Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Fiji Day 10 - Monday
This was written in my journal pending me to be able to update on the final day of our Fiji Trip....so sorry if all my tenses are upside down.
I can't actually believe that it's time for us to go back. I'm so tired that I'm actually on autopilot mode. After the whole drama yesterday about the flights and waiting for the shuttle bus...After 12 days in Fiji, staying with each other 24/7 this is it.. we're finally going home. Back to our own little lives, our own little comfort zones.
Everyone had to be awake and ready for the Resort's shuttle bus to bring us to the airport at 6am. We were waiting there at 5.50am .. and waited..and waited..and waited.. providing breakfast for all the mossies.. we were all so braindead from the whole week's activities and the lack of sleep on the final night (surprisingly we were provided with really nice rooms on the final night of the trip). Anyway, Dr Peter Chen had to go and follow up with the reception and finally a semi-filled minivan came along.. and only half of us and half of our luggage could be uploaded. DUH. the driver said that he would come back for the other half of us.. so whilst waiting for another 20 mins, we slopped on MORE insect repellant and sat on our suitcases... Just when Grace Choy wanted to go to the toilet via the balcony door that Ben had left unlocked just in case.... the minivan came back..
We were all reunited at the airport check in queue which was crazy madness long. some of us went to the cafe to get breakfast and wait whilst some of us queued.. After about an hour we reached the counter.. only to realise that there were some problems with Hsien's and small Peter's passports as their Australia VISAs were in their old passports and therefore not updated on the database (or something like that).
Whilst we were waiting, we heard on the PA system that our flight had been postponed by an hour to 10 am instead.. That was probs quite expected, cos the check in queue was still so long... After an exorbitantly pricy brekkie, there was another announcement over the PA system.... That Nausori Airport was closed indefinately and all flights in and out of Suva were cancelled.
Wow... what a relieving news... We had been fortunate enough to catch the last flight out. Imagine if we had not, we would be stuck in Suva. Thanks to Dr Peter Chen for being decisive about just booking the internal flights.
More duty free shopping later, we found a quiet little spot to play our last game of Dai Di together on the mission trip (small Peter won every round!!)... The time came for us to board and when we were walking to the airplane, the rain started pouring down and the winds were so strong.. THE CYCLONE WAS BACK.. like it was stalking us.. GO AWAY!!!!!! duh...
And then.. more waiting.... on the plane.. which was stuffy and warm... with the rain pouring down outside.. there were some problems with the wait list which caused delays as they wanted to help everyone out of Fiji..then we had to wait for them to stock up on the drinking water in the plane... So, we only took off an hour later...RAHHHHHH
4 hours 22 mins later, we touched down!!! WOOTTTSSS we're back. Everything that the Fiji church memebers had given us successfully passed through immigration checks... when we were sitting in the arrival hall waiting for our transport back to church... we all just HAD to buy Maccas for a meal..... Woah... the taste.. MACCASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! we all gobbled everything down like super fast... yeah!! we can eat fruits and salads again!!!!!!!
So yah, the time came for us to all say goodbye to each other. Ben's mum was so relieved to have him back safe and sound.. but WAIT! there's more! he knows how to write his Chinese name now (thanks to Hu Die). hur hur hur...
And that was the end of the trip.. of course there's still more work to be done... the presentations on Sunday to the congregation..the reports for CCMA...the final calculations for our finances etc.
Just let us catch up on our beauty sleep first please...
*update: Peter Li slept at 8pm on the next 2 days that he came back till the next morning.
Oh our little Ben Ben had afternoon naps and evening naps for the next few days.
Hu Die fell sick a few days after she got back but thanks God that all of us were healthy during the 12 days in Fiji.
Hsien has done up a newsletter that will be distributed on Sunday. (I will also post a copy here on the blog)
Finally: Thanks to our amazing God who has brought us through these 12 days safe and sound. For letting us experience the cyclone and flood so we can see how fortunate we are in Sydney but bringing us safely out from Fiji. There are so many thanks that we would like to say to everyone else. who gave financially and prayed for us. We sincerely THANK YOU.
I can't actually believe that it's time for us to go back. I'm so tired that I'm actually on autopilot mode. After the whole drama yesterday about the flights and waiting for the shuttle bus...After 12 days in Fiji, staying with each other 24/7 this is it.. we're finally going home. Back to our own little lives, our own little comfort zones.
Everyone had to be awake and ready for the Resort's shuttle bus to bring us to the airport at 6am. We were waiting there at 5.50am .. and waited..and waited..and waited.. providing breakfast for all the mossies.. we were all so braindead from the whole week's activities and the lack of sleep on the final night (surprisingly we were provided with really nice rooms on the final night of the trip). Anyway, Dr Peter Chen had to go and follow up with the reception and finally a semi-filled minivan came along.. and only half of us and half of our luggage could be uploaded. DUH. the driver said that he would come back for the other half of us.. so whilst waiting for another 20 mins, we slopped on MORE insect repellant and sat on our suitcases... Just when Grace Choy wanted to go to the toilet via the balcony door that Ben had left unlocked just in case.... the minivan came back..
We were all reunited at the airport check in queue which was crazy madness long. some of us went to the cafe to get breakfast and wait whilst some of us queued.. After about an hour we reached the counter.. only to realise that there were some problems with Hsien's and small Peter's passports as their Australia VISAs were in their old passports and therefore not updated on the database (or something like that).
Whilst we were waiting, we heard on the PA system that our flight had been postponed by an hour to 10 am instead.. That was probs quite expected, cos the check in queue was still so long... After an exorbitantly pricy brekkie, there was another announcement over the PA system.... That Nausori Airport was closed indefinately and all flights in and out of Suva were cancelled.
Wow... what a relieving news... We had been fortunate enough to catch the last flight out. Imagine if we had not, we would be stuck in Suva. Thanks to Dr Peter Chen for being decisive about just booking the internal flights.
More duty free shopping later, we found a quiet little spot to play our last game of Dai Di together on the mission trip (small Peter won every round!!)... The time came for us to board and when we were walking to the airplane, the rain started pouring down and the winds were so strong.. THE CYCLONE WAS BACK.. like it was stalking us.. GO AWAY!!!!!! duh...
And then.. more waiting.... on the plane.. which was stuffy and warm... with the rain pouring down outside.. there were some problems with the wait list which caused delays as they wanted to help everyone out of Fiji..then we had to wait for them to stock up on the drinking water in the plane... So, we only took off an hour later...RAHHHHHH
4 hours 22 mins later, we touched down!!! WOOTTTSSS we're back. Everything that the Fiji church memebers had given us successfully passed through immigration checks... when we were sitting in the arrival hall waiting for our transport back to church... we all just HAD to buy Maccas for a meal..... Woah... the taste.. MACCASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! we all gobbled everything down like super fast... yeah!! we can eat fruits and salads again!!!!!!!
So yah, the time came for us to all say goodbye to each other. Ben's mum was so relieved to have him back safe and sound.. but WAIT! there's more! he knows how to write his Chinese name now (thanks to Hu Die). hur hur hur...
And that was the end of the trip.. of course there's still more work to be done... the presentations on Sunday to the congregation..the reports for CCMA...the final calculations for our finances etc.
Just let us catch up on our beauty sleep first please...
*update: Peter Li slept at 8pm on the next 2 days that he came back till the next morning.
Oh our little Ben Ben had afternoon naps and evening naps for the next few days.
Hu Die fell sick a few days after she got back but thanks God that all of us were healthy during the 12 days in Fiji.
Hsien has done up a newsletter that will be distributed on Sunday. (I will also post a copy here on the blog)
Finally: Thanks to our amazing God who has brought us through these 12 days safe and sound. For letting us experience the cyclone and flood so we can see how fortunate we are in Sydney but bringing us safely out from Fiji. There are so many thanks that we would like to say to everyone else. who gave financially and prayed for us. We sincerely THANK YOU.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Do Stay With Us...
