A Busy Season

As the dry season draws near to an end our lives are slowly starting to have some space in them again. We have had a super busy season, achieving heaps, hosting many teams and seeing many projects completed, with both ministries and people having their buildings improved.

Plantation Island Resort
In July we were lucky enough to have a week's holiday at Plantation Island. It was so nice to be able to take a break away from our normal lives here and have lots of familiar food from home. The sleep-ins, water park, stand up paddle boards and bikes were all highlights. Gabby did ask if we can go back in summer as it was too cold at the time 😆.

The days of the everyone posing nicely for the camera at the same time are gone.

Seehusen
In August we had a great team come together from Matamata and Christchurch. This team included two people who had already volunteered in Fiji in the previous year. It’s exciting to have repeat volunteers and we are grateful for the many people that are passionate about serving with MMM Fiji. We really enjoyed the great discussion we had each morning tea time.

They partnered with us to serve the Seehusen family, an American missionary family who have lived here for four years. They are building a home for themselves with a guest house onsite to be used as a training facility for pastors, particularly from outer islands, to come and be trained in evangelism and discipleship for extended periods of time. Michael shared a story with us that helped grow his heart for the outer islands. A young guy had recently became the Pastor in a small outer island, when asked what led him to becoming the Pastor he said simply, "because the last guy passed away." People are thrown into positions of leadership with no training or experience and his heart is for equipping these people to do their job well.

We were able to work alongside their local builders to help with constructing the roof trusses, the slab for the guest house and fabricating lots of structural brackets for the roof (we had a pro welder on the team! One of those moments when God brings exactly the right person at the right time). It was a highlight to be able to teach the local builders some new ways of doing things while blessing the Seehusens with the skills of our team.

Freshly poured concrete for the Seehusen guest house.

Te Awamutu Bible Chapel
We had a team come from Te Awamutu Bible Chapel (TABC) to help continue on with the projects that Picton Baptist were working on in June. They spent their first week at Homes of Hope in Suva working on the bathroom projects in a staff house there and their second week working at Pastor Meliki and Ola’s house in Sabeto.

They were really fun to have here with lots of young people, many of them apprentices and quite a few people that we already knew, so we had lots of laughs and good talks. We love seeing the enthusiasm of the younger teams and find it exciting when apprentices get a heart for serving in Fiji, as we often hear from others saying they wish they started serving with MMM when they were younger. We like to tell them that Roy was an apprentice the first time he came to Fiji, so anything is possible for them too.

Rachael and the kids were able to go to Homes of Hope most of the week the team was there, it was nice for the whole family to get really involved with the team. We enjoyed evenings playing games and plenty of watching or playing volleyball. The team was able to progress the bathrooms at the staff members house at Homes of Hope and has since been able to finish two out of three of the bathrooms. The family has been able to move back into the house which is exciting as we had basically kicked them out of their house for most of the year. The Homes of Hope staff looked after us well with some great meals.

Kelepi loves to get involved.

The TABC team also helped out Pastor Meliki and Ola’s, which was also a huge blessing. It was such a hive of activity with so much going on. It was quite transformational to the house with what the team could do in a week, adding internal walls, three sets of stairs for the external doors, a deck, an outside washtub, finishing the septic system, tiling the toilet and waterproofing the shower. The family were completely blown away by the way their house was transformed and their kids have now named their house ‘Neverland’ after their love for Peter Pan… and with the name, they never want to leave either! This house has already been a huge blessing to their family. Pastor Meliki and Ola are great hosts too and always such a pleasure to work with. It has also been an exciting journey for us as we have seen this house come together as God provides the finances and needs one step at a time.

The Te Awamutu Bible Chapel team at Meliki and Ola's house.

Australia
In September, Rachael and Gabrielle were lucky enough to travel to the Gold Coast for nine days for Gabrielle to participate in the Australian National Club Competition. This was an amazing experience for Gabrielle to compete as part of her club in two different competitions showcasing skills and a routine to ‘The Greatest Showman’. She loved the opportunity to use some fantastic gymnastics equipment as well as separately visiting another gymnastics club and a trampoline park. All the girls commented how easy it was to learn new skills on good equipment. We are grateful she had this opportunity. If you are interested in seeing some of her routines, let us know.

Gabrielle and her team at the Australian National Club Competition in the
Gold Coast, Australia.

