Friday, July 8, 2011
I last updated the night before we left for the Student Conference, so that is where I will pick up!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Hello again!
Today is my team's last full day in Suva. Tomorrow we will be heading to the Student Life Student Conference until Tuesday, when we will head to Mana Island for debriefing, then Saturday we will head to Nadi and fly out Sunday morning. This will probably be my last update from Fiji, I'll fill you all in on the rest of the trip once I am back in the states.
This was a really cool week of ministry, which was awesome because we were all pushing hard to finish strong. Monday we went to FNU to initiate conversations with students there. It was the beginning of a new trimester for certain majors, so there were a of students we hadn't talked to yet. Josh, Sean, and I shared with a group of 5 people about what it means to have a relationship with God. All 5 of them had grown up going to church with their parents, but 4 of them said that they had never actually made a decision to trust Jesus...so the 4 of them decided to trust Christ with us right then!
Tuesday we had an informational meeting for Student Life at the FNU campus. We had invited people the day before and the day of and there was a decent turn out. A few of the students taht we had shared with on Monday showed up, including Ben who placed his faith in Christ with the group of 4. Josh and I hung out with him after the meeting and took him to get some lunch. He even decided that he wanted to go to the student conference this weekend and signed up on the spot. Josh and I were also able to meet up with him again on Thursday to go through a follow-up bible study. We learned all about what is true of us once we place our faith in Christ. We are children of God, our sins are forgiven, God will never leave us, we have eternal life, etc. It was really cool to see Ben learn so much about his new relationship with God in such a short time.
Last night the hotel staff at the Suva Motor Inn threw us a little good-bye party which included coffee, tea, juice, cookies, etc and a song that they all sang to us. It was pretty cool that they would put so much into saying good-bye to us, but I guess that having us around all summer made a lot of them grow quite fond of us. After that we had a talent show which was a fun, quirky way to finish off the week. We had songs sung, poems read, raps, and even some magic tricks. It was a lot of fun.
Today is our last day, so we have a free day to take care of whatever we need to before we leave Suva. For me that includes coming to the internet cafe to update this blog, doing some last minute souvenir shopping, and packing everything up into my suitcase. Tonight we have a banquet dinner where we will all share highlights from the trip, hear all of the numbers for how many conversations were initiated, how many times the gospel was presented, how many people placed their faith in Christ, etc during our time in Fiji. It will be really cool to look back at all the work God has done through our team over the past 5 weeks in Suva.
Like I said I probably won't be updating till I'm back in the states. Please pray for the Student Conference over the next few days. Many of the students who are serious about growing in their faith will be there and it could be very crucial for their walks with the Lord.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Hard to believe that 2 weeks from today we will begin our journey back to the United States!
Well, here is what has been going on since I last updated:
Last Sunday we had our first official Men's/Women's times on project. The men started off with a little bit of touch rugby, which the STINTers graciously taught us. It took us a while to get the hang of it, because you can only pass the ball backwards, which goes against our instincts in every other sport (football, soccer, basketball, etc). Eventually we figured it out and were able to have a pretty fun game. We're going to play again today and I'm really excited to keep getting better! After rugby we then cleaned ourselves up and then met up again to listen to Joe talk about biblical manhood. We went through Genesis and looked at how God created men and what our roles look like. The basic summary that I took from the time was that men are to reject passivity, lead courageously, accept responsibility, and look towards the greater reward (eternal rewards). It was really cool and growing this past week to examine my actions and see how they lined up with these 4 points.