More Blog Updates to come!!
Thanks everyone who has been reading this blog and remembering us in their prayers!!!
To the Team: Debrief session tonight in church 6pm.
VEE-NA-KA
Thanks everyone who has been reading this blog and remembering us in their prayers!!!
To the Team: Debrief session tonight in church 6pm.
VEE-NA-KA
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Fiji Day 9 - Sunday
Only 1 more sleep and we will be back home! That was quite an exciting thought...if we could make it home.. it was still raining and all the news reports we heard were just getting from bad to worse.
We woke up super duper early AGAIN to pack our bags as that was the last night we would be spending at Suva...cleaned the place a little for them and made sure that we had emptied the fridge and kitchen of all perishables.
Same old routine of hailing 2 cabs to bring us to church... so that we could set up for praise and worship (Hsien and Grace C); bible reading (Hu die), Testimony (Little Peter) and Sermon (Dr Peter Chen). It all went well and we also presenting an acapella version of Amazing Grace verse 1 in English and Mandarin.
Most kids (the older ones) turned up to do their dance for their parents. And so proud of the younger kids for remembering their dance moves to "This Little Light of Mine" and actually moving and singing. The older ones were really good at it.. especially their shake shake shake shake part.. and the parents were very amused.
They performed it twice (by popular demand) and you could see how proud the parents were from the cameras and video cams all around. Before the end of the service, Pastor Herbert actually presented St Paul's Kogarah with gifts!! how thoughtful!! and then we had a certificate presentation to the kids... with our effort in colouring the certs for the kids!
They were all very happy to receive it and showed them off proudly during the group pic session. At that point, I felt so proud of them too. I felt that we had accomplished so much in just 5 days with them and knew that they would always remember us and what we taught them just as we would always remember them and the impact the 5 days had on our lives.
Yes, life for the kids is simple, without fancy clothes or the latest computer games. But they are happy, and innocent and sincere. I guess as we become more developed, many facades are formed to maintain a front for this society. But for me, 10 days is cool enough to be a wake up call.
The church board brought us out to another Chinese restaurant for a farewell lunch and once again we were fed well - even eating the kids' table food. ha ha. their fried chicken just looked so good we couldn't resist. Small Peter tried unsuccessfully to teach them how to shuffle (tribute to Aaron).
A final farewell to all the kids in the neighbour was done when we reached home to pick up our luggage. It was sad saying good bye to them and hugging them/shaking their hands... A few of the girls had actually made cards for us or written letters to us. Ben had written in one of the autographs - KEEP IT REAL and i wrote KEEP THE FAITH.. ha ha ha.. as if we are rock stars man. At the last minute, Michael actually asked Ben for his Australia mobile number and did call him on Sunday night to make sure that we had all arrived back in Australia safely. How sweet.
We had received confirmation that all coaches for the day had been cancelled as the roads were closed due to the floods. So we had no choice but to fly. On the way to the airport, we saw all the houses that were flooded, causing the residents to flee to the upper floors, we saw cars covered due to the river banks overflowing. It was really bad.
When we reached the airport, the driveway was slightly flooded but we managed to reach the departure hall with the luggage as our host had driven his minivan. All the other normal sedan cars couldn't pass through.
We managed to do our check in, but had to leave Hsien and the boys behind to take the later flight out as the earlier one was full. And we sat there and waited.. in the stuffy warm departure hall which slowly filled up with people all trying to leave Suva. We entertained ourselves with the bible quiz cards and even made friends with some Fiji people who could answer the questions more accurately than we could. how embarassing.
Our flight was delayed by about an hour and a half but we were just glad that we could make it out... Hsien and the boys later told us that by the time they left, the flood levels had risen till the water was coming into the departure hall. They had made the last flight out as the next morning we heard news that all flights from and to Nausori had been cancelled indefinately as the airport was closed. It was truly God's blessings and protection upon us!
Exhausted from the whole day's events, we almost lost it when we had to wait an hour for a shuttle service to bring us to our hotel for the night. But at least we all reached there safe and sound and had a nice room to rest our heads for a couple of hours before we depart Fiji homeward bound (which we all were looking forward to).
We woke up super duper early AGAIN to pack our bags as that was the last night we would be spending at Suva...cleaned the place a little for them and made sure that we had emptied the fridge and kitchen of all perishables.
Same old routine of hailing 2 cabs to bring us to church... so that we could set up for praise and worship (Hsien and Grace C); bible reading (Hu die), Testimony (Little Peter) and Sermon (Dr Peter Chen). It all went well and we also presenting an acapella version of Amazing Grace verse 1 in English and Mandarin.
Most kids (the older ones) turned up to do their dance for their parents. And so proud of the younger kids for remembering their dance moves to "This Little Light of Mine" and actually moving and singing. The older ones were really good at it.. especially their shake shake shake shake part.. and the parents were very amused.
They performed it twice (by popular demand) and you could see how proud the parents were from the cameras and video cams all around. Before the end of the service, Pastor Herbert actually presented St Paul's Kogarah with gifts!! how thoughtful!! and then we had a certificate presentation to the kids... with our effort in colouring the certs for the kids!
They were all very happy to receive it and showed them off proudly during the group pic session. At that point, I felt so proud of them too. I felt that we had accomplished so much in just 5 days with them and knew that they would always remember us and what we taught them just as we would always remember them and the impact the 5 days had on our lives.
Yes, life for the kids is simple, without fancy clothes or the latest computer games. But they are happy, and innocent and sincere. I guess as we become more developed, many facades are formed to maintain a front for this society. But for me, 10 days is cool enough to be a wake up call.
The church board brought us out to another Chinese restaurant for a farewell lunch and once again we were fed well - even eating the kids' table food. ha ha. their fried chicken just looked so good we couldn't resist. Small Peter tried unsuccessfully to teach them how to shuffle (tribute to Aaron).
A final farewell to all the kids in the neighbour was done when we reached home to pick up our luggage. It was sad saying good bye to them and hugging them/shaking their hands... A few of the girls had actually made cards for us or written letters to us. Ben had written in one of the autographs - KEEP IT REAL and i wrote KEEP THE FAITH.. ha ha ha.. as if we are rock stars man. At the last minute, Michael actually asked Ben for his Australia mobile number and did call him on Sunday night to make sure that we had all arrived back in Australia safely. How sweet.
We had received confirmation that all coaches for the day had been cancelled as the roads were closed due to the floods. So we had no choice but to fly. On the way to the airport, we saw all the houses that were flooded, causing the residents to flee to the upper floors, we saw cars covered due to the river banks overflowing. It was really bad.
When we reached the airport, the driveway was slightly flooded but we managed to reach the departure hall with the luggage as our host had driven his minivan. All the other normal sedan cars couldn't pass through.
We managed to do our check in, but had to leave Hsien and the boys behind to take the later flight out as the earlier one was full. And we sat there and waited.. in the stuffy warm departure hall which slowly filled up with people all trying to leave Suva. We entertained ourselves with the bible quiz cards and even made friends with some Fiji people who could answer the questions more accurately than we could. how embarassing.
Our flight was delayed by about an hour and a half but we were just glad that we could make it out... Hsien and the boys later told us that by the time they left, the flood levels had risen till the water was coming into the departure hall. They had made the last flight out as the next morning we heard news that all flights from and to Nausori had been cancelled indefinately as the airport was closed. It was truly God's blessings and protection upon us!
Exhausted from the whole day's events, we almost lost it when we had to wait an hour for a shuttle service to bring us to our hotel for the night. But at least we all reached there safe and sound and had a nice room to rest our heads for a couple of hours before we depart Fiji homeward bound (which we all were looking forward to).
