Bula everyone!! We are sorry for our long silence! We want to write now to say we are still here and give you our updates.
Since September we have had no village outreaches, but in October our base provided the location for the first Member Care course of the Pacific. Many of our staff participated and it was a blessing.
In November through February, several of our staff were back in their own countries, but our base hosted various DTS outreach teams including a family DTS and also a DTS team from Marine Reach New Zealand.
In March, the first case of Covid-19 was found in Fiji and the country closed its borders. We sadly had to announce that our outreaches had been cancelled this year due to the present pandemic, and all our teams cancelled their flights. There are still only a few international flights that are allowed.
Fiji was declared Covid-free but since then there have been some returning citizens, and unfortunately more cases were subsequently detected among them. They are all looked after by government health officials and kept under strict quarantine so there are still no current community cases which makes Fiji very safe. Churches are open with a limit of one hundred people per service but Fiji is not yet able to receive overseas visitors in villages. Schools are open too and kids have gone back which is great!
Our regular Marine Reach gatherings are going on and we are blessed to be able to visit one of our local staff’s village for some of those meetings and have our worship time joined by some of the neighboring villagers. The past two meetings we had fellowship with teams from other YWAM bases and courses. We counted that we were from 6 different nations and we encourage one another hearing our different challenges and victories.
We are grateful to the Lord for each day and opportunity. In so many ways He has showed us how to go about this season and we look forward for the next few months and years for what is ahead of us. It is good to be able to rest and be still in the Lord. Two new staff members spied last year and this year we received the approval of their work visas. Now we are waiting for travel to re-open for them to be able to come.
We like this phrase of the song “I will rejoice for I made my choice to rejoice in the Lord. “
He is the God of the valley and hills!! And He is our Father! Thank you for your prayers , love and support. God bless you all!