A highlight of Australia was having a supermarket across the road from where we were staying. On our first visit there Gabrielle said she was crying happy tears seeing all the food she loved and missed from home. It was a pretty big trip for her to process, getting a bit of a glimpse of what life is like outside of Fiji and took a bit of adjusting when she came back to Fiji.

A very proud gymnast.

Lifezone
A couple of days after arriving home from Australia we had a team of 18 from Lifezone Church in Tauranga come. They came for a shorter stay but brought a keen team including a roofer, an electrician and a few other trades. They served with us at Anand AOG and helped to repair the roof of the pastor's residence, which had lots of leaks. So that involved replacing roofing, installing new purlins, fascia boards, flashings, and gutters and all that goes with it. The project was ambitious to achieve in only one week, but Roy was stoked to get it all done. This team was led by Rachel and Nathan Young who we have known for years through Totara Springs, so we loved having some familiar faces visit us. This team was able to get very involved with lots of the weekly events of the church which gave them some great opportunities to learn, minister and be blessed. It was cool to see and hear about their personal spiritual growth stories including one guy deciding to get baptised here. He later found out his mum was also baptised in Fiji and his grandparents were missionaries here for a while. It was so awesome to hear what God is doing in His life.

Having a 'how do we fix this?' moment on the roof at Anand AOG.

Summer Plans
The countdown is on for our family when we arrive in New Zealand on December 10th and will head to the MMM Centre in Pirongia to spend a bit of time in the Waikato. If you are in Waikato on December 15th, get in touch as there is the end of year MMM BBQ that you are welcome to join us for. On the 20th we head down to Waikanae in time to be involved with some Christmas activities at our home church, St Lukes.

We recently were given notice that our tenants are moving out soon, which works out perfectly for us to stay in our own house in Waikanae over summer and we are all excited for that! We are looking forward to being back in our own home even if not for long. If you live near Waikanae and happen to have a spare washing machine, fridge or other things we may need for a month, let us know. We have already had a few offers which is a great start. On January 18th we head to New Wine Festival in Masterton and then head to Festival One in the Waikato on the following weekend, before flying back to Fiji on January 30.

Just chilling.

Other thoughts…
We continue to enjoy the adventure of serving in Fiji although not all days are easy, every team and project brings new challenges and experiences. Just when you think you have seen it all, Fiji never fails to surprise you with a crazy new adventure! We will be applying to renew our 3-year volunteer work permits which expire in early 2024 and will be starting that process in the coming weeks. We are certain this will be another one of those Fiji-Time situations waiting to hear back about it.

Another big project we will continue to tackle next year is the opportunity to house or land hunt for MMM Fiji to have a permanent base for the first time. This is exciting for MMM Fiji after being active in Fiji for over 18 years.

Please pray for our family, we know going back to New Zealand over summer will be super exciting and a huge blessing, but we know it will also be overwhelming and a lot to process as our lives are very different in Fiji. We look forward to catching up with as many of you as we can though, please get in touch to make a time if you haven’t already.

Happy to be out on his bike again now we are living in Nasoso.

We are aware that our trip to New Zealand won’t be cheap. With renewing our work permit on the horizon and Gabrielle and Kelepi settled in school here, there are a lot of upcoming costs as well as ongoing costs we never budgeted for. If you have never financially supported us and would like to join our support team, please get in touch. Likewise if you would like to give a one off gift to help with any of these things. All financial gifts are tax deductible in New Zealand and we are incredibly grateful for the faithful people who continue to support us in what we do.

If you want to look back on our journey over the last few years, you can do that here.

Thank you for your ongoing support, care and encouragement,

Roy, Rachael, Josh, Gabrielle and Kelepi

A note from Gabrielle...
Thank you very much to everyone who helped me get to Australia!! Vinaka vaka levu! It was so amazing! My club got a bronze, silver and second overall. I enjoyed the competition soooooo much and I would LOVE to go again sometime! (I already miss the blueberries!) I love gymnastics and I love traveling overseas so it was just like the perfect trip! While we were there we went to a trampoline park. It was awesome! Not to brag but I did 1o back handsprings in a row (even though I did get really dizzy). We also visited another club and did a buncha’ lota’ stuff there too. I also loved going to the beach. It was only about 5 minutes away so me, my friends and my mum went there quite a bit.

Thanks,

Gabrielle ❤

Some bonus photos...