Fiji Day 8 - Saturday
OK.. so here it goes.. we get to Saturday - our "day off" our only full day of R & R and everything's good.. we have a island resort tour booked in.. we get to go snorkelling..have a bbq/buffet lunch.. get to swim in the clear blue waters and walk along the beautiful beaches of the Fiji Island.
All we had to do was be at Holiday Inn at 6.30am to wait for the bus...
BUT...
IT WAS RAINING!!!!!!!! the cyclone was back and the bus was delayed from 7am to 12pm. Oh no, that would mess everything up...cos it's an hour to Pacific Harbour and we still need to take a boat ride for 30 mins out to the island. and since it was raining so badly, we probs wouldnt be able to see any thing whilst snorkeling anyways.
Luckily the lady at the tour counter gave us a full refund cos there would be no point waiting till 12pm and then only play around for like 2 hours before we had to head back again. Dr Peter Chen and Winnie headed home to rest whilst the rest of us sought alternatives to enjoy the rest of the day.
The best Plan B was that we hired a mini van + driver who would still bring us to Pacific Harbour and be with us the whole day. However, we would only be going to a resort and probs could only do swimming and laze around there. Well, since that was going to be the best we could get out of the day.. BRING IT ON!!!!!!
So when we arrived, we realised that the massage (that the girls were looking forward to) was in a tent along the beach. Quite dodgy and rather expensive too. The boys were very keen on doing some water sports so we checked out the rate and booked in for 4 people to go tubing on the sea for 30 mins. We could take both the tube where you can sit up straight and the tube where you fly like superman.
It was so fun!!!! lots of arm strength to keep ourselves on board though. Grace CHoy and I were screaming non stop till everyone on the beach front could hear us. The boys fell off each time cos the guy was dragging them so fast!!! much faster than us girls. The second time we went.. the rain was pouring down and the speed that we were going at was so fast that it felt like we had little pebbles being thrown at our faces. We couldn't open our eyes. so just SCREAM.
it was over before we knew it. and we saw that the clouds had come in and we couldn't even see the islands and mountains across the sea that we had seen so clearly when we first starting tubing. that was scary.
We had a nice pizza lunch at the cafe and just chatted and relaxed a little before our minivan came to pick us up to go to the craft centre to do a little bit more shopping (nothing much) and then back to church directly.
The rain was now coming down non stop and we could see the water level rising in some of the low areas... when we had reached Suva city again, Hsien received a phone call from Dr Peter Chen advising that the road to Nadi was now flooded and we might not be able to travel back to Nadi for our connecting flight to Sydney by coach tomorrow.
They had proceeded with booking domestic air tickets for us and we had to go to the domestic airport at Nausori to pay and issue the air tickets. Poor Hsien and Dr Peter Chen went off with Pastor Herbert once we reached the church to go to get the air tickets (the airport is about 30 mnins drive away from the church) whilst the rest of us showered and got ready for our dinner appointment with our host family and another family from church.
They came back with the news that the atm at the airport wasn't working and they did not accept credit cards. The good news was that the tickets were confirmed and reserved though. So now we had the choice to Coaching it (if the water receeds) or Flying it.
We headed out for another chinese restaurant dinner....they ordered really nice food for us till we were so full!!! Of course not saying that Hu Die's cooking is not nice, just that at least we did not have to worry about cooking and cleaning up.
We were so tired that we all crashed into bed once we reached home.. knowing that there was church early tomorrow morning and we would have to prepare for all the kids' parents coming to watch them perform....
All we had to do was be at Holiday Inn at 6.30am to wait for the bus...
BUT...
IT WAS RAINING!!!!!!!! the cyclone was back and the bus was delayed from 7am to 12pm. Oh no, that would mess everything up...cos it's an hour to Pacific Harbour and we still need to take a boat ride for 30 mins out to the island. and since it was raining so badly, we probs wouldnt be able to see any thing whilst snorkeling anyways.
Luckily the lady at the tour counter gave us a full refund cos there would be no point waiting till 12pm and then only play around for like 2 hours before we had to head back again. Dr Peter Chen and Winnie headed home to rest whilst the rest of us sought alternatives to enjoy the rest of the day.
The best Plan B was that we hired a mini van + driver who would still bring us to Pacific Harbour and be with us the whole day. However, we would only be going to a resort and probs could only do swimming and laze around there. Well, since that was going to be the best we could get out of the day.. BRING IT ON!!!!!!
So when we arrived, we realised that the massage (that the girls were looking forward to) was in a tent along the beach. Quite dodgy and rather expensive too. The boys were very keen on doing some water sports so we checked out the rate and booked in for 4 people to go tubing on the sea for 30 mins. We could take both the tube where you can sit up straight and the tube where you fly like superman.
It was so fun!!!! lots of arm strength to keep ourselves on board though. Grace CHoy and I were screaming non stop till everyone on the beach front could hear us. The boys fell off each time cos the guy was dragging them so fast!!! much faster than us girls. The second time we went.. the rain was pouring down and the speed that we were going at was so fast that it felt like we had little pebbles being thrown at our faces. We couldn't open our eyes. so just SCREAM.
it was over before we knew it. and we saw that the clouds had come in and we couldn't even see the islands and mountains across the sea that we had seen so clearly when we first starting tubing. that was scary.
We had a nice pizza lunch at the cafe and just chatted and relaxed a little before our minivan came to pick us up to go to the craft centre to do a little bit more shopping (nothing much) and then back to church directly.
The rain was now coming down non stop and we could see the water level rising in some of the low areas... when we had reached Suva city again, Hsien received a phone call from Dr Peter Chen advising that the road to Nadi was now flooded and we might not be able to travel back to Nadi for our connecting flight to Sydney by coach tomorrow.
They had proceeded with booking domestic air tickets for us and we had to go to the domestic airport at Nausori to pay and issue the air tickets. Poor Hsien and Dr Peter Chen went off with Pastor Herbert once we reached the church to go to get the air tickets (the airport is about 30 mnins drive away from the church) whilst the rest of us showered and got ready for our dinner appointment with our host family and another family from church.
They came back with the news that the atm at the airport wasn't working and they did not accept credit cards. The good news was that the tickets were confirmed and reserved though. So now we had the choice to Coaching it (if the water receeds) or Flying it.
We headed out for another chinese restaurant dinner....they ordered really nice food for us till we were so full!!! Of course not saying that Hu Die's cooking is not nice, just that at least we did not have to worry about cooking and cleaning up.
We were so tired that we all crashed into bed once we reached home.. knowing that there was church early tomorrow morning and we would have to prepare for all the kids' parents coming to watch them perform....
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Fiji Day 7 - Friday
We all woke up thinking "this is the last full day we will have with the kids" and all of a sudden the reality that our short term mission trip was going to be over struck us!!! i felt myself treasuring the last few days in the house more.
After our usual bread and coffee brekkie we trooped over to church where small Peter led us in our morning devotions of reading 1 John 5:5-13 as well as Pslams 147. We had a minor discussion on how the scripture passage provided a circular argument on which came first - believing or the testimony of believing which was really interesting.
When the kids arrived, they started with playing a few games.. and then Grace Choy gave the FINAL talk and posed the question "Do you want Jesus to be your King?" before leading them in the sinner's prayer. A lot of them took it very seriously and looked to be praying earnestly. The younger kids also followed in the prayer but i'm not too sure if they understood what it was about. But we knew that at the end of the day we had planted the seed of the gospel in their hearts.
During craft time, everyone made a crown to symbolise being a Prince/Princess as our Father is a King. The kids took it so seriously and concentrated on decorating their crowns with colour and glitter. They loved it!!
Then came memory verse and prize presentation time...The kids had to stand up and recite all the memory verses from Day 1 to Day 5. Most of them could recite the verses from at least 3 days which was very encouraging. We distributed the colour pencils and other stationery which had been wrapped up nicely at the prize giving ceremony, as well as pass them their hand painted t-shirts from the day before.
