Coup Set for Today at Noon

This week we have had the Global Pastors Netowrk Congress, which our IES students and ourselves were invited to. It’s been amazing to rub shoulders with some amazing men and women of God, including Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With a Mission. When Loren met Misty and found out she was from Austin, Texas, He said to Josh, “I think of you much better now that I’ve met your other half”.

The Political situation here in Fiji continues to be unstable as I’m sure you’ve seen on the news. The Coup is set to take place at noon today. However, we’re safe and ok, and everything should be fine….In saying that we are ready to evacuate if need be. Life seems normal here in Suva, and if we didn’t read the news we would barely know anything was happening.

We only a few days left with the first ever IES here in Suva. We’re looking forward to catching our breath for a couple of days after graduation, next Wednesday, before heading back to New Zealand on Saturday the 10th. We’ll be moving back to our place at the beach for 10 days and will be looking for a new place to stay. Christmas with the Coles @ Ruahihi Rd should be great and we are so looking forward to it.

Extra Extra Read All About It

Wow what an exciting last few days. Josh, myself, and a van load of students headed over to Nadia, in the Western part of Fiji. We had a banquet on Monday night with hosted by the local Christian Mission Fellowship. It was great for the students to experience a fundraising banquet...and as usual the Lord showed and we raise almost 18,000 from a crowd of maybe a 150 people. It was great. The eight hours of driving really wore us all out though.

Most of you are probably hearing bad news about Fiji's political situation. The media is really having a field day. I would like to report that things are still peaceful here. Keep praying though. The Global Pastor's Network Meeting starts in just a few hours, so as news blares "Don't Come to Fiji, especially Suva" over 600 of God's generals are gathering in this city. Over the next 4 days they will be meeting to come up with stratigies for total world evangelism in the next 15 years. Ourselves and our students will be right in the middle of the mix, which is a huge privilege and honor. Now with something like that going on, is it any wonder there is turmoil? I think not.......

Never a dull moment in the islands.

Well after a full week of teaching, and a full on Thanksgiving celebration, Josh and I are enjoying the weekend (we get to sleep in), however thus far it has been pretty interesting.

After class on Friday afternoon, Josh and I came home with headaches. It has officially become summer here in Fiji and it is SO HOT. You literally drip with sweat when you are just sitting still, so I think we got dehydrated despite the 4 liters of water we drank between us throughout the day. At 5:45 I decided I better do the last few dishes from the Thanksgiving feast the day before so into the kitchen I went. As I turned on the water I noticed the pressure was really low and immediately thought, “Oh no there is another water cut!” Quickly I went into the bathroom, cleaned the tub, and then began to fill it with the small tickle now coming out of the taps. By 6pm there was no water. As the DTS team arrived home from a nice sweaty day of prayer walking, we all groaned as we realized it meant no showers for any of us after sweating all day, and no water to flush the toilets and with 15+ people in the house, that is a non-negotiable….GROSS!

A couple hours later we suddenly heard thunder, the sound of torrential rain, and a bunch of people screaming outside. As we looked out our window we saw the boys from the DTS team doing a rain dance in the middle of the yard. They were yelling out “thank you Jesus, we get to shower!” It was quite funny, and Josh and I went out to have a good laugh. Suddenly, Forest yelled out, I’m going to get shampoo! Moments later a bunch of boys were soaped up, letting the rain wash them clean. It was awesome! Full shampoo and conditioner followed. And before I knew it, Josh and I were out there with them, enjoying a natural shower in our backyard at about 9pm.

Never a dull moment in Fiji, too bad the water is still off and it is Sunday afternoon.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Americans reading this! Last night we had a huge Thanksgiving dinner with our friends from the New Castle DTS. After visiting 4 grocery stores, it was as close as to American Thanksgiving as you can get in Fiji. Here’s a pic!

Thanksgiving in Fiji

Today is Thanksgiving in Fiji…and we are so thankful. After seven and a half weeks of waiting for Josh’s computer to be fixed, we have a working computer back in out possession! It is truly a miracle and we are so thankful! Josh has been smiling since we picked it up yesterday.

VJ from the HP office called at 3:55pm saying that the computer was fixed. After seven plus weeks of having our hopes raised only to crash back down again….Josh asked him if VJ if he was joking. VJ in reply said, “No I am not joking, it is really working, I have it on my desk now, you can come get it….but we close at 4:30”.