Monday was the Queen's Birthday, which is a national holiday in Fiji. We started off the day with Bill, our director, giving a talk on our Identity in Christ. A question that Bill asked that really challenged me was "From 0 to 100, how accepted do you feel by God?" And of course my "humble" answer was somewhere between 70 and 90...because I could always do better or improve they way I am living, right? Well the truth is that I am 100% accepted by God, all the time, because Jesus has already done the work to pay for my sins as well as done the work to make me completely righteous in the eyes of God! I should be able to answer the question with a loud and bold "100!" every time. The very fact that my instinct is to say something less than 100 indicates that I am believing that my acceptance is in some way linked to my works, and not completely in the work of Jesus. I've also seen that the temptation is to take advantage of this acceptance and do nothing but live for myself. However the way God works in our hearts with this acceptance is that we are moved to live for Him, and because of His acceptance, we have the freedom to fail miserably in our strides to live for Him, and he still accepts us 100%! This message could not have been more needed, because ministry on Monday was a "failure" by our standards. Since it was a national holiday, all but one of the campuses that we went to were completely closed, and the one that was open had very few students present. The day pretty much seemed like a waste of time and resources. What made it worse is that we all felt embarrassed that we had geared up for the day and made plans to go sharing on campus or whatever, and then had to go home without doing much of anything. Thankfully Bill's talk on our Identity in Christ was still fresh in our minds so we could reflect on how even though our efforts failed, the day isn't a failure and our acceptance is still 100%. The freedom to fail was made so much clearer and beautiful to me.
Tuesday was a pretty cool day that God continued to teach me stuff through my own failed efforts. I made an appointment at one of the FNU campuses with a guy I had met the week before. I showed up and waited for an hour and a half before leaving to head to another meeting I had. While I was heading out Sean, one of my roomates who I share a cell phone with, told me that my guy had just texted me and was going to be there in 45 minutes. I still had to head out to my next meeting so Sean decided that he would meet up with the guy I was supposed to meet. He eventually did show up for Sean and they had a great conversation and went through one of the follow up bible studies. I am very thankful that God used that day to show me that even when my plans fail, His always succeed, even when we don't see how.
Wednesday was typical for the first part where we focused on our own relationships with God and met in our bible studies for more Philippians. But in the afternoon we had a bit of fun and divided up into 4 teams for a scavenger hunt! It wasn't a typical scavenger hunt, each team was presented with a list of tasks to photograph or video tape for different point values. Some examples are: Drive a taxi, fit all 7 team members in a taxi, form a massage chain with at least 10 Fijians, pick a coconut from a tree, find free wi-fi, play in the mcdonald's playplace, kiss the national director of crusade for Fiji, have the entire team go down the water slide of our hotel's pool, etc. It was a ton of fun and great way to spend our Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday we mixed things up a little and did a neighborhood outreach with a local church. We all went door to door in a neighborhood and passed out copies of the Jesus Film on DVD and comment cards. We collected contact information of the people we gave the DVD to and on Monday people from the church are going to follow up with them and see what they thought of the movie. Hopefully this will lead to a lot of good conversations about who Jesus was and what it means to have a relationship with him.
Yesterday we had the privilege of going to see a provincial rugby match at the national stadium. This was my first live experience of an official rugby game. It was really cool to see how excited Fijians are for rugby and for there respective teams. The game was really exciting; there were a lot of scores and someone even had to be taken off the field on a stretcher! It made me even more excited to play with the guys today, even though we will just be playing touch rugby.
Look for an update from me this Friday. Saturday we will be heading to the Student Conference for all the students involved in Student Life in Suva. After that we will be heading to Mana Island for our debriefing so that we can share and process all that has been going on in our lives during the past 6 weeks, and then we will head to Nadi for 1 night before we begin flying back to the U.S.! I most likely will not be able to update after this Friday until I am back in the U.S. Please continue to pray for our project that we would push hard this last week on campuses and that the Student Conference would be a great way for those involved in Student Life to grow close to God.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Hello Again!
It’s hard to believe, but after this past week we hit the halfway point for our time here in Fiji. It feels like we just got to Fiji, although as I try to remember everything I’ve done since I’ve been here, countless events keep popping into my head!
This past week I split my time between FNU and USP. The first two days of the week I went to FNU. The campus we are at is mostly guys, so when we went sharing we were usually in groups of 2, 1 guy and 1 girl. The first day was really exciting because it was our first day at FNU, so we had good long conversations with just about everybody we met. Our primary goals were to share the Gospel with students we talked to, as well as talk to them about Student Life and gather the contact information of students who were interested in it. Their semester is about to end, so most of the organization will probably not be in place until the next semester starts.
