Saturday, August 8, 2009

Photos from Fiji

Hannah's seat at the back of a carrier on a 3 hr. bumpy ride to a village in the interior of our island with a team.
Adam at the beach

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Back in NZ...

We had a fantastic week with Steve folks in Fiji. They are amazing and just kept going! We took them to a couple of villages, prison, lots of meals with various folk, etc. Steve's dad also spoke a number of times including Sunday morning. His mum wowed various friends with her stories of her time in India. We have it easy now days!!!

We ran a 'feel things out' ad in the Fiji Times just to see if anyone would be interested in the house. The market there is still really low not only from the global market crisis, but added to by the governmental challenges that Fiji currently faces. And no one seems to be buying.

But we had an offer on the house the Saturday before we left! Not a great offer, but probably one that reflects what we'd be likely to get for the house in the current times. We scurried around on Monday and had all of the necessary papers signed at the lawyers on Wednesday so he can walk the process out for us in the coming weeks before we hopped on a bus to Nadi that afternoon.

We're not counting our chickens before they're hatched, however. We've been in this exact place with the house before and it fell through. But, we're mildly optimistic that this might be the answer that we've asked for! In the next 30-60 days we'll know for sure. But then we'll need to begin the process of getting the funds out of the country and we could loose a hefty chunk to taxes to do so since things aren't overly friendly to foreign investors there right now. It could take some time and the amount that we'll probably end up with won't be impressive. But at least the house will no longer be costing us money or deteriorating as things do quickly in Fiji.

We arrive back in New Zealand last Friday and have had a lovely welcome from family and friends! We have quite a few things to accomplish in our time here before we move to S. E. Asia but it will probably be a slower pace for us than when we were here before.

The next hurdle for us is to decide when exactly to apply for our visas to work in S.E. Asia. We plan to fly out on October 23rd (the kids and I have to be out of NZ by Nov. 4th anyway) but Steve still has one more 2 week trip to Fiji to lead a final team in the last part of September. Meaning he'll need his passport for that. The visa should only take about 2 weeks to process but this is unfamiliar territory for us so we want to make sure we do it right!

The girls have decided which classes to take this year at their school after we move . The schoolyear has already begun there, however, so we're looking for the books that they'll need for the classes so they can begin studying them now. We have a neat 'friend of a friend' thing happening that could not only make it easy for us to find the books, but to have them at a discount!!!

So we had a fantastic time in Fiji, caught up with many dear friends, and accomplished a lot through the teams as well. It was very hard to say 'goodbye' since Fiji has such a huge place in our hearts, but as much as we love it there we know that where we need to be now is S.E. Asia!