As you can imagine, as soon as Josh got off the phone all work ceased in the office. We packed up all our equipment in record time and jumped into a taxi. Making to the office just in time we tested the computer one last time, rejoiced at its’ working state, and brought it home. I have never brought home a newborn from the hospital, but I can imagine the excitement was about like that!

On another note, tonight we are celebrating Thanksgiving at our house with the New Castle DTS. We couldn’t find a turkey…but roasted Chicken will do just fine! I can’t wait for dinner! It’s time to celebrate and give thanks to God for all he has done and is doing.

Meditating on the Word

One of the things that Josh and I have been trying to teach our students to do is to dive deep in the word. One of the best ways we know to do this is by using the Meditation Model from the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. With this model you basically focus on one verse and ask the questions who, what, when, where, and why about a verse. After a set period of time, we all come back together and share what we feel like the Lord has shared with us.

Today as a class we meditated on Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. It was amazing to hear what everyone had been speaking to everyone. One of my personal favorite revelations was something Joshua shared. He was captivated by the words “shall see God”. He said that seeing God is our destiny in this age, and the age to come.

I don’t know if you think about eternity very often, but it is fascinating. The heavenly scene in set in Revelation 4 and 5, talks about creatures with eyes everywhere. The bible says that those creatures are continuously moving around the thrown gazing at God. They are just looking at God with all their eyes. God is so fascinating that for thousands of years these creatures have just been gazing and worshiping God. Now if God is that awesome…don’t you think we will be gazing at Him when we get to Heaven? It made sense to me, and I am prety sure it is scriptural. Check out the Book of Revelations it is facinating!

Giving Week

Last was giving week in our school. We started the week with a giving day, and things just kept rolling from there. It was amazing! Out of a group of about 12 people, over 1000 was raised toward paying off the outstanding school fees. People gave all kinds of things, alarms clocks, food, duty time, (where they give up sleep and take another’s breakfast duty) and even a Bula shirt to Josh. Doesn’t he look great!

Fundraising Banquet

Tonight we have our first Fundraising Event for the IES students. Just like Josh and I, they have to raise their personal support to be able to work for IWT Fiji as coordinators. So tomorrow night we are going to have a little event to try and get that ball rolling. Julie from Townsville, Australia is here with us this week teaching on event management, so it is prefect to have them practice by planning their own event. I wish you could see the wheels in their heads turning as they plan out all the details.

Mike and Pensey are still in Fiji as well. Their second week in Fiji has been full of strategizing the follow up discipleship for IWT Fiji and speaking at seminars. Their adorable son Josiah, who is 18 months old loves hanging out with Luke. Isn’t he cute?

Kids and the Army

Over the weekend and pretty much every afternoon and evening, a new trend has begun to occur at 55 Lovoni Road. Around 4 pm kids begin to come to hang out with the DTS teams, enjoy food, and hopefully get a little closer to Jesus.

It’s a bunch of kids getting together, so most of the time there are fun sports and games going on in the yard. Here is a pictures of the kids doing what they do. Our driveway is now a skate park…but hey, at least there are no pot holes!

This morning, Josh and I jumped in a Taxi ( it was a nice taxi and complete with island chill out music playing the background) and headed to the office. We had to drive right past the army base....and boy was it busy. We passed two platoons walking down the road with huge guns, a large bus filled with army personell in full uniform, and a truck filled with soliders headed somewhere.

At first we thought, something must have happend at the meeting between the Army Commander and Prime Minister yesterday at the meeting. But after a quick scan of the news we discovered that was not it. So it is a big mystery....hopefully it is nothing.....but totally pray!

Taxis in Fiji

Because Josh and I don’t have a car here in Fiji, we have been using taxis as our most frequent mode of transportation. For those of you reading this from the USA, Australia, and New Zealand…you must be thinking, “How in the world can they afford that?” The answer to that question is simple….taxis are really cheap and plentiful in Fiji. According to my calculations, which of course are very precise (I look out our front window and count how many taxis drive by verses normal cars), there are about 3 taxis out of every 5 cars.

These taxis however can be quite an experience. Sometimes they are really nice, sometimes they are about to fall apart. Sometimes they are station wagons with tons of space for things you are carrying, and sometimes they are so small you have to squish yourself just to fit inside. Sometime the drivers are literally driving like they are on the autobahn, and sometimes the car can barely make it up a hill. Sometimes they have to stop and get gas mid run, and sometimes the cars literally fall apart as you are driving down the road.

