More pics from Kids Club

Lautoka Market

Ladies weaving palm baskets in the market. They fill them up with cassava root to sell.

Lautoka pics

Pictures from Navikai, working for the elderly Indian couple. The young girl with the baby is named Koma, she's trying to leave her abusive husband but has no where to go.
The train is the sugar cane train that goes through Lautoka.

scenes

Auburn haired mongooses are shy and quick. Imported many years ago to control Fiji's snake population, they rustle into foliage at the first sight of a human. They're cute but are known to steal chicks and eggs from the hen houses. When I see them, I think about brave Riki Tiki Tavi, the story of a mongoose in India.

Also the mynah birds. Their bright yellow beaks striping back to their yellow eyes are creatures from Riki Tiki Tavi, as well. They were an exotic creature when I read about them as a child. But they are ubiquitous in the Pacific Isles. In Fiji, there is a second type of mynah that is mostly black with three tiny feathers sticking up above its beak, like a mustache.

Yesterday, we went to the Indian squatter camp outside of Nadi (pronounced "Nandi"). It's been there for a few decades. Navakai is the place we went on the last tsunami scare. We were going to dig out the ditch behind the house of an ancient couple when we heard the warning. We left with promises to return. And we did. It was much better organized this time. We had more strong males, more shovels, supplies to patch the corrugated tin roof, and Rena was with us to translate. All Fijians over age 5 speak English but also speak either Hindi or a couple dialects of Fijian. Most are more comfortable in their non-English language.

When we showed up, the ancient Indian couple was not home. We were surprised because we'd called ahead. Nevertheless, we set to work. Brian, a boy from Kid's Club, and another lightweight young man went up on the precarious roof to look for leaks. The whole structure could have been pushed over with the strength of one or two men. The rest of the crew went out back to start digging. At first, a handful of neighbors gathered to discourage us from digging the ditch. Luckily, Brian had warned the team about this very possibility.

Because I had planned to be in the house with the couple, helping with inside projects, I didn't have anything to do. So I designated myself team photographer. After some pictures, a very curious and chatty neighbor called me over to sit next to her house to talk. Soon, it was myself and about 5 neighbors asking me questions about why we were there, what group we were with, where I was from, life on the sailboat, etc. The fact that the YWAM crew were volunteers providing the supplies with their own money made a big impact on one man.

A young woman called me over and put a chair next to the outdoor cooking fire. She proceeded to tell me her story. told me about living with her in-laws who hit her, her husband hits her, and she wants to leave but has two young girls and can't support them. He wants her to leave, also but let him keep the girls. It's not like at home where you can find ways to work if you have kids. The mothers are dependent on the men. She used to go to a Christian church but married a Hindu man and he won't let her go to church. There are so many needs. It makes me feel tiny. I guess that's good. God wouldn't want us trying to put our fingers in the God sized holes in people's lives. All I was able to do was pray with her, encourage her there were people to help, and put her in contact with Rena's church which is nearby.

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Counselors going to Samoa

Seven or eight trained biblical counselors will be flying to Samoa and American Samoa within the next week to offer grief counseling to the Samoan villages that were worst hit in the tsunami. Losana, one of the gals hoping to go was telling me that some villagers are still living up in the jungley hills of Samoa in tents. They are still afraid of returning to the low lands where their village was.

If you would like to help pay for the airfare of any of the Personal Transformation Center counselors, write them: ywamptc@yahoo.com

If you want to check out more information about PTC, here's their website:
http://ptcfiji.com/index.html

Marine Reach

Imagine seeing your grown children for the first time in many many years, or receiving glasses that made your previously blurry world, clear. Or, think about having severe tooth pain for months, unable to go to the dentist. What joy you would experience if a dentist arrived at your village by ship to relieve your pain for free. Marine Reach is a branch of YWAM that makes things like these happen. They use ships to reach remote islands, and 4 - wheel drive "mercy trucks" to reach remote inland villages with mobile medical and dental clinics. Marine Reach strives to meet people's medical, physical, and spiritual needs. While people wait all day to see the doctor, members of Marine reach listen to them, pray with them, and perform evangelistic or health-related skits. Dental chairs have been set up under mango trees, eye testing and glasses fittings under coconut trees. Members of teams have repaired outboard motors for local fishermen to be able to continue their livelihoods, other teams repair people's homes, unload medical supplies sent in containers from other countries, or build medical clinics, playgrounds, and install water tanks.

