Kids Camps, Waidradra, Savusavu and Sabeto have been keeping us busy!

It is ironic that months ago when I was planning for the team that just left, I said that we needed to pray for dry weather in the afternoons so we could easily run a kids programme. However we are now hoping that Fiji will actually see a bit of the rainy season soon! Here in the western side of Fiji it is very dry and dusty, with water shortages a little concerning and the effects of El Nino hitting us hard. Parts of Nadi and Lautoka are already having water cuts, and reservoirs are low. We are told to restrict water use which means, amongst other things, we are not getting to use our pool as much as usual.

Our latest family photo in Savusavu.

Kids Camp

Our second Sabeto Kids Camp was a huge success, we had 73 campers, 9 Leaders in Training, 18 local leaders and a team of 16 from New Zealand supporting us to make it all happen. This year we even had a local Fijian woman who lives by faith working with OAC join us to help with the camp. We are grateful for the many others who supported us to make it all happen. We had children from many places coming as campers, including from local villages and settlements in Sabeto, churches, gymnastics and kids of long-time friends.

We were blessed to run our second week long camp at Sabeto Christian Camp.

We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of Morrinsville Baptist and Rutland Street Church in Christchurch who helped make this camp possible with their sponsorship. It is an incredible experience for local kids who wouldn’t usually get the opportunity to stay away from family for a week, building new, positive friendships and community while hearing the gospel and having so much fun. It was special to reconnect with campers from previous years and deepen the relationships with local communities, and even have our kids gymnastics club join us two mornings. It was such a blessing to see the kids interacting, laughing and learning from each other in a safe environment.

Kelepi with Salochna's grandson Daniel, both getting carried by Jake.

Jake's mum used to lead with Rachael at El Rancho camps when they were teenagers!

This year we had to make lots of trips to the local private hospital with kids who arrived unwell with illnesses or infected wounds. It was such a blessing to be able to help these kids get well through easy access to medical help with the generous funding. This camp is a huge blessing to everyone and a highlight of the year for our family.

It was great to have kids from different aspects of our lives experience the kids camp together.

You can read more about our camp here or look it up on facebook or instagram here:

https://anglicanmovement.nz/blog/fiji-camp-builds-friendships-faith-and-partnership

https://www.instagram.com/sabetokidscamp?rpxt=MXB4aHJuc3Q0NWw0OQ==

https://www.facebook.com/share/1br3wpnTG3/

Waidradra

We have partnered with Anglican Missions in Waidradra on a second project through an international WASH grant to bring adequate Water, Sanitation and Hygiene to communities in Fiji (the first was in Sigatoka). The Anglican Church of Polynesia has most of their churches placed in Melanesian informal settlements and have a lot of people living in substandard living conditions. These informal settlements are different to native iTaukei Fijian ‘villages’ that benefit from being government recognised entities.

Two toilets, two showers and a laundry area per building, a huge blessing for this community.

By partnering with Anglican Missions we have dodged the biggest hurdle, accessing materials funds to build infrastructure they so desperately need. The projects are much bigger than one short team visit and are a bit of an ongoing effort. However taking the necessary time and avoiding shortcuts to complete robust construction is in the best interests of those we serve. Roy spent a week in August on the project and returned for three more weeks in September, with people coming and going to assist. This included an awesome returning block layer from Rangiora, an engineer from Morrinsville and a team of 18 people from Rutland Street Church.

They are building two bathroom and shower blocks with septic tanks, plus four water tank installations and more. The bulk of the work is done, with around one week of work left scheduled for late November. There are spaces available for anyone that wants to come and join in! Let us know ASAP!

There are always plenty of keen helpers in Waidradra!

There was never a shortage of local volunteers with even the kids getting involved. This was a great team effort of everyone coming together using the skills that they had to give a community something they so desperately needed. These facilities will help with meeting basic hygiene needs and improved water access, ultimately reducing sickness and disease.

A lot of day trips, planning and organisation go into making these projects happen, like buying materials and getting them to the site or keeping the locals progressing when we don’t have teams in, but it is all worth it seeing the joy of the locals receiving the work and seeing the way they bless us in through their hospitality, the love they show, and giving out teams an amazing send off.

Paeroa Christian School

While Roy and Josh were in Waidradra with Rutland Street Church, Rachael hosted a bit of a different team for us. Paeroa Christian School joined us for a week with a group of year 7 and 8 students and two year 11’s (who had missed out on the trip when they were at the school due to COVID), as well as two teachers and two parents. They did more of a mission awareness trip, giving the kids a great introduction to life in a developing country and what cross-cultural missions can look like.

