Monday, July 13, 2009

Teams in Fiji

We've had a great time the past few weeks with teams from New Zealand. It's been a very busy but fantastic time of watching quality (all of them) young (mostly) people be challenged and changed by new experiences and a different culture. We've taken them to schools, prisons, squatter settlements, etc. We had a team of 12 with us for 2 weeks. For the past week we've had 28 (all but 6 of them staying in our house). This morning Steve, Hannah, and Aaron took them to stay at a village on the interior of the island for a few days to continue their work. The rest of us will go to Nadi to pick up Steve's parents who are arriving on Thursday for a visit. We're looking forward to showing them around!
There have been many highlights to our time here that I'll put into a newsletter later. One very special one to me this past week, however, was being able to be involved in starting up the AWANA (after school kids' club with memory work, lessons, games, etc) program that I used to lead again. My friend who used to help me continued it after I left but had taken a break this past year to continue her education.

The team helped pass out fliers in the neighborhood near where it meets and then came back on Friday and performed songs, skits, etc, for the kids to kick off the program. It was fantastic to see some of the children that used to attend come back (boy, have they grown!) as well as a bunch of new ones.

The kids and some team members. Lelai, the director, is on the right in pink.