Yesterday, Josh and I had an interesting experience on our way into town. We jumped in a “relatively nice” taxi and headed into town. After we had been in the car about two minutes our Hindu taxi driver started speaking broken English about something and pulled into the gas station. Apparently his engine was overheating and he needed to add some water. There was Fijian attendant there that came up to us and started joking around about us not paying the driver because of the breakdown. We just laughed and went on our way.

On our way back from town we were in one of those “not so nice, hardly moving” taxis. Then all of the sudden, without explanation, our driver pulled over in front of the Australian Embassy. Apparently, he had a near flat tire and thought it was about to blow. So in we went to the same gas station where we had another conversation with the same Fijian attendant. This time though, when he saw us….he just started laughing and told us we had the worst luck ever. It was quite comical….but as the car was going to take awhile to fix, we walked the rest of the way home.

Simply Beautiful…Simply Homesick

Today, I am defiantly missing Tauranga, our community, and the House of Prayer. I miss going for runs by the beach and have Josh beat me by a mile, climbing the Mount and looking out over the ocean, eating fresh Snapper that Josh caught a few hours ago, being able to cook almost anything I could want to eat, hanging out with friends, having cribbage tournaments that last into the night, singing at the House of Prayer….being able to pick up my guitar (I had to leave it in Tauranga because of airline weight limitations….but I did play one that someone let me barrow last night), enjoying the perfect summer weather of New Zealand, and a whole truck load of other things. All in all I am homesick and can’t wait for Christmas.

Impact World Tour

When Josh and I first talk about Impact World Tour many people ask….”How do you plan such a big event? I would like to shed some light on this. This picture is our IWT Fiji timeline. It works just like an excel spreadsheet, and you read it like a grid. There are tons of different categories and lots to do in each one. By putting it all in a time line we can clearly see what needs to be done each month until the campaign happens. Isn’t it grand?

Unexpected Visitor

Today we had an unexpected visitor from Josh’s past…..Sam Brown. Sam Brown is a part of Lifeway College (which is a really great Christian College in New Zealand) and knows Josh through his sister Anna. Josh and Sam met on a very historic day….the only day, that the Lifeway students beat the Lifeway staff in there annual Staff/Student Rugby game. Apparently the student team needed some more players so they allowed two YWAMers (Marty and Josh) to play on their team.

Sam is a very interesting character, he is getting a Masters Degree in Insects. Now how many people do you know that do that? Sam has been in Fiji about 6 weeks, traveling the islands, collecting specimens for his Masters project. So we spent the afternoon talking about bugs over tea. According to Sam, Roaches actually do have a purpose….and Mosquitoes are the most deadly type of insects. Spiders are not classified as insects, in case you forgot that fact from high school biology. Also there are between 5 million and 10 billion insects in the world, and only 1 million of them have been named. Fascinating stuff huh?

Fiji Political Update

We have some good news about the political situation in Fiji. Over the weekend the Fijian Government dropped one of the two bills that the Fijian Government and the Fijian Military where fighting over. The bill that has been dropped is called Amnesty Bill which basically said that all those involved in the last coup would be set free…with no consequences. The Amnesty Bill was unjust to say the least. Keep praying for peace in the Fijian islands....Thursday is the day the Government and Military sit down to talk. Hopefully things will be as peaceful as this country is pictured.

Political Situation In Fiji

Josh and I wanted to ask you to pray for the political instability in Fiji. You might, or might not, have heard about some of the things going on in this country. In brief, there is a standoff between the Military Commander and the present Government. The Military Commander is asking the Government to change two corrupt government policies. If the Government will not change the policies, then the Military is asking for the government to step down. In the Government’s place, a Military Government will be put into place (by force if necessary). The Australian, USA, and New Zealand governments are threatening trade sanctions to put pressure on Fiji for a peaceful reconciliation. When the Military Commander returns, to Fiji the Government and Military will come together for talks. The talks are set for next Thursday. Hopefully they will be able to work out their differences.

The country feels very peaceful at this time, and we don’t feel like we are in danger. However, we have taken precautions and registered with the New Zealand embassy here in Suva. We are watching the situation from this end and will follow any recommendations from the New Zealand government concerning New Zealand citizens in Fiji. Presently we both feel like the disturbance is just a lot of talk and feel confident about remaining in Fiji at this point in time. Please pray for the situation.