And like that, the programs for the Kids Club Fiji was over. Our "mission" was over. We were so proud of them, having seen the kids having learnt so much about God in just the past week. Once again, we reminded them to tell their parents to come on Sunday, to bring them here to watch them dance as a presentation item.
We finally had a few hours to shop in Suva city before dinner. We all walked around a little bit but the stuff in Fiji is actually quite expensive and we weren't willing to fork out so much for the items that caught our eye (especially since our bargaining skills did not work too well there).
Pastor Herbert and Esther brought us out for dinner and we had good fun sharing and laughing with them. We understood that it's very hard for them here to grow the church but still they are trusting in God and persevering to reach out to the Chinese community in Suva.
We trooped home looking forward to our free day tmr where we had booked an "island tour" where we could head to Pacific Harbour for a 30 boat ride out where we could do snorkelling...
Each Dai Di card game session at the end of the day would always bring us closer with conversation and banter. It had become our routine.. our little wind down session where some of us would be playing and multi-tasking playing PSP, writing our daily reflection journals or magazines. Rotating players whilst waiting for our turn to shower...
Saturday's plans were totally ruined though.. but that's going to have to be ranted in another post... :)
After our usual bread and coffee brekkie we trooped over to church where small Peter led us in our morning devotions of reading 1 John 5:5-13 as well as Pslams 147. We had a minor discussion on how the scripture passage provided a circular argument on which came first - believing or the testimony of believing which was really interesting.
When the kids arrived, they started with playing a few games.. and then Grace Choy gave the FINAL talk and posed the question "Do you want Jesus to be your King?" before leading them in the sinner's prayer. A lot of them took it very seriously and looked to be praying earnestly. The younger kids also followed in the prayer but i'm not too sure if they understood what it was about. But we knew that at the end of the day we had planted the seed of the gospel in their hearts.
During craft time, everyone made a crown to symbolise being a Prince/Princess as our Father is a King. The kids took it so seriously and concentrated on decorating their crowns with colour and glitter. They loved it!!
Then came memory verse and prize presentation time...The kids had to stand up and recite all the memory verses from Day 1 to Day 5. Most of them could recite the verses from at least 3 days which was very encouraging. We distributed the colour pencils and other stationery which had been wrapped up nicely at the prize giving ceremony, as well as pass them their hand painted t-shirts from the day before.
And like that, the programs for the Kids Club Fiji was over. Our "mission" was over. We were so proud of them, having seen the kids having learnt so much about God in just the past week. Once again, we reminded them to tell their parents to come on Sunday, to bring them here to watch them dance as a presentation item.
We finally had a few hours to shop in Suva city before dinner. We all walked around a little bit but the stuff in Fiji is actually quite expensive and we weren't willing to fork out so much for the items that caught our eye (especially since our bargaining skills did not work too well there).
Pastor Herbert and Esther brought us out for dinner and we had good fun sharing and laughing with them. We understood that it's very hard for them here to grow the church but still they are trusting in God and persevering to reach out to the Chinese community in Suva.
We trooped home looking forward to our free day tmr where we had booked an "island tour" where we could head to Pacific Harbour for a 30 boat ride out where we could do snorkelling...
Each Dai Di card game session at the end of the day would always bring us closer with conversation and banter. It had become our routine.. our little wind down session where some of us would be playing and multi-tasking playing PSP, writing our daily reflection journals or magazines. Rotating players whilst waiting for our turn to shower...
Saturday's plans were totally ruined though.. but that's going to have to be ranted in another post... :)
Monday, January 12, 2009
WOOTSSSSS.. we're back..
awwwww!!! so tired man.. the flight back to Nadi was delayed.. the shuttle pick up made us wait for an hour and the flight back to Sydney started out a real nightmare. Uploading the rest of the pics now.. enjoy.. narrations and updates again tmr...
Thursday, January 8, 2009
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.
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
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.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Fiji Day 5
Mid week Wednesday....the usual hot morning sun.. and we arrive at Church again sweating like pigs and covered with mosquito repellant.
The morning devotion was led by Hsien and we meditated on 1 John 4:7-18. What seems like a simple passage about the Love of God might not seem to simple when you have to comfort someone in pain or grieving. Of course we know that God is love and we should love each other but what do you say without sounding superficial? there is no correct answer....and that left me pondering for the rest of the day.
The kids arrived and started off playing games.. we came up with this "evil" plan to make them play lotsa running games in the morning so as to tire themeselves out by the afternoon. Ha ha.. use up all the energy.. cos they are so hyper. half of the time the evil plan doesn't work. BAH. so round and round they went chasing after each other in the game. they are so cute to watch though.
Today's session was teaching them on how Jesus paid the price for them. We did a short skit to portray how someone else took the punishment for something wrong that they did. In a nutshell - Peter and I are friends but I took Peter's bag to throw into the girl's toilet(!??!!?? - where on earth does Grace Choy get ideas like that????) and I was sent to the principal's office to receive punishment (3 strokes of the cane on my palm). However, when I reached there, the principal informed me that someone had already taken the blame for me and received the caning on my behalf. "WHO WOULD HAVE DONE SUCH A THING FOR ME??? WHAT AN AMAZING FRIEND!!". Then Peter walked out with heaps of red ink and purple ink on his palms to make them look raw and hurt. Even though the kids knew it was just ink, they all understood the notion that God took their sins and died on the cross for them.
One interesting thing that we noted though... when some of the youth leaders were standing in front waiting for our parts in the play, Grace Choy was doing the introduction. When she was explaining about the caning part, she used a long plastic ruler and kept on using it to hit the table. Of course with Grace Choy's brutal force, each whack produced a long sound. We noticed that one of the older kids was cowering away in fear. He was covering his ears, his eyes and just squirming in his seat. After the play, Grace Choy unintentionally did the same action again.. and he was so jittery and did not even dare to look in front. That was really odd and it really looked as if he would have just pee-ed in his pants if Grace Choy had continued hitting the table. We will inform Herbert of our observations at the end of the Kids Club as we suspect that his phobia might stem from the way he's treated at home?? we're not very sure either.
For lunch we had fried chicken and stewed eggplant and bacon slices. Not surprisingly the kids hardly touched the eggplant and during the debrief comments were passed that the colour of the eggplant was like snails (YUCKS) or drowned corpses fingers (PUKES). Not that we didn't finish the food though, we were all so hungry that we finished everything on our plates. The kids had to line up and wash their own plates (Child labour.. ha ha!) and you know what?? They did - and they knew how to do it. Even though some of them were just 5 years old. Well trained. I'm very amazed, so I've made up my mind that my kids will start washing their own plates at 4 years old.
The games session after lunch was charades. Another classic game that entertained the children to the max!!! We gave them really hard ones like Christmas, Cinema and Pen Ink. But a few smart ones managed to guess it correctly. Hsien's cricket actions became "Golf" according to Little Peter and the little boy who had to act out "Grace Choy" made scolding and pointing actions. ha ha ha.
Memory Verse of the day was John 3:16 - the most basic verse. So proud of them when all of them took it very seriously and could recite it within 15 mins.
Art and Craft for the day was them creating a cross and Jesus on the cross with modelling clay. all the kids did a very good job of it and worked hard on their craft.
During the debrief session, we had fresh tuna sashimi, watermelon and ice cream. What a wierd mix but hey! we're in Fiji!! Even Dr Peter Chen and Winnie were happily eating the ice cream!!
When we reached home.. water was back on!!! WOOTSSSS!!!! but another adventure of the night when I broke a metal chair (the leg fell off) ha ha ha.. the worst part was I fell off when i was adjusting my butt whilst telling a story so everyone was already watching me. Grace Choy was in shock for the next 5 mins and pretending to be nonchalent about a black flying cockroach that decided to end its life by flying into our living room at night. Thank God for Little Peter and his cockroach killing skills.
