Raglan

We had a great time in Raglan! It was so good to just sit for a day and a 1/2 and enjoy each others company, walk on the beach, watch surfers, drink coffee, read, and just plain relax. We came home feeling refueled for the week!

Looks like the summer weather has arrived. Straight after we got home from Raglan, Josh decided to bike over to "The Mount" (about a 35km route) where we met up together and climbed it. It was stunning today with such clear sky, you could see for miles up and down the coast. Another typical sunny day in "The Bay".

Dinner with the rest of the Cole tribe tonight, as Grampy has just arrived from Melbourne for a few weeks. Always a pleasure to see him. We finished the night with a disgustingly competitive game of cards, which was fun for all involved, especially Matt who took the honors tongiht.

Looking forward to another week. Bed time!

IWT Fiji vid and more....

Friends! I have almost finished putting together a 6 min video with highlights from the tour in Fiji. If you would like a copy of this, flick me an email at joshuac@impactworldtour.com and I will send it out to you when i have a chance. I might try and put a 20 second preview up on the blog in the next week or two.

It's so good to be back in NZ after spending extended times in in Fiji. Coming back to NZ, I realise how blessed we are to live in such an amazing country and a great city!

We've had a tonne of visitors since arriving back which has been fantastic, but tiring, so Misty and I are looking forward to a relaxing weekend away in Raglan this weekend. Raglan is a small, beautiful surf community by the beach, about 1 and 1/2 hours drive west of Tauranga. Should be great! Might even throw the line in an try and catch a fish.

Tamarillo Chutney.

Yeah....that's right. It's got to be one of the best things I've had to eat in a long long time (Thanks to Misty)! Surprising, as I usually don't like tamarillo's. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a piece of red fruit that grows on a tree that is cross between a tomatoe and a passion fruit. Tastes bitter and sour.

(Well, the BBQ last night was good value too)

Josh.

Fiji Stats and Reports webpage.

Hey!

Josh here, on my way home. Looking forward to a bit of a break, it's been full on in Fiji. The tour finished on a high note.

Go to this website if you want to read up on the whole tour, you'll also find stats and tetimonies from IWT's sweep through Fiji.

Click Here.

Permanent Residence in New Zealand

Well folks, it is official. Yesterday, on the last day of IWT Fiji, I received notification that I have been approved for Permanent Residency in New Zealand. I never knew how happy a letter from immigration could make me feel. Now I just have to send off my passport to get stamped, pay the immigration department more money, and then it is official. I will be a permanent resident of New Zealand. It looks like full on season change is upon us.

Fun in the mud....

WOW, I have never been involved with such an amazing group of people. We have 120 odd people from all over the world who have travelled The length and breadth of Fiji to proclaim the gospel to over 180,000 people. Almost 18,000 have responded in total. These teams have had to contend with the elements in every place, not just the physical, but also the spiritual.

Last night was a great example of this. It absolutely poured down with rain, it was torrential rain if I have ever seen it. It's funny, none of the crowd in Fiji ever leaves when it starts raining, in fact they enjoy it even more it seems. In Lami, Team Xtreme decided that on their final night, they would add a piece into their show, so they put up some boundaries, and began to have a mud wrestling competition, WWF style. A couple of the guys are ex-wrestlers, so you can imagine it just sent the crowd wild! Everyone was in good spirit despite the rain.

Nasinu - Island Breeze.
Crowd: 4,000
Response: 207
Poured with rain during altar call, hard to get response cards.

Lami - Team Xtreme
Crowd: 500
Response: 150
Great fun mud wrestling.

Pics. My foot in the mud. Rain duing altar call.

Last look at the camera before stitches came out.

G'day folks, Josh here again. I'm so happy to have those jolly stitches out of my arm. It is healing up nicely. The only concern is that after the stitches came out, it opened up slightly because its close to the joint and because of how deep the wound was. It still hurts a fair bit, and I have about 50% strength in my arm. The bloke at the hospital said it should take a month or so until full strength comes back 'cos of nerve and tendon damage.