The thing that draws Brian and me to this organization is its hands-on, practical approach to loving people. From 2002 to 2008, 30,121 people were treated in the islands of Fiji. This includes dentistry, ophthalmology surgeries, optometry (people given glasses), health education for entire villages, Bibles distributed, etc. Many other Pacific Islands as well as places in Asia, South America, and the Mediterranean received similar help. All services are provided for free.

We have been welcomed by the Marine Reach base here in Lautoka. It is a multi-ethnic group: Indians, Fijians, New Zealanders, a Korean and a Filipina make up the staff. This base will be hosting at least 12 short term (two weeks) land-based outreaches in 2010 with different medical focuses. One 5-month Discipleship Training School (this is the same school I attended in South Africa in 1999) is also planned. If you are a nurse, a dentist, a doctor, eye doctor, have other practical skills, or are just willing to help out, feel free to contact Marine Reach. They will put your skills to good use! If you are interested in attending either of their two Discipleship Training Schools next year, or becoming staff, contact them.

When I asked Richard, our main Marine Reach liaison here, what their needs/prayer requests were, he gave me the following list:
1. Doctors, nurses, surgeons and dentists are needed for short but preferably longer term basis. It's volunteer, and you pay for all of your expenses.
2. Financial support for the staff: Rakesh and Rachel, Richard and Thelma, Rena, Barry and Beryl, Ben and Kaba, and Lusi. They do not have paying jobs but they work hard leading groups, taking care of needy kids, starting a church, training volunteers, etc.
3. Ben and Kaba have four children of their own and are housing Kaba's sister and her six kids. They will be receiving 3 more small orphaned children in December. They need a larger house! We saw their shack and it is about as roomy as Nomad is.
4. The Marine Reach base in Fiji is looking to buy a property that would be set up to train 40- 50 students at a time, as well as be the headquarters for organizing the many outreaches. One million Fijian dollars would do the trick.
5. They have donated their current ship, M/V Pacific Link to the Marine Reach in Australia and are looking for a larger ship that could house two separate surgeries at a time (Pacific Link could only do one at a time).

Web Site: www.marinereachministries.com

Email: info-fj@marinereach.

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Naviyonga

Yesterday, we visited Ben and Kaba at their village, Naviyonga. They had asked us to come to "tell stories and get to know each other". When we arrived, Ben was cutting a piece of wood to add to the newly built cooking shed outside their house. Kaba and her two sisters were sitting on the pandanu mat inside the house, kneading dough and placing it in washed out tuna cans. Kaba shooed us outside and Ben placed a plastic tarp on the ground under a mango tree for us to sit on together. Kaba came back out with changed clothes, apologizing profusely. Soon a little girl came out carrying a tray with glasses and a pitcher of Tang (or some equivalent). We spent most of the next 4 hours on that tarp sitting and talking. Ana, Kaba's sister brought us the homemade buns that had been baked in the tuna tins with fried eggs tucked inside. Those buns were about the best homemade bread I've ever had. That was our lunch. We talked about the children in the village, looked over the photocopies from 'Where there is no Doctor' I'd brought them. They devoured the information. pointing out things to each other in Fijian. The 2$ scabies medicine I'd brought for their nieces that live in their house was much appreciated. I showed them in the copies where it talked about the treatment. I had also copied a couple pages from the book that talked about malnutrition in kids and beneficial LOCAL foods to combat it. They were surprised that cassava leaves were high in protein. Kaba said she'd heard of people eating the leaves but hadn't eaten them herself. Cassava root is the mainstay of their diet. It's starchy and filling and easy to plant but the village kids need protein. Hurray for a local plant that provides free nutrition.

After our visit to their "farm" it was back to the tarp to have lemon tea made from the leaves from a bush 10 meters away. While we drank the water from the green coconut Ben cut for us, Ana brought a plate of fried cassava out for us and we pulled out the graham crackers we'd brought to share. We told them stories of life at sea. When it was time to go, Ben walked us through the village, over a narrow cement bridge NOT built by the Army Corp of Engineers into the next village where we waited for a taxi to take us back to Lautoka.

The hardest part of the whole day was sitting around visiting in the middle of the day. It's just not part of my culture to "visit" until evening. Even so, we felt humbled by their generosity. We carried a large plastic bag of cassava and some green beans they'd picked from their garden for us, as well as 4 more of the delicious buns we'd eaten at lunch.

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