I was fortunate to meet quite a few people interested in Student Life. The first day my friend Chelsey and I talked to a guy and a girl we saw sitting at a table. The guy’s name was Reuben and the girl’s was Gufi. Reuben was a Christian and Gufi came from a Muslim family. After talking with them for a while we found out that Gufi didn’t really practice her Islamic faith and was Muslim only because her family was. She also mentioned that she had a couple siblings who had converted to Christianity. Chelsey and I shared about Christianity with her: How God created us and loves us and has a plan for our lives and how we can experience that plan if we place our faith in Jesus to forgive us of our sins, which is what separates us from eternity with God. After talking with Gufi, she told us that she wanted to place her faith in Jesus and begin a relationship with God, so we prayed with her and she asked Christ into her life! Chelsey then exchanged contact information with her and is hopefully going to keep meeting with her while we are in Fiji, and then hopefully Gufi will continue to grow through involvement with Student Life.
The next day I was on campus initiating conversations with another friend, Bethany. While we were wrapping up a conversation with a couple people, a table of about 5 guys started trying to get our attention. We went over to talk to them and they asked us what we were talking to people about on campus (it was quite obvious that something was going on, because there were random white people dispersed all over the campus). This was quite an easy transition into a spiritual conversation; we talked to them about the Gospel, discipleship and Student Life. All of them told us that they were Christians, but were interested in seeking a way to grow in their faiths, as all of them had experienced backsliding. I got their contact information and am going to try to meet up with them a few times this week talk about our faiths and what it looks like to grow as Christians.
Overall it was an exciting week at FNU, and I am praying that the foundation we put in place last week will lead to a fruitful movement of believers at FNU, and that God will use Student Life to train students in evangelism and discipleship.
Most Fridays we go to campus to keep meeting with students, but this Friday the entire project took the day off and got to spend a few hours in the afternoon on an island about a 30 minute boat ride off of the main island. While we were there we got to enjoy a big lunch, snorkel, and just relax on the beach. It was a nice break from the daily grind of ministry on campus. It has been amazing to me how getting into spiritual conversation after spiritual conversation, I am extremely worn out! I continue to pray that I will be walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and faithfully serve on the days our team does go to campus.
Now I will change the pace of the blog and just tell you about some of the random differences I have noticed between the U.S. and Fiji since I’ve been here:
1. They drive on the left side of the road here. This was the same in Zambia and I am pretty used to it now. In fact, I was watching an American movie the other day it seemed weird to me that the driver sat on the left side and drove on the right side of the road.
2. Rugby is the biggest sport by far in Fiji. It is just as big here as Soccer was in Zambia. It is very common to see pickup games of touch rugby being played as you walk by different parks in the city. The biggest named athletes that are on advertisements around the city are all Fijian Rugby players. I think that I will be fortunate enough to see a match next weekend!
3. McDonald’s. The Big Mac Meal at #7 in Fiji, instead of #1. I finally gave in the other day and had dinner at McDonalds. There is one downtown and one right by USP. Interestingly, McDonald’s is considered a kind of fancy restaurant. You’re typical Fijian college student would feel very uncomfortable in McDonald’s. We were told not to take Fijians we meet on campus out to lunch at McDonald’s, because they would be very uncomfortable that we would spend that much money on them. Another random difference, their cones are made from sweet potatoes.
4. Fijians are all about hospitality, they put Americans to shame. If somebody invites people to lunch in Fiji, it is just understood that that person is responsible for paying. Also, if you say something to the extent of "I like that necklace" to a Fijian, there's a good chance they will take it off and give it to you...so that has led to a few awkward interactions on our team, thankfully I've never accidentally stolen anyone's clothing or jewelry. I can't think of any other concrete examples, but overall Fijians are very concerned with being hospitable towards others.