It's been raining all mourning here in Suva, but the sun has just reappeared, which is a beautiful thing. It's about as rare as hens teeth to have sunshine in these parts!

2 more nights until the tour is finished, "incredible time" would be a true understatement.

Total stats so far:
Crowd: Over 150,000
Response: 16,028

I miss my gorgeous wife!

Come on!

A massive night in Suva tonight!

Nasinu (Heart of Suva)
Crowd: 6,000
Response: 774
Awesome anointing on the preaching, Presance of God thick.

Lami (Sattelite)
Crowd: 1,500
Response: 150

It started to rain about 5pm, but stopped about 6:30pm and cleared for both shows, amazing night!

Something that made me laugh...

What's the difference between a tea bag and the All Blacks? A tea bag stays in the cup longer....

Breakdancing.

This is for you to have a quick glimpse of some of the stuff our guys do in the schools in between preaching the gospel. More vid's coming your way!

sweet as....

This is amazing....about 2 months ago, when dad and I were in Fiji, Dad lost his bible at the big World Harvest Centre Church in Fiji. At the time he was kinda bummed about it, we looked everywhere and could not find it. Well....tonight, after setting up at the ground for the campaigns in the heart of Suva for the next 3 nights, Dad and I were the only ones left at the ground waiting for the security to come, and as we waited, this guy came up and said "where's Josh", and then went on to say "have you lost a bible?". Neither of us had seen this guy before. When Dad told him that it was his bible that had been lost over 8 weeks ago, He replied "my friend has it at his house, just around the corner". To cut a long story short, he recognised me (Josh) from a photo that dad had from my wedding, with "Josh and Misty" written on the back of the photo. He went straight to his friends house, retrieved the bible and bought it back in perfect condition! WOW. it was just one of those amazing God things!

Things are going AMAZING! We felt like something has been broken over the city. After 5 weeks of pretty much straight rain, it has not rained for 4 days, in fact it has been beautiful weather which has dried everything out. The wind has totally changed coming from the opposite direction, Pastors are on board and excited, hundreds came to Christ at a school today, over 1,000 came to Christ in Levuka Last night, we feel it will be like a Spiritual Bomb going off in the heart of Suva to finish this tour off with a bang! Everyone is talking about it, we could be in for some huge crowds.

Pray the weather will stay dry until Sunday.

Injury Report: Cut healing nicely, still a little sore, stitches out tomorrow!

Travel: Will arrive back in Tauranga next Wednesday Arvo (17th) after debrief with IWT staff.

Pics of set up today and the sunset tonight over the field.

No rain in 24 hours...

Yep, we all can't believe it over here in Fiji, it's been 24 hours since I last wrote (or close to it) and it still hasn't rained....in fact the sun is out in full force.

Eeryone is in good spirit here. It's Fiji day, a national holiday, so most of our teams and staff are either travelling to Levuka on a boat, or having a well deserved day off, jumping off waterfalls, shopping, emailing, hotelling, or sleeping.

Josh's Sunday night musings...

Well I feel satisfied and fulfilled today, it's the first day since arriving in Fiji 5 days ago, that the sun has come out in full force! It seems to have totally lifted the mood of everyone around, including myself who felt almost waterlogged from the continuous rain.

We've had an incredible week here with almost 3,000 people responding to the gospel this week, even in the rain and the mud. It's been quite incredible really to see hundreds come forward to give their lives to Jesus. It never gets old....it's exciting, fulfilling, and rewarding to be a part of something that can have such a major impact on entire cities.

I was talking to one Indian lady who gave her life to Jesus 2 nights ago. She was telling me how she was a Hindu and gave her life to Jesus the last night, and then brought her husband along and he gave his life to Jesus, she was so happy, and was radiant with Joy! Awesome!

Thoughts on the rugby: This was the first entire game I had watched from the whole world cup so far. I'm not surprised at all by the result. My suspicion all along was that New Zealand would not win the World Cup....there are many opinions flying about as to why they lost to France today, but it's quite plain as far as I can see, they were beaten by a better team on the day, and that's sport. I'm stoked I'm in Fiji at this time, and involved in something far more exciting than rugby will ever be!