Some interesting snippets of what happened today during Kids Club:
1. Hsien spent 45 mins building a helicopter for a little boy. He was amused with it for 5 secs and then instructed her to take everything apart so that he could use the parts to build something else.
2. Grace Pan (feels so wierd talking in 3rd party) had to clean the bums of 2 little girls today in the span of 15 mins after both of them did a poo. EEEEWWWWW....
3. Ben Li has his knee licked (LICKED!!!!!!!!!!!!) by a little girl!!!
Speaking of Ben...Sorry about the Ben dancing video.. I couldn't upload it as the internet connection is so slow it timed out. I'm still attempting to upload it and will update as soon as I can.
The morning devotion was led by Hsien and we meditated on 1 John 4:7-18. What seems like a simple passage about the Love of God might not seem to simple when you have to comfort someone in pain or grieving. Of course we know that God is love and we should love each other but what do you say without sounding superficial? there is no correct answer....and that left me pondering for the rest of the day.
The kids arrived and started off playing games.. we came up with this "evil" plan to make them play lotsa running games in the morning so as to tire themeselves out by the afternoon. Ha ha.. use up all the energy.. cos they are so hyper. half of the time the evil plan doesn't work. BAH. so round and round they went chasing after each other in the game. they are so cute to watch though.
Today's session was teaching them on how Jesus paid the price for them. We did a short skit to portray how someone else took the punishment for something wrong that they did. In a nutshell - Peter and I are friends but I took Peter's bag to throw into the girl's toilet(!??!!?? - where on earth does Grace Choy get ideas like that????) and I was sent to the principal's office to receive punishment (3 strokes of the cane on my palm). However, when I reached there, the principal informed me that someone had already taken the blame for me and received the caning on my behalf. "WHO WOULD HAVE DONE SUCH A THING FOR ME??? WHAT AN AMAZING FRIEND!!". Then Peter walked out with heaps of red ink and purple ink on his palms to make them look raw and hurt. Even though the kids knew it was just ink, they all understood the notion that God took their sins and died on the cross for them.
One interesting thing that we noted though... when some of the youth leaders were standing in front waiting for our parts in the play, Grace Choy was doing the introduction. When she was explaining about the caning part, she used a long plastic ruler and kept on using it to hit the table. Of course with Grace Choy's brutal force, each whack produced a long sound. We noticed that one of the older kids was cowering away in fear. He was covering his ears, his eyes and just squirming in his seat. After the play, Grace Choy unintentionally did the same action again.. and he was so jittery and did not even dare to look in front. That was really odd and it really looked as if he would have just pee-ed in his pants if Grace Choy had continued hitting the table. We will inform Herbert of our observations at the end of the Kids Club as we suspect that his phobia might stem from the way he's treated at home?? we're not very sure either.
For lunch we had fried chicken and stewed eggplant and bacon slices. Not surprisingly the kids hardly touched the eggplant and during the debrief comments were passed that the colour of the eggplant was like snails (YUCKS) or drowned corpses fingers (PUKES). Not that we didn't finish the food though, we were all so hungry that we finished everything on our plates. The kids had to line up and wash their own plates (Child labour.. ha ha!) and you know what?? They did - and they knew how to do it. Even though some of them were just 5 years old. Well trained. I'm very amazed, so I've made up my mind that my kids will start washing their own plates at 4 years old.
The games session after lunch was charades. Another classic game that entertained the children to the max!!! We gave them really hard ones like Christmas, Cinema and Pen Ink. But a few smart ones managed to guess it correctly. Hsien's cricket actions became "Golf" according to Little Peter and the little boy who had to act out "Grace Choy" made scolding and pointing actions. ha ha ha.
Memory Verse of the day was John 3:16 - the most basic verse. So proud of them when all of them took it very seriously and could recite it within 15 mins.
Art and Craft for the day was them creating a cross and Jesus on the cross with modelling clay. all the kids did a very good job of it and worked hard on their craft.
During the debrief session, we had fresh tuna sashimi, watermelon and ice cream. What a wierd mix but hey! we're in Fiji!! Even Dr Peter Chen and Winnie were happily eating the ice cream!!
When we reached home.. water was back on!!! WOOTSSSS!!!! but another adventure of the night when I broke a metal chair (the leg fell off) ha ha ha.. the worst part was I fell off when i was adjusting my butt whilst telling a story so everyone was already watching me. Grace Choy was in shock for the next 5 mins and pretending to be nonchalent about a black flying cockroach that decided to end its life by flying into our living room at night. Thank God for Little Peter and his cockroach killing skills.
Some interesting snippets of what happened today during Kids Club:
1. Hsien spent 45 mins building a helicopter for a little boy. He was amused with it for 5 secs and then instructed her to take everything apart so that he could use the parts to build something else.
2. Grace Pan (feels so wierd talking in 3rd party) had to clean the bums of 2 little girls today in the span of 15 mins after both of them did a poo. EEEEWWWWW....
3. Ben Li has his knee licked (LICKED!!!!!!!!!!!!) by a little girl!!!
Speaking of Ben...Sorry about the Ben dancing video.. I couldn't upload it as the internet connection is so slow it timed out. I'm still attempting to upload it and will update as soon as I can.
Long Zhuan Feng
Ok..maybe not so drama mama.. but we've just been informed that a massive typhoon is going to hit Fiji - probably tomorrow or Saturday.
Please pray for our safety and that our electricity/gas and water will not be disrupted. The locals are already a little jittery and saying that this one will be rather big.
It has already started raining since yesterday night and even though it's very cooling we are very worried.
Please pray for our safety and that our electricity/gas and water will not be disrupted. The locals are already a little jittery and saying that this one will be rather big.
It has already started raining since yesterday night and even though it's very cooling we are very worried.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Fiji Day 4
Day 2 of the Kids Holiday Program and the morning was the usual – taking turns in the toilet and making sure that no other water outlet was being used whilst someone was showering. Coffee and freshly baked toast (only $0.90 per loaf!!) and fried eggs with tomato sauce (which doesn’t come in a bottle btw – in a can which we have to open and pour out the contents entirely).
Today’s devotion passage was Isaiah 60:1-6 on which we reflected upon to pick up 1 word that we were most fearful of and another word that would provide comfort to our fear listed. Most of the team mentioned – Darkness. The darkness of the unsaved in Fiji and the urgency that we’ve seen for God’s word to be brought to them. How we are in the light and as a result on this STM everything we do is closely inspected and scrutinized. We are supposed to be a good example for them as a lot of Chinese here are very skeptical of the Christians as they do not show godly behavior (as informed by our host when she was explaining to us the culture of Fiji and a brief history of the church). This is one of the main reasons why the church in Fiji is finding it hard to grow. We are very conscious of our actions in Fiji as we know everyone is watching us – but how about when we return to our comfort zones in Sydney?? This was the challenge posed to us.
So the kids arrived and they started by playing games with Grace Choy and Little Peter whilst the rest of us set up the registration table and the projector for praise and worship.
The first game played was how to create a circle out of a single piece of paper. The kids cracked their brain on how to achieve that and were amused when the solution was showed to them. (The next day – a kid actually showed Peter a circle that he had gone home to make with a big piece of paper. That was so cool knowing that they actually remember what we teach them!)
Today the kids learnt 3 new songs with Ben:
1. With Christ in the Vessel
2. I Love you Jesus Deep Down in my Heart
3. I’ve got peace like a river
Somehow or rather our own Sunday school songs are being recycled. I guess this is what you can call “evergreen”. I can bring myself back to the days and picture myself doing exactly the same actions and singing with the same amount of gusto when I was their age. How wonderful to be able to pass this down to the next generation.