5. Time Difference. Right now it is 2pm in Fiji on Sunday afternoon, which is 10pm Saturday Evening in the U.S. Fiji is right next to the international dateline so we are way ahead of the U.S...in fact the Fiji times can boast that they are the first newspaper to publish in the world every single day!
I think that is all I have for now, please pray for energy for the last half of the project and that we would all continue to work under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit, as it will become more and more tempting to work under our own strength as we continue to do the same sorts of ministry each day.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Bula Again!
I've finished another week in Fiji and it's really hard to think back over what has happened since I last updated, but I'll try my best!
Sunday night was the first time that we met in our impact groups. In our impact groups we essentially break up into small co-ed groups and share our life stories with the other people in our group through something called a "Life Map". A Life Map is a drawing that represents a person's life and has 5 main parts of each persons story: Hand of God times, High times, Hard Times, Heroes, and Heritage. Half of each group shared last week and the rest will share tonight. It was a really cool way to get to know people on a deeper level and see where they were coming from before this project started.
Then we had two typical days of ministry at USP on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, Marcus and I met a guy named Tony, who we were able to meet up with a few times this week for lunch and some bible studies. He was a believer when we met him, and we talked to him about growing in his faith and learning what it means to multiply his faith and he was interested. Meeting with him this week was a real encouragement because just like in Zambia, it isn't uncommon for appointments to not show up or be really late so that we miss each other, but Tony has showed up when we planned to meet, and engaged in the topics we talk about. This week we talked about God's love and forgiveness and the difference between relationship with God and fellowship with God.
Like I said, we met up with Tony over lunch a few times...let me tell you what a typical lunch is like for many USP students. We walked across the street from campus to a small bakery. We ordered a "Mince Loaf" which is basically a loaf of bread cut in half and filled with potatoes, meat, and curry, and then we all split a liter of soda. The Fijian style of a meal is very sharing. We all tear away from the same loaf and all sip from the same bottle of soda. The best part of this meal is that it cost about $5 Fijian...which is about $3 American and can easily feed 3 people. It is super filling and super cheap!
Wednesday was a nice break in the ministry week for the team. I began to notice a trend of starting to feel really tired after being on campus for just a few hours. On Wednesday we started our morning off as a team singing some worship songs and then praying as a team. Then we had 2 hours to have our personal times with God. After that we all met up to begin our weekly bible study. We started off as a big group and then we broke up and spent the rest of the afternoon in smaller groups where we could share what's going on in our lives as well as study Philippians. Wednesday this week was really re-charging and definitely gave me the energy to get through the rest of the week without being too exhausted.
Thursday was the weekly meeting of Student Life at USP again. It was their last meeting of the semester because finals are coming up soon. Dave Haluga gave the main talk and it was a recap of the entire semester which they spent looking at different attributes of God. After he talked Abby and I were privileged to lead a few worship songs and allow the Fijians to reflect on all the attributes of God for the last time as a movement this semester.
So like I mentioned, USP has final examinations coming up soon. This next week is a study week and then the 2 weeks following it they will be taking final examinations. This will change how we do ministry slightly. We will not be doing initiative evangelism because the University would probably see that as disruptive during the studying portion of the year. So we will only be going to USP to meet with students we have already met and have arranged times to meet with. On the days when we have no appointments at USP we will be going to another university in Suva, Fiji National University (FNU). This will essentially be the launch of a Student Life movement at FNU, which makes it a really exciting time to be here!
Saturday was a free day, so a group of us were led by Dave and a couple Fijians up Mt. Korobaba. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the top, but once we were there we had a breathtaking view of the other mountains, the ocean, the bay, and Suva. Definitely the coolest view I've had in Fiji so far. Then we hiked back down and spent most of the rest of the day relaxing. The hike was very tolling on the body, and I found myself wanting to stay off of my feet for the rest of the day.
One last thing: I've been listening to a lot of different worship music since I've been in Fiji, but one song in particular has been stuck in my head over and over again. It is by Hillsong United and it's called "Arms Open Wide". The lyrics are essentially about yielding completely to how God wants to use us in His plan for Human history and it has really resonated with me, especially going into my last year at Miami and having to figure out what the next stage of life is for me. It has been my prayer that I would go before him with my arms open wide, willing to go wherever he sends me.