Injury report: Well the cut on the elbow is still quite sore, and my fingers are tingly, but its getting better. Still can't bend my arm, which is annoying, and it's been difficult to try to keep it dry in this wet weather. I should have the stiches out in a few days which will be nice. At least I'll have a "battle scar" from Fiji.

Bless ya! Josh

280 Come to Christ in Hindu School!

Yesturday GX International was performing at a Hindu school called Suva Sangam which has approx 800 students. The crowd, including many teachers, were hanging over the balcony as they watched and listened to GX. It was an awesome time with God pouring out His spirit in a powerful way. The presence of God was so thick during this lunch time show, we could see how the power of the gospel was penetrating the hearts of searching, wrestless teenagers. One of the GXer's shared about how God had delivered him from a life of drugs, and even spared him from death after flat lining for 5 minutes from a drug overdose, and being betrayed by his very own wife. As he spoke a hush came over the students as the presence of God fell. Rain started to fall as hundreds of students responded to the altar call. In Fiji, if it rains, people still come. It was an awesome time! Over 280 students gave their lives to Jesus, and received prayer from the GX team and IWT Staff.

That school will never be the same, this is radical what's happening.

After being sewn up!

yeah kinda gross....but trust me, it looks really good here compared to what it was.

Hospital Take Over

Hey, Josh here this time! Yeah bummer about the accident yesterday. I slept most of the day as I was out on some pretty heavy drugs! The nurse had to give me an injection in my bum....first time I've had anything like that, not too much fun let me tell you. My Pulse/blood pressure went very low as I was in some sort of shock. Anyway....they stitched me up, and I'm feeling pretty good today, can bend my elbow, but not too far. The wound was about an inch deep and an inch wide.

The funniest part about it was when my Dad fainted in the hospital after seeing my open wound, hitting his head on the wall beside the hospital bed and almost taking down the drip system that I was attached too. The doctor had to stop taking care of me to make sure Dad was OK, he came off lightly with a small cut to the forehead and a bit of a bruise. Within seconds he had taken up the space on the adjacent hospital bed, yep the Coles had taken over Suva Private Hospital!

Yesterday one of our skaters injured his foot badly during a show and a girl on the tech team took a heavy knock to her knee. Pray for protection and safety!

Last night was a great night here in Suva with 788 people making decisions to give their lives to Jesus! Praise God! It's so awesome to be back here in Fiji being apart of what God is doing in the Islands of the South Seas!

Will keep you posted.

Fiji Hospitals and Josh

For all of you guys out there praying for the tour, please add Josh's physical health to the prayer list. Today Josh ended up in hospital due to a simi-major accident. He is now out and in recovery, but this is not what a wife wants to hear...here is the story.

Josh was helping set up the stage for tonight’s TX performance when the accident happened. He was lifting a huge log (a prop) off the transport truck and on to the stage with the help of another guy. All of the sudden the other guy lost their grip on the log and it came crashing down on Josh's arm. The log had pinned Josh's arm between itself and the metal edge of the truck. Apparently this sliced Josh's arm an inch deep right through a tendon. Josh immediately went into shock and they rushed him to a clean, private hospital.

Once at the hospital, they stitched him back together and bandaged his arm. He should regain all mobility in 1 months time. Presently his right hand is numb, swollen, and unusable. He is weak from the shock of it all and is not feeling very encouraged. Please pray for his recovery and grace for him to take it slow. I am sure you can imagine how frustrating for Josh this is, especially at this crucial point in the project.

Thanks for walking through this with us. Your prayer covering keeps us alive.

Home made jam.

Over the weekend, I tried something new. I made kiwifruit jam! it was a great success.....a little runny, however very tasty, and quite easy to produce. Also, Josh bought me a food processor the other day, so I'm very excited about that, and looking forward to being able to make more yummy goodies!