Saturday, July 23, 2011

Suva side!

The ladies at Vatuwaqa Squatter Settlement

Our team at YWAM Vunayasi

Our Farewell Dinner with the YWAM Vunayasi Staff


Samabula, Suva, Fiji...


So many memories from the Island Hopping DTS I led here back in 2005! Yet so much has changed in Fiji since I was last here. Suva now has two shopping malls with escalators and Gloria Jeans Coffee. :) But, there has also been a Coup, which affects the economy here. Things are more expensive, but wages have not increased, so poverty seems to be more prevalent. A good example of this is in the Squatter Settlement we visited last week in Vatuwaqa, Suva. These people have no land of their own, could be moved at any time, and have to pay extra to syphon electricity from other places (and usually can only afford to use the electricity for a few hours in the evening.) Their homes are made out of scraps of wood, corrugated tin, tires, and other materials and are built up on Mangrove Swamps, so they have to be home before high tide, or else they will get stranded.


We spent the day visiting homes and getting to know the people in the settlement, listening to their stories and praying for them. Though often communication was difficult (majority of them are Hindi-speaking Indians), they welcomed us into their homes and served us cold drinks. The Methodist Church we are working with has a church among these people and the members of the church (who also live in the settlement) made us lunch and dinner... truly a feast by any standard! We heard of how one person pitched in to buy cooking oil, another pitched in with chicken, another with flour... and we were humbled that these people who have so little sacrificed so much for a group of foreigners they had never met. I think the whole thing of hospitality that the Bible talks about is truly lived out here in the islands. One of our SBS students, Simon, taught the book of Jonah in the church service, and our whole team joined in with Bajan, worshiping Jesus in Hindi with instruments and rhythms many of us had never before heard. The whole day was beautiful. The food, the worship, the sweet juice at every house we visited, and most of all, the people and their hearts... absolutely beautiful.


In other news, Catherine, our Indo-Fijian student was blessed with tickets to and from Samoa and enough donations to cover all of her ground fees, so she will now be able to complete the entire outreach! Since, we’re leaving on Friday, this has been weighing heavily on Catherine and all of the team, so we are so excited that she will be coming with us and there is no more stress about whether the money will come in or not! The Methodist church we are working with in Suva is her home church, and she has been so blessed in our time with them, as have all of us. We have been teaching in Bible Studies, Youth Group, Inductive Bible Study (IBS) Seminars, and in Church Services, and for the next two days we will be teaching in the Intermediate and High School’s RE classes (Religious Education) as well as doing one more final IBS Seminar on the Book of Titus.


Please continue to pray for our team - we have been going for three weeks now, and still have four weeks to go in Samoa! We are so blessed that there are so many opportunities to teach, which is what we have been praying for, but please pray that God continues to give us grace and strength for the remainder of the outreach and for all the teaching we will be doing these last few days in Fiji and for the month in Samoa! And pray that our teaching is effective in giving our audiences a desire to go deeper in the Word of God for themselves... we might only be here for a short time, but our prayer is that we are leaving something with them - tools to study the Bible on their own!


Vinaka vaka levu (Thank you very much) for your prayers and support and for taking the time to read this update! We are seeing the Word of God transform lives in Fiji, not because of us, but because God has chosen to use us all to play a part... so please don’t think of this as “Jill’s update” or the “outreach team’s update”... if you are praying for this outreach, if you have given towards this outreach, or if you have even just sent an encouraging email to me or my team... you are part of this outreach with us! So thank you for playing your part so well. I’m humbled to get to do my part and serve alongside people like you.


Much love,

Jillian


Thursday, July 14, 2011

Jisu Lomani Iko...



Bula Vinaka my friends,

Fiji is wonderful, a mix of many emotions, but wonderful! My last time here was in 2005 when I had some challenges within the outreach team I was leading, and I also contracted a bad case of Cika - the Fijian word for Conjunctivitis. Since then the Lord has indeed healed my eyes, my heart and given me a love for the Fijian people and this land. The photos I put up (because I don't have any others uploaded yet) are from one of our first days where we played volleyball with the staff in a completely underwater court, thanks to the rains that came and went before our team did. It was the most fun I've ever had playing volleyball for SURE.

Our team is staying at YWAM Vunayasi - the first YWAM property in Fiji which is about 15 minutes drive from Nadi town in the middle of some Sugar Cane fields... the staff here have such big hearts and have been such a blessing to get to know. The boys in the team are staying in a dorm room with the staff boys and there has been a real bonding among them... going fishing together, planting cassava together, walking to town, playing cards together... and that is just in the free time! The girls in the team are also connecting in with the girls on staff, though they are a bit more shy at first. This morning our team woke up at 4:30 to cook breakfast for the base (over a fire outside, I might add) and I think this really blessed the girls who wake up early every day to bake buns over the fire. My friend, Tiki, showed up one day on the base - a complete surprise to me as she has been serving in Guinea Bassau for the past year... we were able to walk to town for a coffee and it was such a sweet surprise to see her and catch up with her!

Its been a while since I've been in the South Pacific and I am reminded of my love for this relational culture. Our lives have truly been enriched here in Vunayasi. In addition to this mutual ministry here on the YWAM base, we have been given opportunities to teach in Bible Studies, teach Bible Overview for a Women's group at a nearby church, lead worship for the base, and serve with the Kid's Club here on the base every Thursday - where kids from the surrounding homes, both Fijian and Indian, come to hear Bible stories and play games.

On Tuesday we head to Suva to teach in Catherine's church (she's one of our students on the team, an Indian Fijian.) We are excited to serve and bless her church, and also for them to be able to see what she has been learning in SBS. I am also excited to head to Suva because I have friends from my past years in YWAM around Australia and the Pacific that I will be seeing there!

Hope this is an okay update for now... I will try to think more before writing next time... internet time is short! :)

Much loloma from Fiji,
Jillian