Pictures from today....

Here's what two of the guys in our family were up to today. Steve sent this picture from Fiji from the prison this afternoon. This is the second picture that he has in countries under military rule that he's talked a guard into letting him hold a big weapon! Fortunately he usually uses his powers of persuasion for good!

The other pic is of Aaron flying his trick kite right outside of Steve's parents' house in New Zealand. They have an amazing ocean view!!!

Snow Day!

The kids and I had an outstanding day yesterday! Some wonderful friends treated the kids to a day at Snow Planet, an indoor ski and snowboard run. None of the kids had been around snow for years and since Adam was only one the last time he obviously didn't remember it! None of them had ever skied.

The eldest son of the family we were with is a snowboard instructor at Snow Planet and his three younger brothers are pretty good as well, so our kids each had their own personal trainer to get started. They all had a fantastic time. The girls snowboarded for hours. The boys tried both snowboards and skis and hardly left the slope for the entire 7 hours that we were there!

Moaning and groaning from sore muscles is going on this morning!

The sale on our house in Fiji became final on Monday! Steve's been quite busy not only leading the team but slipping off to the lawyer for meetings about the process of getting the funds out of Fiji. He says the team is great and going very well.

The paperwork for our visas is nearly finished and ready to lodge when Steve returns!

Steve flies to Fiji tomorrow to lead one last team. The end of an era in Fiji for him! But there will be many more in our new location, I'm sure!!! In fact, his brother's bringing a group from the States only a couple of weeks after we arrive. And I'll finally get to meet this last sibling!

Next week while he's away I'll start doing our 'pre-packing'. Anyone who's made major moves will understand this! Yesterday I had a lovely lunch with a friend who's spent time working in the family business overseas before. It was fun to talk to someone who totally understood my packing phobia, my reoccurring nightmares of not being able to find a usable toilet, and how my biggest stress in a new place is figuring out how to feed my family!

We had a few lovely dinners this week with friends as well. At one we showed them the video of the business we're going to work for. It was good to be reminded that all of the changes and extra stresses in our near future are so worth it! The sacrifices seem quite small when we think of the story of Freedom that we're going to get to be part of!!!

P.S. The sale on the house in Fiji is supposed to be final on the 21st. So far so good!

Kiwi's

As our time in NZ is drawing to a close I've been thinking about the people we've met and experiences we've had. First of all I've got to say that we think New Zealand and it's people are awesome! I've had lots of Kiwi friends over the years and there was one particular Kiwi I was impressed with enough to marry(!), but as a general people group they're pretty great as well.

I just learned that 'DIY' is a common enough Kiwi phrase to be abbreviated. It stands for 'do it yourself' and pretty much sums up the Kiwi mindset about life. Don't ask for outside help to do the job, don't wast time complaining about it, and definitely don't pay someone else to do it as a matter of pride unless you've given it a go at least once yourself first.

Kiwi's are very down to earth and fun, too. Where else will you have a salesgirl be merciless in teasing you that she thinks you're cheap when you're buying a gift? Or have a guy on a work crew tell you there's an extra shovel available when you walk past and say 'gidday' (good day). I watched these things happen to Steve, though. People tend to look me over more first before they attack with my different accent!

We have lots of meals coming up with people as we begin our farewells. Steve flys to Fiji on Saturday to lead one last team for two weeks. When he gets back there are only 19 days until we fly out!!!

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

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!

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.