New Zealand, Rain and a Special Announcement

We know it has been a while and we usually send out these updates a little more regularly… but we have specifically been waiting until today to share some exciting news!

A special announcement…

MMM NZ and NZCMS (New Zealand Church Missionary Society) are pleased to announce a new partnership to support Roy and Rachael Hogan’s ongoing call to live and minister in Fiji.

Roy and Rachael, with their three children, Joshua, Gabrielle, and Caleb Hogan have lived in Nadi, Fiji, since May 2022. They have been serving as Project Coordinators for MMM in Fiji.

Roy and Rachael have now discerned a longer-term calling. In order to support this call, NZCMS have come alongside the Hogan family to become their “sending agency.” This means that NZCMS will take responsibility for their ongoing well-being, financial and prayer support.

Roy and Rachael’s work with MMM will be unchanged, and they will continue the strategic work of building and maintenance projects supporting Christian Ministries in Fiji through MMM NZ and MMM Fiji.

What does this mean for you?

If you financially support the Hogans, then please continue your support as you have. A system is being put into place to ensure your support will continue to directly support the Hogans.

If you are receiving their updates, this will continue as normal.

If you would like to get further information about either MMM NZ or NZCMS, then please use the contact details below.

Joint statement from MMM NZ (Mobile Mission Maintenance) and NZCMS (NZ Church Missionary Society). 5 April 2024.

MMM New Zealand - https://www.mmm.org.nz/

Contact: Howard Robinson – Director

Email: director@mmm.org.nz

NZCMS – https://www.nzcms.org.nz/

Contact: Bruce White – Personnel Manager

Email: bruce@nzcms.org.nz

So that is big news for us and we are excited for this new season as NZCMS Mission Partners and look forward to journeying with them and the ongoing support they will provide for us in the future. We know living and working in Fiji isn’t always easy and appreciate everyone who helps us behind the scenes to make it all happen.

As part of this new partnership, we will be heading to the Wellington/Kāpiti region for three weeks in June-July to meet with friends, family and new supporting churches, as well as spending a few days in Christchurch to meet the NZCMS team and do some training on how they operate. If you are in those areas, we hope to have some events to catch up with as many of you as we can.

A successful family selfie at Waikanae Beach

Our time in New Zealand

We had a crazy busy time in New Zealand over December and January. After recovering from a bout of COVID at the beginning of our trip, we still managed to pack in so many people, places and things! We all loved the comforts of New Zealand like good, accessible food, fast and reliable internet, great gymnastics coaching and facilities to explore for the kids, cooler weather, plus all the shopping we can’t do in Fiji.

It was good to spend lots of time with family, friends, church family and to be able to enjoy the beauty of the bush, swimming at the beach and river in our home town of Waikanae. We were also lucky enough to spend some time in our own home (our tenants conveniently moved out just before our return), which meant we could easily do some small maintenance and gardening projects at home.

Time with the cousins was pretty awesome.

Attending the New Wine festival in Masterton was one of our highlights for sure… partly just because it was one of the only times we got to stay in one place all weekend! But it was great to live in community for a few days with our church family, and my mum even joined us, while also getting to listen to some amazing speakers, awesome worship, fun times and great conversations.

Dinner time with some of the gang at New Wine Festival

It was great to get to Festival One as well, it is such a good way to connect with so many people in one place and time. As we were working on the MMM stand in the missions area we got to share about our work with MMM and encourage others to get involved. We especially enjoyed seeing our younger two kids exploring all the other mission tents. There were great conversations about which missions they would like to work for one day. We loved seeing them be inspired by how they want to use their gifts and passions to serve God.

On an expedition to find the river stage at Festival One

In our time in New Zealand we still had a sense of, ‘this is our harbour, our safe place, but it is not what our ship is designed for’. We were left refreshed, encouraged and excited to come back to Fiji and keep going deeper in our mission here, arriving back here in late January.

Life in the rainy season

Since about November, Fiji has been in the hot, rainy season. After getting back we have had a lot of heavy rain and flooding, with one particularly bad week where schools in all of Fiji were cancelled for four days along with all other activities - it reminded us of lockdowns. Everyone in the family had to deal with some sort of disappointment due to things they were looking forward to being called off. When it rains it at least takes the edge of the heat which is nice, as it has otherwise been uncomfortably hot and often in the mid 30’s plus humidity.

We had an unfortunate event with our 4WD Toyota Prado, one of the lovely attendants at Mobil put unleaded petrol in it instead of diesel and we didn’t realise until we had driven it 10 kilometres. This was over a month ago and we are still searching for a place to service the fuel injector which was a little worse for wear afterwards. It has been hugely frustrating, especially because the air con doesn’t work properly in the MMM Pajero at the time of year you would really appreciate it.

Appreciating the moments when the sun is shining.

Work Permits

In 2021 we originally received three year work permits and if you have followed our story for a while you will know it took over a year for us to get to Fiji after these permits started (due to COVID and other hurdles). We didn’t know how long we were coming, we just knew we wanted to be faithful and obedient to the call God had on our lives.

Well, a couple of weeks ago those work permits expired! We did submit our renewal applications a month before they expired, so we are allowed to be in Fiji while we wait. If our permits aren’t issued before we go to New Zealand in June it will just add more hoops to jump through, but what’s life in Fiji without the extra hoops to jump?! 🤣 We have no doubt of their eventual approval, but how long that takes is anyone’s guess.

Family Life

Next month we will hit the two year mark in Fiji. Although we have already achieved so much in our time here, we feel like we are just starting to really get settled, establish key relationships and connections and are seeing more ways we can help and support the people of Fiji every day. Our kids are feeling more settled, making friends and we are enjoying being used by God here in Fiji.

Sharing cake and treats at school on your birthday is a real highlight.

The boys have both started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Self Defence and are enjoying that. It is a great way to do some physical activity, make new friends as well as get to know others better as there are a few who do it from our church. Roy has also started playing in the church worship team when needed.

Projects

Since arriving back in Fiji we have been doing a lot of planning for later in the year, as with any project, a lot of work has to happen before a team arrives. We have our first team of the year coming on Sunday to help out at Oasis Farm where they are dealing with some termite damage - a pretty devastating issue in Fiji. Roy has been doing a lot of research around termites so he can help ministries as best he can.

Recently, Roy has been working at Ba Gospel Chapel with Kenneth (one of our Fijian volunteers) and other volunteers from the church. Here they have been working on several maintenance issues and the church has been really appreciative. There is still plenty of work to do there that they will chip away at as the church raises the funds and we have the time. But it is great to be able to do small projects that make a big difference for others.

We have some other exciting projects coming together later in the year, so do let us know if you are keen to join a team as we often don’t advertise for volunteers, they find us first! But we love to see people we know here. It can also be tricky planning teams and projects in advance, as Fiji isn’t always the most straightforward place to plan ahead!

Josh’s Baptism

We were super excited that Josh recently made the decision to be baptised at our church, Living Way, in Nadi! The day it was originally planned to happen, the church service got cancelled due to all the flooding around Nadi but it was still great to be able to witness this moment of him sharing his faith a week later.

Josh was baptised in the pool of the school where our church meets.

We continue to look forward to the journey ahead as we keep taking one step at a time in serving God and riding this crazy rollercoaster of life. If you are not already on our weekly mailout list with prayer requests and would like to be, let us know. If you want to look back on our old updates, you can do that here.

Vinaka vaka levu for all your support,

Roy, Rachael, Josh, Gabrielle and Kelepi/Caleb

Some bonus photos...