Ni sa Bula Vinaka!

Ni sa Bula Vinaka,

E marautaki dina sara ni keitou sa yaco mai oqo e Viti. E taura e dua na gauna ni sasaga enai lakolako oqo. Vinaka sara vakalevu na loloma, veitokoni kei na masu, me keitou yacova mai na gauna oqo. E ka levu na vakavinavinaka vei kemuni kece sara na veitokoni tiko mai. Sa tekivu tiko na vuli vosa vakaviti, ka nuitaki me keitou vosa taka talega.

Vinaka Sara Vakalevu

We are so happy to finally be in Fiji after quite a journey to get here. Thank you all for your love, support and prayers to get us this far. We really appreciate you all. We are slowly working on our Fijian language in the hope we can improve.

Thank you so much

We have arrived in Fiji!

After a long period of self isolation in New Zealand due to Rachael’s recent surgery and our desire to get our flight without COVID messing it up, it was such a relief to finally get to Fiji on May 16th and start our new adventure. We were straight into no masks, no social distancing and lots of hand shaking… needless to say it only took us three weeks to catch COVID and be back in self isolation. Between us we got just about every symptom, but fortunately, none too badly.

It was a little different in a new country without the same support systems and online shopping. Although we are very grateful for new friends who did grocery and market shops for us and even delivered birthday presents for Gabrielle who got to spend her 9th birthday in Fiji with COVID - it was not quite the plan we had. She was super good about it and very appreciative of the presents that were delivered (we had a day trip planned instead of presents for her birthday).

On arrival we went to the MMM Fiji unit at Sabeto Christian Camp. MMM has been based there since March 2005. However, there has been no one living there full time for about four years since the last family left. It is a small two bedroom unit which is a great place to start out, but hard at the same time with one introverted child who appreciates his quiet, tidy space and the other two who are just about everything opposite: extroverted, talkative and creatively messy kids! It was a tricky juggle (and possibly a few tears and screams, mostly just from the kids) in a new country, learning to deal with the heat and new people, places, food and experiences.

The river is a great spot to escape the heat

We were quickly welcomed by the camp manager and her family, which included a couple of boys a similar age to our eldest two kids. There was a lot of fun and adventures with these boys; water fights, races, games and swims in the river. It was great for our kids to have others to play and explore with.

Fiji vs NZ 100m sprints

One of our first jobs was to sort through the unit and container, updating the inventory and checking through what was good, broken, missing and needing to be kept or given away. After spending a lot of time packing, sorting and cleaning in New Zealand, we got to redo the experience here.

It wasn't hard finding volunteers to check if the fans were working

After MMM’s 17-year tenancy at Sabeto Christian Camp we have moved offsite to a new location (only a 5km drive away). Our family is now house sitting for an American family for 11 months, while they spend time back in the States. They are a missionary family who have lived in Fiji for 20 years and also serve on the board of MMM Fiji (side note - MMM had sent project teams to help on this house in 2019 and we visited it when it was under construction). We feel very blessed to have more room for our family as well as space to host visitors or teams when they come if it is needed. The house also comes with three dogs and three cats to care for, which the kids are loving to have around and play with. It is a really nice feeling to be able to settle in one place for nearly a year now which is something our family hasn’t had since before COVID became a thing. Our lives in a pandemic really have looked different to most.

Meet Koa, a dog who takes his job of protecting his humans seriously.

It is great that we were able to have the work vehicle (a Pajero) to drive when we got here, having a vehicle is a huge blessing which we haven’t had in all our previous trips to Fiji. But we have also been on what feels like an impossible mission to buy a personal vehicle. We live very rural at the moment and a 4WD is a necessity. We are trying to purchase a second vehicle so when Roy is on a project the kids and I are able to stay independent, or at times we may need to do two work tasks in different places at the same time. We have looked at so many vehicles and a lot of them have super high mileage and have not been well cared for. The roads here would also be very hard on any vehicle. There are potholes, unmarked roadworks and unpainted judder bars on the main roads and our local road is more like an off-road 4WD track. We are grateful that we are learning the roads in the dry season. The MMM vehicle currently doesn’t have a working fan or air-conditioning, so every drive is hot and dusty if your windows are open.

There is also a big problem in Fiji that there isn’t the same level of trustworthy or skilled mechanics as there is in NZ. Often people have worked on vehicles that don’t have the right skills and just given it a bit of guesswork and YouTube and hoped for the best. We have also heard stories of people taking vehicles to mechanics, only for the good parts to be taken out and switched for cheaper versions. There are many stories in Fiji that would make anyone wary of taking a vehicle to a local mechanic. There is also a very limited pool of vehicles to choose from and as amazing as a new 2021 Land Cruiser 300 VX would be, it is totally out of our price range. So we will keep patiently looking from what is available. We would appreciate prayers that we would find the perfect vehicle soon as we are all a little over the search.