Here is a link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnQPfWlCP_Y
and the Lyrics:
Take my life I lay it down
At the cross where I am found
All I have I give to You oh God
Take my hands and make them clean
Keep my heart in purity
That I may walk in all You have for me
Oh here I stand
Arms open wide
Oh I am Yours
And You are mine
Take my moments and my days
Let each breath that I take
Be ever only for You oh God
My whole life is Yours
I give it all
Surrendered to Your Name
And forever I will pray
Have Your way
Have Your way
I still have about 1 month left in Fiji! Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement! I'll update again soon.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Bula Bula!
As of a couple of hours ago, it has officially been 1 week since we arrived in Suva and it has been an adventure of a week. Ministry at USP has been going extremely well and after finishing the first week I was very encouraged and excited to continue.
I updated last time right before heading back to USP for their weekly meeting of Student Life (which is what Crusade is called at USP). Everyone says that the meeting starts at 6, but we soon realized that this was not really the case. Fijians often operate on “Fijian Time” (just like Zambians operate on “Zambian Time”). Often we will plan to meet students at a certain time on campus, and they will arrive an hour or so late, and it’s not really a big deal or rude at all to them. I encountered similar trends in Zambia so I have experienced this before, but it has taken a little getting used since it is not at all like this in the USA. The weekly meeting didn’t really end up starting until much closer to 7. But despite the late start, it was a very encouraging night. There were around 80 people in attendance. The meeting started with some worship songs, and that was what really got my spirits up. I was moved by how pure their worship was and how lucky I was to be a part of it with them. Later, one of the Miami Crusade Staff, Joe Kleibscheidel, spoke about God and his Eternality. We also played some fun Fijian games that everybody to really into. At the end of the night there was some food and drinks that we enjoyed while getting to know some of the students who are regularly involved with Student Life. The Fijian students were very friendly and eager to get to know us. I can’t wait for this week’s meeting!
Saturday we had the day off and one of the Stinters, Rob, took a few of us to Wailoku (I think that’s how it’s spelled) for an adventure! 2 Fijians also joined us as we hiked on land, then arrived at a stream that we got into and started hiking up (against the current!). Along the way we came to a waterfall that was probably 15 feet high or so. Many of us climbed around the side and then jumped/dove from the top into a deep pool of water at the bottom. A couple of us even climbed up to a higher point up the rocks along the side of the water fall to jump from. It was soooo scary but a ton of fun! We then continued on upstream until we came to another waterfall that was probably between 40 -50 feet high with a deep pool at the bottom to jump into. This was an absolutely horrifying height to jump from but most of the people, including me, mustered up the courage to make the jump! I will admit I was up there for about 25 minutes before I finally jumped. Once again it was so much fun and I hope to get to do it again. The best part of this whole adventure was that it only cost us $2.30 Fijian, which was the cost of the bus ride their and back!
Today we went to church. The team had the option of going to 3 different churches with different members of the Stint team. A few of us chose to go with Dave, Jenny, and Kori to a Baptist church. Several USP students go there. It was a nice service, especially the worship. Most of the songs we recognized and they were very passionate. The service lasted 2 hours, which was a little longer than I am used to, but it was good overall. I think we will be checking out different churches each week.
Tonight will be the first time we meet in our impact groups, which are co-ed small groups. We will be sharing our life stories with the rest of our group over the next few weeks. This week will also be the first time we meet for Bible study. We are studying Philippians over the entire trip. This first week we have been studying the entire book and its context, which has been a challenge for me, but I can see that doing in depth study will be very beneficial. I’m excited to improve my bible study skills through this project.
That's all for now, I'll update by next Sunday.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Bula Bula!
For all of you non-Fijians, "bula" means hello and is pretty much the most common greeting I've heard here in Fiji.
