Fiji Day 6 - Thursday

It's Thursday and we only have 2 more days with the children. It's quite a bittersweet feeling as we are just starting to bond more with them, they are beginning to trust us more and open up more to us..but yet we all are counting down the days to be back in Sydney. New found R-E-S-P-E-C-T for long term missionaries.

It rained the whole of yesterday... and the weather is so cooling now and the skies are still grey. I'm not complaining though...this is heaps better than feeling like we're stuck in a sauna and starting to perspire again as soon as you step out from the shower.

The typhoon/cyclone/weather disaster thingy has passed yesterday. We were very fortunate to only have heavy rains and no strong winds. Apparently the other towns of Fiji (including Nadi where we are flying out of) are flooded.

Ben Li led us in morning devotions today. We continued reading from 1 John 4:19- 5:5 where we learnt about patience and love. Patience whilst dealing with the kids to show them God's Love. and Psalm 72. We then did a round of prayers for the Kid's Program and the Pastors here - Herbert and Esther as their health is not very good.

During Praise and Worship - we tried to teach them how to sing John 3:16 but it wasn't very successful. The songs with actions such as "with Christ in the vessel" were more popular with the children and they were able to pick up the songs faster.

The Theme of Thursday was "God is Alive". Hsien told the story of the empty tomb and of Jesus's resurrection. They were all amazed and listened very attentively to Hsien.

The funniest part of the day was when it came to art and craft time. Today was t-shirt painting day.. so Hsien drew on the whiteboard the design that the kids were supposed to follow. At the bottom of the t-shirt they were supposed to paint their name in green..BUT on the whiteboard she wrote as in for them to insert their name in the space. Kids being Kids... didn't understand.. and half of the t-shirts ended up with "" painted on them. You can see from the picture that Robert or Kelly was very common. it was quite hilarious.

Charades from the day before is really proving to be popular and small Peter kept them entertained during games time with it. Another popular game is the one where they all sit in a circle and there is a leader who changes the actions and the person standing in the centre must try to find out who the leader is.

The invites to the parents have gone out - to invite them to the "graduation" ceremony on Sunday. The children will be dancing and will receive certificates welcoming them into God's Family. We've tried to fancy up the certs by colouring them, giving them stickers and laminating them. Hopefully they will keep them well, look at it and remember everything that we have taught them these past 5 days.

The team is all very excited that we've planted the seeds of the gospel in the hearts of the little kids. A few of the parents (from the provision stores downstairs) have given us feedback that their kids are enjoying the program and return home practising their dance and memory verses just as Grace Choy and Hsien have instructed them to. They are being a very good testimony to their unsaved families and we pray that this will continue even after we leave.

It is very very heartwarming to know that we've impacted their lives in one way or another. The older kids are actually going up to Grace Choy and Hsien to request to be tested in the memory verse of the day. Also, the younger siblings are trying to follow the elder siblings in doing more "serious bible stuff" rather than just colouring and simple stuff..

*update: UGH!! I JUST UPDATED THIS POST BUT IT ALL DISAPPEARED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok ok.. lets see where i stopped... i think i was rambling about the rest of the day after the kids had all gone home.

Debrief session: we were all encouraged when Dr Peter Chen and Pastor Herbert both agreed that we had improved greatly since Day 1 - we all take better ownership of the segments that we are in charge off. Small Peter is also more confident of speaking English to the kids now as he has to explain the games and rules to them every day.

We played a bible quiz game whilst waiting for dinner to be prepared. Hsien wanted to vomit blood at some of the answers given by us. and..guess who our chef of the night was??? DR PETER CHEN!!! Winnie said that he was so excited to prepare the beef and melon stew for us that he didn't even allow her to wash the vegetables. The whole table was full of food... and a church member called just before we were about to begin and provided us with fresh tuna sashimi.

Our meals for the next couple of days till the end of the trip have all been provided for.

Friday night - Pastor Herbert and Esther will be taking us out for dinner
Saturday night - Our host family will be taking us out for dinner. We offered to take them out for dinner but they insisted as they are the hosts and they said that we are hard at work for the kid's club every day and we are doing GOD'S WORK.
Sunday night - will be spent back at Nadi awaiting our flight back to Sydney in the morning. Please pray that the flood waters would have receeded by then.

The vids i haven't been able to upload cos the files are really too huge. We will share the funny ones with everyone when we are back in Sydney. The boys filmed a new one yesterday when they became "supermodels" and did a catwalk for us.

HOpe to still be able to update daily over the next few days - we will be on the move and internet connection might not be available to us. DOn't worry. we are all safe and healthy and will be back soon. Thank God that he has kept us safe from any harm and that no one has fallen ill. We are so used to the mossie repellant now that we hardly get bitten any more.

Thank you everyone for your prayers.