Two photos, one location; one after a sudden and out-of-season tempest, one after the sugarcane harvest on the driveway to camp

It has been all-go since we got here. There has been so much to learn and experience and people to meet. We now have local drivers licences, bank accounts, phone numbers, passports endorsed with our work permits, we’ve experienced power cuts, water outages, burst water pipes, visited several work projects, gone to the doctor’s, moved house, moved a shipping container and we even had our shipping delivered (which in itself involved several trips to customs, the port, the shipping agent, the warehouse and back to customs again). We have learnt where all the supermarkets, produce markets, butchers and hardware stores are, plus which wharf to visit at 6am to buy fresh fish from, but Roy is still looking for a fishing spot! In New Zealand when you need a particular food or item, you might take it for granted that you can pop down to any supermarket, Mitre 10 or Warehouse and easily pick it up, whereas here just looking for one item can become an all day project. Most things take longer and are more complicated here. But we are slowly learning the ropes. We still have so many people to meet with and things to do, we haven’t even made it to Savusavu yet! This is where we have spent the majority of our time previously in Fiji and we can’t wait to get there.

Roy has been able to spend a bit of time helping out with a few small maintenance jobs at both Sabeto Christian Camp and the place we are now living. He has also spent time planning towards the upcoming projects. We have seen how valuable Roy’s skills and knowledge can be here, talking through ideas and projects and helping people get the right materials and preparations underway.

Seeing what needs to be done at His International Mission

MMM had a lot of projects approved and planned to happen in 2020 that were cancelled with the pandemic. We have been able to check in with most of them and work on getting them back on track. We have two projects planned for this year that will have teams joining us from NZ, as well as a lot of interest starting to come in for 2023 with plenty of work to do here. We have also had interest from new ministries, churches and people with needs. Unfortunately, due to COVID some of the pre-approved ministries no longer have the funding needed to complete their projects. We have even had interest from locals who want to get onboard with MMM and help us out practically too which is super exciting. There are lots of smaller projects on the radar that Roy can work on between the bigger ones that we get international volunteers over for.

We have been going to Living Way Church which is held at the American International School on the Nadi Back Road. After going to a lot of different churches in the last couple of years, I don’t think any of us were very keen to try a bunch of churches here. So it is great that we have all really enjoyed the first church we went to. We have already made some great connections. Gabrielle and Kelepi have really enjoyed Sunday School and made some good friends. It was exciting when I went to get my hair cut by a lady from the church I’d never met, it turned out to be the mum of the girl Gabrielle has talked to the most!

Checking out how the tourists do Fiji

Gabrielle and Kelepi have started ‘Island Acro Gymnastics’ classes, which they are both really enjoying. It is a great way for them to meet friends, be challenged in a fun way and burn off a bit of energy. They both come away super happy from the classes. It is an incredible bonus that we now have our trampoline here for them to safely practice their new skills on. I posted on facebook the story about how we came to have a trampoline in Fiji, if you want to read that story, let me know.

We have been lucky enough to experience Fiji as tourists a couple of times, with a stay at a resort on Denarau Island gifted to us and celebrating Gabrielle’s birthday on Rachael’s birthday at South Sea Island. It is a very different world comparing how the tourists do Fiji and how locals live.

*Insert tropical island jumping photo here*

As I was driving home from the Doctors one day (somewhere I have already spent a bit of time with three of us having ear infections amongst other things), I was thinking about how different Fiji is from New Zealand. There are similarities, but also a lot of differences. There is just a different standard and way of doing things here. It’s a different world. You can’t measure things on the same scale as in New Zealand, they just aren’t the same.

Health and medical facilities are one of the things that at times worries me the most about living in Fiji. We have seen hospitals firsthand here in the past, when Kelepi was hospitalised in Savusavu as a toddler with dehydration and Roy got a bad infection on his leg the last time we were here. But I was reminded that when God has called us here to Fiji we just need to trust that He has the details sorted. In the Bible I have been reading about how Joshua did lots of things that made no sense by human standards, I mean who would think to march an army around a city wall a bunch of times and then yell and blow trumpets to attack a city? But he did what made sense by God and it totally paid off for him when they entered Jericho and entered the promised land. The Israelites needed to put their foot into the Jordan river for the water upstream to stop flowing! Sometimes we will take the path that isn’t so well marked and travelled (quite literally in Fiji) when serving God, but it will be worth it. So I challenge you to step your foot towards what God is calling you to and let Him show His faithfulness.

Off to the river we go!

If you are keen to get involved with what we are doing we have a project beginning at a ministry 10 minutes down the road on August 15 if you are the spontaneous type and prefer a warm, sunny climate. Otherwise there is another happening in September, contact us as we would love to hear from you and get you involved.

If you are on facebook, feel free to add ‘Rachael Hogan’, as I do a lot of stories and posts to keep everyone updated between blogs. You can also read our old blogs here.

If you are the praying type, we also send out short weekly updates with our current prayer and praise points. Let us know if you would like us to add your email address to it.

Thank you for all your love and support,

Rachael, Roy, Josh, Gabby/Gabrielle and Kelepi (Caleb is his old name)

Some Bonus Photos

Chewing through some sugarcane

Josh being inspired to fill a blank wall

Gabby's birthday cake that she baked, decorated and cut exactly how she wanted to

Sunset over South Sea Island on Rachael's 40th birthday

When the resort kids programme said 'The Amazing Race', but they didn't do it and you were so disappointed. It's a good thing your dad is a specialist in kids camp wide games and can whip something up.

To: The Hogan's, P.O Box 225, Sabeto Post Office, Fiji

Roy's Grandma passed away shortly before moving to the new location, but we each recorded part of a reading that was shown in the service and we were able to watch the livestream