Day 2’s theme was “We all say NO to God” and Hsien used the whiteboard to draw a massive diagram to show how God created everything in the 7 days and how Adam and Eve sinned as a result we all have said “No” to God. The kids understood the idea and successfully memorized Romans 3:23 – We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Hu Die did a great job of preparing the craft work and the kids enjoyed their coloring session. We also started the rehersals for the final dance presentation item on Sunday. The elder kids are dancing to “My Redemeer Lives” And the younger ones are dancing (very happily) to “This Little Light of Mine”. They all get so happy at the chorus whilst “shining” they just jump around and yell so innocently.
Most parents came a little later to pick up their kids and we decided to start showing “Prince of Egypt”. They were soooo engrossed in it and didn’t want to leave even though their parents were waiting at the door.
During the debrief session, we all agreed that Day 2 ran more smoothly and the kids are respecting us more and I feel have let their barriers “down” a little more. This is the result of taking the suggestions on how we could improve the Kids Program into consideration and preparing what we would be presenting/singing/the workshop materials the day before. In this way, we all knew what was going on and could step up to the Leadership role and take control of the kids.
We all went separate ways with Peter, Ben and myself heading to a local swimming pool to swim and Hsien and Hu Die doing grocery shopping for dinner. Grace Choy stayed in church to prepare her presentations for the next day. However, we were all in for a rude shock when we gathered back home.
THERE WAS NO WATER.
Oh great. God had answered my prayers about not giving us any more cockroaches at home but now we had no water. We couldn’t cook dinner…we couldn’t shower… we couldn’t wash the dishes…we were all sticky and smelly from the whole day out + the fiji hot and humid weather. A very kind church member had given us 2 fish for dinner and we were really looking forward to it. We had no choice but to use the drinking water cooler that our host had provided and really ration the water.
Hu Die and Hsien did a fantastic job with the lack of water, and despite the rice being a bit hard, we still had a delicious dinner of fried eggplant, cucumber and chilli fish. The whole shower issue was solved when we tagged along with our host family to head back to church to bathe.
We filled up 7 water bottles to bring home too (this morning the dirt in the water had all settled at the bottom of the bottles and looked like sand). Quite gross but better than having no water at all. See, simple things like that we have taken for granted in our normal everyday lives.
I hope you enjoy the photos from Day 2 of the Kids Holiday Club program and a hilarious video of Ben dancing.
P.s: This morning we had water trickling from the tap. There is enough for us to wash our hands and brush our teeth with, but not enough for us to bathe with.
Day 2 of the Kids Holiday Program and the morning was the usual – taking turns in the toilet and making sure that no other water outlet was being used whilst someone was showering. Coffee and freshly baked toast (only $0.90 per loaf!!) and fried eggs with tomato sauce (which doesn’t come in a bottle btw – in a can which we have to open and pour out the contents entirely).
Today’s devotion passage was Isaiah 60:1-6 on which we reflected upon to pick up 1 word that we were most fearful of and another word that would provide comfort to our fear listed. Most of the team mentioned – Darkness. The darkness of the unsaved in Fiji and the urgency that we’ve seen for God’s word to be brought to them. How we are in the light and as a result on this STM everything we do is closely inspected and scrutinized. We are supposed to be a good example for them as a lot of Chinese here are very skeptical of the Christians as they do not show godly behavior (as informed by our host when she was explaining to us the culture of Fiji and a brief history of the church). This is one of the main reasons why the church in Fiji is finding it hard to grow. We are very conscious of our actions in Fiji as we know everyone is watching us – but how about when we return to our comfort zones in Sydney?? This was the challenge posed to us.
So the kids arrived and they started by playing games with Grace Choy and Little Peter whilst the rest of us set up the registration table and the projector for praise and worship.
The first game played was how to create a circle out of a single piece of paper. The kids cracked their brain on how to achieve that and were amused when the solution was showed to them. (The next day – a kid actually showed Peter a circle that he had gone home to make with a big piece of paper. That was so cool knowing that they actually remember what we teach them!)
Today the kids learnt 3 new songs with Ben:
1. With Christ in the Vessel
2. I Love you Jesus Deep Down in my Heart
3. I’ve got peace like a river
Somehow or rather our own Sunday school songs are being recycled. I guess this is what you can call “evergreen”. I can bring myself back to the days and picture myself doing exactly the same actions and singing with the same amount of gusto when I was their age. How wonderful to be able to pass this down to the next generation.
Day 2’s theme was “We all say NO to God” and Hsien used the whiteboard to draw a massive diagram to show how God created everything in the 7 days and how Adam and Eve sinned as a result we all have said “No” to God. The kids understood the idea and successfully memorized Romans 3:23 – We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Hu Die did a great job of preparing the craft work and the kids enjoyed their coloring session. We also started the rehersals for the final dance presentation item on Sunday. The elder kids are dancing to “My Redemeer Lives” And the younger ones are dancing (very happily) to “This Little Light of Mine”. They all get so happy at the chorus whilst “shining” they just jump around and yell so innocently.
Most parents came a little later to pick up their kids and we decided to start showing “Prince of Egypt”. They were soooo engrossed in it and didn’t want to leave even though their parents were waiting at the door.
During the debrief session, we all agreed that Day 2 ran more smoothly and the kids are respecting us more and I feel have let their barriers “down” a little more. This is the result of taking the suggestions on how we could improve the Kids Program into consideration and preparing what we would be presenting/singing/the workshop materials the day before. In this way, we all knew what was going on and could step up to the Leadership role and take control of the kids.
We all went separate ways with Peter, Ben and myself heading to a local swimming pool to swim and Hsien and Hu Die doing grocery shopping for dinner. Grace Choy stayed in church to prepare her presentations for the next day. However, we were all in for a rude shock when we gathered back home.
THERE WAS NO WATER.
Oh great. God had answered my prayers about not giving us any more cockroaches at home but now we had no water. We couldn’t cook dinner…we couldn’t shower… we couldn’t wash the dishes…we were all sticky and smelly from the whole day out + the fiji hot and humid weather. A very kind church member had given us 2 fish for dinner and we were really looking forward to it. We had no choice but to use the drinking water cooler that our host had provided and really ration the water.
Hu Die and Hsien did a fantastic job with the lack of water, and despite the rice being a bit hard, we still had a delicious dinner of fried eggplant, cucumber and chilli fish. The whole shower issue was solved when we tagged along with our host family to head back to church to bathe.
We filled up 7 water bottles to bring home too (this morning the dirt in the water had all settled at the bottom of the bottles and looked like sand). Quite gross but better than having no water at all. See, simple things like that we have taken for granted in our normal everyday lives.
I hope you enjoy the photos from Day 2 of the Kids Holiday Club program and a hilarious video of Ben dancing.
P.s: This morning we had water trickling from the tap. There is enough for us to wash our hands and brush our teeth with, but not enough for us to bathe with.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Kids Club has Kicked Off!!!!
Fiji Day 3
WOO HOO!!! Monday is finally here!!
We had a simple breakfast of bread (not toast), butter, fried eggs (thanks to Grace Choy) and tomato sauce. With staples of coffee (did someone say Good Morning?) and Hot Chocolate (brought in by Peter just in case).
Hailing a taxi to the church was easy this morning.. and we gathered back with Dr Peter Chen and Winnie for a short morning devotion where we read 1 John 3:11-24 where we learnt about Love and Psalm 100.
The first 2 children – Mindy and Kevin that Hsien had to give them a piece of paper and a craft punch to keep them occupied. AND THEN… EVERYONE ARRIVED. Like MASS arrived. Poor Hu Die and I were trying to keep up with all the kids – name tags, registration, money collection etc. everyone was running amok.. some kids only spoke English, some spoke Chinese and some only responded to Cantonese. Like a simple question – “how old are you” had to be repeated to the kid 3 times before we obtained a response. Plus they were all so excitable and eager to join the other kids in playing games.