They stayed at Oasis Farm and helped out with farm work, as well as running a kids programme in different communities each day. Gabby and Caleb loved having a team with lots of kids close in age to them and became part of the class. They visited the communities, performed in the programmes, helped on the farm with Gabby, in particular,fully involved. However the farewells were hard and she has talked about all her friends she now has in the Waikato.

Savusavu

Earlier in October we were invited by our long-time Fijian friends and family in Savusavu to their family reunion. It was great to connect with good friends and their families. It is special to have a family we have such a long term connection with and second generation friendships. It is quite a journey getting there with a 2.5 hour drive, then 3 hours on the ferry before another 2.5 hours of driving again, but well worth it when we get there and can be a part of the community.

All dressed up in kalavata for the family reunion in Savusavu. Our kids with the daughters of our friend Precious, who we first met as a child on our first trip to Fiji!

Aunty Salochna's House

We are in the middle of a busy season of progress at Aunty Salochna’s house with four weeks of back-to-back volunteers coming through late October and early November. It is so encouraging and exciting seeing some progress on this after a bit of a lull in activity due to a lack of funds and Roy working on other projects. We had an amazing team from Curate College in Tauranga with us last week achieving so much to progress the projects. Window frames have finished being installed and louvres are starting to go in, all the internal concrete walls have been completely finished and there is a working toilet onsite (finally)! All our kids loved being involved, with Kelepi literally hanging out to do a job in the rafters to then enjoy helping fill the last of the concrete blocks!

The amazing team from Curate College.

On four afternoons the team led a programme at Nalesutale - a local settlement. It was such a highlight for the team to interact with local kids and a real blessing for the kids to have a great programme to look forward to each day (even if the freshly showered team after a day on the building site were quickly covered in dust from playing games with the kids!).

We are loving the opportunity to continue to connect with the local community with recurring relationships as these kids also came to our kids camp. It is always a highlight when we are at the building site and a bunch of kids on the school bus going past are yelling out and waving at “Aunty Rachael.”

Kids programme at Nalesutale.

Kids Update

We now have three kids schooling at home again! Kelepi finished up at Fiji Agape Mission School at the end of last term and has started with Te Kura. He is loving the new pace of life with online meetings, learning online and teachers at the end of his email! Within about 24 hours of meeting his teacher, she was already amazed by his work ethic and creativity. It is great not having to work life around a school drop off and pick up.

Here is the first volunteer for any jobs in the roof

Josh continues to love working with teams on the building site, playing the guitar, writing new songs and learning new computer programmes to help do this, while ticking away at NCEA Level 1 in what feels like his spare time. Alongside Gabrielle, he attends gymnastics and both boys also regularly play football.

Sometimes the bonus of helping out with the visiting teams is you get to join in on the tourist day trips - this time it was the Navua River Tubing Safari

Gabrielle is thriving with Te Kura this year and enjoying the school work she does, she also coaches gymnastics one afternoon a week and is adored by many of the younger kids. She has recently got her exam results and she has now passed all her CAA co-requisite exams for NCEA. Not bad considering she could’ve been year 8 this year! She is also enjoying the building site and thinks it is worth getting up early to help out with a team. We are proud of how hard our kids are keen to work on the building site in the heat and thankful for the opportunity they get to do this.

It is always special when Gabby and Tima can reconnect in Savusavu. They were 3 years old the first time they met.

Future Plans

Roy and I have been discerning that a new season is coming for my ministry role after 4.5 years working with MMM Fiji and another two years previous to that travelling around New Zealand with MMM NZ, supporting them as I could while homeschooling the kids. Therefore, I have decided to step down from my role as MMM Fiji Project Coordinator which will give me some space to seek God’s guidance about some new possible ministries in the future. We would appreciate prayer as we trust God to open and close the right doors, but also give me some much needed rest after such a busy season. For now I will continue doing life day to day, supporting those who we come in contact with however I can.

As the year is fast racing by, we look forward to a summer break in New Zealand and arrive in Wellington just before Christmas to see family and friends. We don’t have a heap of plans for summer at this stage apart from New Wine Festival on Wellington Anniversary Weekend, some time in the Waikato and some good rest. There are a couple of times where we are available to house sit in either Kapiti or the Waikato, so get in touch if you need awesome house sitters from mid Dec to January and we can see how it fits with our plans.

Thank you so much to all who journey with us and support us to do what we do. We really do appreciate you and the opportunities you give us to serve those in Fiji who really need it.