outreach time again in Marine Reach Fiji last week (yippee!). We took a large team which included our staff, DTS students, overseas volunteers, a local pastor and his wife, YWAM Suva workers and 6 kids. We flooded the small village of Nausori Highlands with our clinic and ministry teams, and by the end of the week I would doubt there was a single person in the village hadn’t connected with our team in one way or another.
Over the past year we’ve been trying to develop our outreaches to become more ‘holistic’. Recognising the limited impact a short term medical mission can have on the long term health of a community, we have been shifting our emphasis from pulling teeth and giving out tablets to focusing more strongly on health education, mental wellbeing and spiritual health. At every turn we are seeking to love, motivate and challenge people, as well as meeting their current healthcare needs.
Fiji looks a bit different since Tropical Cyclone Winston paid us a visit. It is the worst storm to hit the southern hemisphere since records began, and still more and more stories of destruction and loss are coming out of its wake.
The government set a curfew at 6pm on February the 20th. We had already secured everything that could fly away, and so we sat down inside with the two DTS speakers who were staying with us. Not long after that the power was cut and the storm began to rage around us. The sound of the 230km/h (145mph) wind was deafening as it banged against the window panes and tore big branches off trees. Nevertheless we crept into our beds knowing that our cement house would be strong enough to withstand the forces.
The first two weeks of our Marine Reach Fiji Healthcare DTS 2016 have flown by. We have a multigenerational, multicultural group of 14 students living in the Yellow house. As staff our role is to facilitate their learning by encouraging and mentoring them. This means that we lead the students in intercession and worship, attend the hospital with them for patient visitation, teach the healthcare workshops, mentor on a weekly basis both ‘one-on-one’ and in small groups, and spend a lot of time in prayer for them! Here is a copy of the student weekly schedule (as staff we also have daily meetings and office responsibilities on top of this!) Continue reading Promising beginnings→
We’re relieved to finally have our feet on Fijian soil after a long and not-so-hassle-free journey! We arrived to a warm morning sun, big smiles and even some artistic gifts from the kids.
Our time in the UK was fantastically encouraging to us. We were amazed at the generosity and kindness we encountered, blessed by the many talks we had with old and new friends. Distance is always a test of a relationship, yet on many occasions there was a sense of ease and unexpected depth as we shared some of our heart for missions and caught up with what we’d missed. More and more I’m learning how to feel enriched not by what I own or what I’ve achieved, but by the people who have chosen to share a part of their lives with me. One example of a special night was the dessert evening organised by our dear friends Matt and Antasha Coomber where we had the opportunity to show some pictures and tell some tales of God’s work in the Pacific.
First of all we would like to say Vinaka Vaka Levu (big thank you) for all the encouragement we’ve received after our last update. We so much appreciate your comments and prayers – the sense that we are connected to a wider network of people outside of this little island nation.
Last month we had the pleasure of being part of a superb international team outreach. I don’t know if it was the fruit of our invested energy over the past year, the increased practical and spiritual preparations or the wonderful team of overseas volunteers, but we were all in agreement about the good work and fulfilment this outreach achieved.
In early 2014 we decided that the time was right for us to put aside our paid jobs to give towards God’s work abroad. We felt a distinct calling here to Marine Reach Fiji and since arriving that belief has been fortified several times over:
– We have been welcomed into a family that has a heart for reaching out to the poorer and more remote Fijian communities
– Our skills and experience have been put to good use and complement those of the staff here
– And just as importantly, we have been taught and shown how to grow in our faith
Our plans to stay here for a year have been extended as we feel God still has roles for us to fulfil. We are currently helping to run the latest international outreach, there will be another Discipleship Training School to staff next year and there are several areas within the organisation where improvements and modernisation would be desirable. Therefore it is our intention to return here once again in 2016 to continue our work.
The Discipleship Training School was an answer to an unspoken prayer. Dani and I had talked before about wanting to take time out from our ‘regular’ lives to concentrate on learning more about God, biblically and practically. So when the Marine Reach Fiji staff announced that they intended to run a school in 2015 (and subtly suggested we could be students) it wasn’t for some time that I realised God was giving us what we had been hoping for in our hearts – an opportunity to focus on Him without distraction in order to know Him better and understand His plan for our lives.
And so we embarked on four and a half months of teaching and practice that is geared to educate, probe, release and challenge us. As we’ve written about previously it was a bit of manic start, straight off the back of an outreach and the disaster relief trip to Vanuatu. We were plunged into an environment where we were constantly surrounded by 10 adults and 7 children, with another 15 regulars dropping in on a daily basis. As a newly married couple from the UK we’re just not used to that level of activity! So there was a period of adjustment, but gradually we came to value the people around us rather than see them as an infringement on our personal space. Before long there was a strong feeling of unity amongst the students, staff and their families as we sought to engage with the teaching.
Since finishing our DTS we’ve slowly eased our way back into life as staff on the Marine Reach Fiji base. We also spent a week in Vanuatu in order to renew our visas. Port Vila looked very different without the presence of the military and all the UN agencies! It was so encouraging to see the markets brimming with fruit and veg and buildings restored. Even the landscape from above looks green and healthy again. All in all it was lovely to have a week of doing very little after the intensity of the last 6 months.
Once the necessary repairs were completed the ship sailed on to Lautoka, its original intended destination in Fiji. The cancellation of the Samoa trip left us with another week unscheduled, so we quickly re-grouped and prayed for guidance on how to spend this time. We felt that we should be involved where the majority of Fijians live – in the rural villages – and we already knew that Marine Reach Fiji were planning to do their next medical outreach in the North-East area of the island. This is often overlooked and has poor health service provision as people often have to travel all of the way back to Lautoka for anything more than basic care.
As we were hanging around waiting for our lift to appear we got a phone call: the ship had run into mechanical problems and was heading to Suva to be fixed. Particularly disappointed was Ella, who was from Suva and was hoping that DTS outreach would take her further away from her home town!
We loaded the truck and took the 5 hour journey to Fiji’s capital. In the port lay the Pacific Hope, a white, 50m long ship with the YWAM logo emblazed on her side.