A few of the parents lingered around before leaving – back to tend their provision shops. Ben kicked off the program with 3 songs…1. Who’s the King of the Jungle? 2. The B-I-B-L-E and 3. This little light of mine. The kids happily sang (shouted) and danced along.
Next up was the workshop by Grace Choy who “created” an aquarium universe as a analogy to God creating our world and our universe. The kids were pretty amazed and participated in “creating” the aquarium world too.
After that, the kids were split up (by age) into 3 groups to do bible learning and a little bit of craft time. The bible passage they studied was the 7 days of creation. However, the age group 5 and below were a little too young and showed that they were more interested in the colouring sessions and toys around. The other 2 groups of ages 6-8 and ages 9 and above were having fun exploring the verses with the leaders and did well in memorizing Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
After a delicious lunch, there was another sing-a-long session and then bible verse memorising time... Grace Choy was taunted the whole night by Ben cos she wrote "God created heavens and the earth". opppsssss....
They did pretty well i must admit and it was time for the parents to come and pick up their kids. One poor gal almost walked out of the gate to walk home herself cos her parents forgot to pick her up. Luckily Winnie spotted her and we called her dad who came round to pick her up. YIKES.
During the debrief session, we then listed out the good points and the bad points of the day's activities.
Good points:
1. The kids paid attention thanks to the rule nof listening to the leaders
2. Talk sessions were closely related to the workshops and so the kids understood the concept of God creating the world.
3. Participation to get the kids involved during the talks and workshops
4. Praise & worship time - all leaders showed a good example by doing the actions
5. Lunch was good & organised
6. The "forcing" of the kids to recite the simple memory verse
Bad points:
1. Grace Choy's grammar!!!
2. Not very prepared for the day's activities - had to rush to photocopy extra colouring materials for the kids as there weren't enough copies
3. Ben had to use bigger hand actions to show the kids
4. Clearer directions have to be given by the leaders when communicating with the kids
Dr Peter Chen and Herbert also commented on our performance which was good overall...just that we would have to be more prepared for our talks and materials. But they were very encouraged by the number of children who had attended.
We then headed home to cook dinner (Thanks Hsien and Hu Die) - a simple meal of fried rice. Our hosts were very nice and obtained a brand new water dispenser for us - so that we wouldn't have to waste money buying a carton of fiji water. The sorta dispenser that has cold and hot water tap options. and they carried 2 huge water "tanks" upstairs for us. They have certainly gone out of their way as hosts and we are so thankful for their hospitality.
Slideshow pics of Day 3 below. We hope that you guys are keeping "cool" in Sydney cos it's really warm and humid here!! :)
WOO HOO!!! Monday is finally here!!
We had a simple breakfast of bread (not toast), butter, fried eggs (thanks to Grace Choy) and tomato sauce. With staples of coffee (did someone say Good Morning?) and Hot Chocolate (brought in by Peter just in case).
Hailing a taxi to the church was easy this morning.. and we gathered back with Dr Peter Chen and Winnie for a short morning devotion where we read 1 John 3:11-24 where we learnt about Love and Psalm 100.
The first 2 children – Mindy and Kevin that Hsien had to give them a piece of paper and a craft punch to keep them occupied. AND THEN… EVERYONE ARRIVED. Like MASS arrived. Poor Hu Die and I were trying to keep up with all the kids – name tags, registration, money collection etc. everyone was running amok.. some kids only spoke English, some spoke Chinese and some only responded to Cantonese. Like a simple question – “how old are you” had to be repeated to the kid 3 times before we obtained a response. Plus they were all so excitable and eager to join the other kids in playing games.
A few of the parents lingered around before leaving – back to tend their provision shops. Ben kicked off the program with 3 songs…1. Who’s the King of the Jungle? 2. The B-I-B-L-E and 3. This little light of mine. The kids happily sang (shouted) and danced along.
Next up was the workshop by Grace Choy who “created” an aquarium universe as a analogy to God creating our world and our universe. The kids were pretty amazed and participated in “creating” the aquarium world too.
After that, the kids were split up (by age) into 3 groups to do bible learning and a little bit of craft time. The bible passage they studied was the 7 days of creation. However, the age group 5 and below were a little too young and showed that they were more interested in the colouring sessions and toys around. The other 2 groups of ages 6-8 and ages 9 and above were having fun exploring the verses with the leaders and did well in memorizing Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
After a delicious lunch, there was another sing-a-long session and then bible verse memorising time... Grace Choy was taunted the whole night by Ben cos she wrote "God created heavens and the earth". opppsssss....
They did pretty well i must admit and it was time for the parents to come and pick up their kids. One poor gal almost walked out of the gate to walk home herself cos her parents forgot to pick her up. Luckily Winnie spotted her and we called her dad who came round to pick her up. YIKES.
During the debrief session, we then listed out the good points and the bad points of the day's activities.
Good points:
1. The kids paid attention thanks to the rule nof listening to the leaders
2. Talk sessions were closely related to the workshops and so the kids understood the concept of God creating the world.
3. Participation to get the kids involved during the talks and workshops
4. Praise & worship time - all leaders showed a good example by doing the actions
5. Lunch was good & organised
6. The "forcing" of the kids to recite the simple memory verse
Bad points:
1. Grace Choy's grammar!!!
2. Not very prepared for the day's activities - had to rush to photocopy extra colouring materials for the kids as there weren't enough copies
3. Ben had to use bigger hand actions to show the kids
4. Clearer directions have to be given by the leaders when communicating with the kids
Dr Peter Chen and Herbert also commented on our performance which was good overall...just that we would have to be more prepared for our talks and materials. But they were very encouraged by the number of children who had attended.
We then headed home to cook dinner (Thanks Hsien and Hu Die) - a simple meal of fried rice. Our hosts were very nice and obtained a brand new water dispenser for us - so that we wouldn't have to waste money buying a carton of fiji water. The sorta dispenser that has cold and hot water tap options. and they carried 2 huge water "tanks" upstairs for us. They have certainly gone out of their way as hosts and we are so thankful for their hospitality.
Slideshow pics of Day 3 below. We hope that you guys are keeping "cool" in Sydney cos it's really warm and humid here!! :)
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Fiji Day 2
The day started bright and early for us. The over enthusiastic boys and me woke up at 5.30am to go swimming. The rest of the time awoke not too long later and everyone was at the breakfast table at 6.30am. The nice waiter gave us a whole basket full of butter upon request and a whole jug full of maple syrup which was a little too much for us to handle…
No one dared to drink too much water though as the bus trip from Nadi to Suva would take us 3 hours and we had been warned that there would be no toilet stop on the way. Yikes! The coach ride was ok though, most of us slept the way through.. and there were 2 toilet stops.
The beautiful view from the coach ride up to Suva.
We arrived at Suva around 11.30am and there were church members waiting there to pick us up already. After loading everything onto the van we made our way to church. WOW.. nothing prepared me for the warm reception we received…
Once we stepped through the doors, the WHOLE church was standing there to clap, shake our hands and welcome us. I actually felt myself tear up when more than one of them said “thank you so much for coming here to do this…” I was like.. to us it’s a simple Mission trip to share God’s love to the children here in Suva but to them it was as if we were them viewing an oasis in the desert. That sort of enthusiasm and thankfulness that we were here.
At that point I felt as though feeding all the mosquitoes here in Suva had been worth it.. well..almost. (check out Hu Die’s feet that the mosquitoes in Nadi had a feast on..) Aeroguard and Off! Are our best friends here.
We had church with them and chatted a little bit… that was good as we had the opportunity to get to know the church members and children better. A few core church members sat down with the Missionary Pastor Herbert & his wife Esther to get orientated with the place, how the church was founded, the demographics of Suva and the church currently as well as updates on the registration numbers for the Kids Holiday Club program.