So let me start by updating you all on what went on before we left the States. I drove with my mom and sister to Indy from Cleveland last Wednesday. I met the rest of my team at the Crowne Plaza hotel near the airport, where we stayed until we flew out Friday morning. At briefing we had several training sessions to prepare us for the 6 weeks we would spend in Fiji. The three main themes were Love the Lord, Love your team, and Love the World. The training about loving the Lord was very impacting and really gave me some vision of how I wanted to see my personal relationship with God grow through reading the bible and prayer. We also took personality tests to learn about ourselves as well as how to love people better with different personalities than us. I learned that I fall under the category of "Melancholy" (kind of depressing label right?) which doesn't mean I am sad all the time, but that I place a very high value on Order, which is definitely true of me. We also learned about the Fijian culture and how to deal with any culture stress that might occur while we are here.
So Friday came and at 4:00am we left the hotel for the airport. We flew for about 2 hours to Houston, then 8.5 hours to Honolulu (where we had a 12 hour layover...not a bad place to be stuck for 12 hours...we went to the beach!), and then 6.5 to Nadi (pronounced non-dee) where we caught a bus that took us to Suva in 4 hours. Basically we were all exhausted by the time we got here, but we forced ourselves to stay up until at least 8pm to help with jet lag. I'm pretty much over jet lag now, I can stay up til 10 or 11 and wake up around 7 or 8.
We are in Suva, Fiji for the majority of this trip. To help me describe what Suva is like, you need to basically forget EVERYTHING you have ever thought about Fiji. Suva is a port city, so there is no beach. Also it rains just about every day, at random times and with no warning. Sometimes they are brief showers, other times they seem to be off and on all day. We have had several hours of sunny weather though. The city is pretty busy, with taxis and people walking everywhere. There are also quite a few tall buildings in the city. I don't really have a good grasp of the layout yet, but I'm slowly learning. The city is also kind of (for lack of a better word) dirty. It reminds me a lot of Lusaka, although the city is right on the ocean and does have some quite beautiful views of the mountains. Internet is also hard to come by, so I am at an internet cafe right now, paying for internet just like last year.
The people in Fiji are super friendly and always are greeting us as we walk around the city or on campus at the University of the South Pacific. Our time on campus this week has already seen tons of fruit for our labor! After only 2 days of sharing our team saw 38 people place their faith in Christ! On the second day of sharing our faiths on campus I went with my new friend Marcus. We met a guy named Sakaria and we sat to talk with him about the Gospel. We shared how God loves us and has a plan for our lives that we can experience through a relationship with him, but since we are sinful we are separated from God because he is perfect and Holy, but since God loves us he sent Jesus to earth and He lived a perfect life that did not deserve death, but he chose to die in our place to pay the penalty for our sin, which does deserve separation from God. I have never shared the gospel and had someone understand it as well as Sakaria did, and then have him say that he knew he did not have Jesus in his life. We asked him if he would like to do that right then with us, and he did so we prayed with him and he asked Jesus to be his savior. We then made plans to meet up again with him on Friday of this week to continue to discuss what it means to have a relationship with God. We also saw 2 friends place their faith in Christ in a similar fashion later that day. It was a very exciting day of ministry at USP and definitely energized me to keep pushing hard this week, even when I was tired or maybe no in the mood to be on campus.
So that is basically what has been going on in Fiji...some other side notes: I absolutely love my team, many of them are from Miami also, but there are several who aren't and I have enjoyed getting to know them all. I also have been enjoying pretty much everything I've eaten, which has often been seafood. I have also been running just about each day with different friends on the project which has been a sweet way to have good conversations and stay in shape! I also got to reunite with the STINT team that is here for the entire year, which has been really cool because 4 of them helped out with Student Venture in Oxford, OH with me, 1 of the guys, Dave, was my bible study leader and discipler during my sophomore year, and the last guy, Rob, is just hilarious and I've missed seeing at Miami.
I am looking forward to keeping you updated as I continue to live out this adventure in Fiji. It seems like I should be able to update this blog every week at the least. I hope you all are doing well in the States, definitely feel free to send me e-mails or facebook messages with what is going on with you!