We were really blessed that our host family – Xiao Zhang and Ying Lan live along this street where there are mostly families from Guang Zhou and speak Cantonese. Grace Choy went down to visit the shops and the families and they were all very warm and friendly when they realized that they had a common language with us. (one shop owner even gave us 2 bottles of coke free!!) They all informed that they had registered their kids for the Holiday Kids Club Program and it was nice for them to be able to meet up as to put a face to with whom their kids would be with for the next 5 days.
Our host family has been very very welcoming and accommodating to us. They stocked up on basic necessities (eg. Cooking oil, rice, toilet paper!!! Etc) for us. The place that we are staying in is very basic but cosy as we are all able to be under one roof together and the living room has been more popular than the rooms as it’s cooler and it’s just nice to hang out together there. We truly have been so blessed…
In the evening, we headed back to church to attend a “factory ladies” evening service. Thank God for our gifts and talents in music.. to be able to songlead and lead the service so that Herbert and Esther could take a well deserved break and just be part of the congregation. We all shared our testimonies and made friends with the ladies who are from China.
But what a surprise greeted us when we arrived home... there were a couple of big fat black cockroaches all around (apparently they are quite common in Fiji) but still super YUCKS!!!!! Luckily the boys came to our rescue and they started a counting game on how many cockroaches they could kill in a night...... SHUDDER.
The day started bright and early for us. The over enthusiastic boys and me woke up at 5.30am to go swimming. The rest of the time awoke not too long later and everyone was at the breakfast table at 6.30am. The nice waiter gave us a whole basket full of butter upon request and a whole jug full of maple syrup which was a little too much for us to handle…
No one dared to drink too much water though as the bus trip from Nadi to Suva would take us 3 hours and we had been warned that there would be no toilet stop on the way. Yikes! The coach ride was ok though, most of us slept the way through.. and there were 2 toilet stops.
The beautiful view from the coach ride up to Suva.
We arrived at Suva around 11.30am and there were church members waiting there to pick us up already. After loading everything onto the van we made our way to church. WOW.. nothing prepared me for the warm reception we received…
Once we stepped through the doors, the WHOLE church was standing there to clap, shake our hands and welcome us. I actually felt myself tear up when more than one of them said “thank you so much for coming here to do this…” I was like.. to us it’s a simple Mission trip to share God’s love to the children here in Suva but to them it was as if we were them viewing an oasis in the desert. That sort of enthusiasm and thankfulness that we were here.
At that point I felt as though feeding all the mosquitoes here in Suva had been worth it.. well..almost. (check out Hu Die’s feet that the mosquitoes in Nadi had a feast on..) Aeroguard and Off! Are our best friends here.
We had church with them and chatted a little bit… that was good as we had the opportunity to get to know the church members and children better. A few core church members sat down with the Missionary Pastor Herbert & his wife Esther to get orientated with the place, how the church was founded, the demographics of Suva and the church currently as well as updates on the registration numbers for the Kids Holiday Club program.
We were really blessed that our host family – Xiao Zhang and Ying Lan live along this street where there are mostly families from Guang Zhou and speak Cantonese. Grace Choy went down to visit the shops and the families and they were all very warm and friendly when they realized that they had a common language with us. (one shop owner even gave us 2 bottles of coke free!!) They all informed that they had registered their kids for the Holiday Kids Club Program and it was nice for them to be able to meet up as to put a face to with whom their kids would be with for the next 5 days.
Our host family has been very very welcoming and accommodating to us. They stocked up on basic necessities (eg. Cooking oil, rice, toilet paper!!! Etc) for us. The place that we are staying in is very basic but cosy as we are all able to be under one roof together and the living room has been more popular than the rooms as it’s cooler and it’s just nice to hang out together there. We truly have been so blessed…
In the evening, we headed back to church to attend a “factory ladies” evening service. Thank God for our gifts and talents in music.. to be able to songlead and lead the service so that Herbert and Esther could take a well deserved break and just be part of the congregation. We all shared our testimonies and made friends with the ladies who are from China.
But what a surprise greeted us when we arrived home... there were a couple of big fat black cockroaches all around (apparently they are quite common in Fiji) but still super YUCKS!!!!! Luckily the boys came to our rescue and they started a counting game on how many cockroaches they could kill in a night...... SHUDDER.
Tiredness soon got the better of us and after checking our beds/rooms for any relatives of the abovementioned dead bugs, we all crashed to sleep in anticipation of the Kids Club activities starting tomorrow.
*UPDATE: the internet here is at 10.0Mbps and uploading individual pics to the blog has proven to be quite painful. Therefore, please refer to the slideshow below for all the pics and captions of the day... :)
*UPDATE: the internet here is at 10.0Mbps and uploading individual pics to the blog has proven to be quite painful. Therefore, please refer to the slideshow below for all the pics and captions of the day... :)
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Fiji Day 1
Fiji Day 1
So we’re off.. it almost feels surreal that this is actually happening.. after all the planning and meetings and preparations for this. The time is now. We met up in church and happily tagged all our luggage (some of which actually felt like we were transporting gold bars inside due to all the materials and books we were bringing for the kids program).
Hsien briefing the boys at the airport..
So we’re off.. it almost feels surreal that this is actually happening.. after all the planning and meetings and preparations for this. The time is now. We met up in church and happily tagged all our luggage (some of which actually felt like we were transporting gold bars inside due to all the materials and books we were bringing for the kids program).
It looked like we were all running away from home with all the suitcases. .but we were all so excited for this trip and all the challenges ahead of us…
The poor boys (Ben and Little Peter) were actually in charge of most movement of the luggage. So I’m sure that they had good bicep and tricep weight training…
The poor boys (Ben and Little Peter) were actually in charge of most movement of the luggage. So I’m sure that they had good bicep and tricep weight training…
Aww.. the sweet send off by Holly..
The never ending queue for check in……
Hsien briefing the boys at the airport..
There were forms forms and more forms to fill in.. a couple of us were seated right at the back of the airplane and even eating our meals was a challenge…
Grace Choy enjoying the in-flight entertainment… 
Happy People after our Roast Chicken in mushroom sauce dinner….
Happy People after our Roast Chicken in mushroom sauce dinner…. 
And then 4 hours later.. we had safely arrived in Nadi, Fiji.
We were “attacked” by mosquitos once we stepped off the plane.. and the whole evening air was humid and so warm… felt like Singapore/Malaysia.
When we walked into the immigration hall, we were pleasantly greated by singing humans…and couldn’t resist but take some cheesy touristy pictures with them..
p.s: I don’t know why my camera has a “snowy” blurry effect on the pictures with them.
We were “attacked” by mosquitos once we stepped off the plane.. and the whole evening air was humid and so warm… felt like Singapore/Malaysia.
When we walked into the immigration hall, we were pleasantly greated by singing humans…and couldn’t resist but take some cheesy touristy pictures with them..
p.s: I don’t know why my camera has a “snowy” blurry effect on the pictures with them.
So everything went relatively smoothly and the whinging about the heat was actually quite limited.. The air-conditioning system in the whole Nadi airport was not working and they were relying on massive fans to do the job.. but all they were doing was blowing the warm air from one side of the airport to the other side. Hmm…
We then proceeded to our lodging for the night.. Nomads Skylodge… by the time we all reached the place it was already 9pm!! They were kind enough to provide a shuttle bus to the lodge so that we wouldn’t have to lug all our luggage around..
In the mini van on the way to place the luggage in the rooms… 
The boys promoting the Fiji Water… 
Hsien being very careful a bout the bottled water she was about to drink…
Dr Peter Chen and Winnie Chen waiting patiently for dinner…
Sweet dreams guys…the interstate bus from Nadi to Suva is arriving at 7.30am tomorrow so we have to be at the breakfast table at 6.30am….
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