What a year this has been! There has been so much going on to keep us busy, especially in the dry season. We are excited as God continues to reveal the different ways He can use us to serve His people in Fiji. We are definitely seeing the benefits of being more settled here after 2.5 years: networks are widening, relationships deepening and new connections are constantly being made. We are amazed at the way God has answered so many prayers and provided the right people, skills and finances for every job; we just need to trust Him and do it in His strength and not our own. We know it has been a while since our last blog update and there is a lot to catch up on…
The Living Way youth after the Planet Shakers concert in Lautoka.
Sabeto Christian Camp
In August we had a team from Rutland Street Church in Christchurch join us for a few weeks, with two of those weeks spent at Sabeto Christian Camp. We reroofed the Camp Manager's house, including new gutters and drainage and worked on replacing termite-damaged window frames with aluminium and louvres in a cabin. The camp still has a lot of work to repair termite damage in other places and it will be an ongoing process for them, but we have dealt with the termite colonies which is the first step and made a great start in the repairs that will be much appreciated by those that use the facilities.
In the build up to the team coming Roy asked the team leader, “You don’t happen to know an arborist do you?” Well, ask and you shall receive! They were able to bring an arborist who blessed several of the ministries we have worked with this year by trimming or cutting down trees, many of which had been hugely damaged by termites and would be very hazardous to people and buildings in a cyclone. This will be a massive benefit and relief to these ministries during the next cyclone season. We continue to be blown away by the detail in which God supplies the right people with the right trade skills for every project.
The team from Rutland Street Church at Sabeto Youth Camp.
Day Camps
As Roy and I have worked for years in Christian camping in New Zealand, it has always been a bit of a dream to help make a kids camp happen in Fiji. We were able to combine this dream with one that Isei and Daphne Tudreu have (Isei is the Chairman of Sabeto Christian Camp). Some of the Rutland Street team stayed on to help with this camp, including Willie (who is well experienced in Kids camps in New Zealand and volunteering with MMM in Fiji) as well as five of the younger members.
We transported kids from two local villages, to be joined by others who were picked up or walked to participate in three great day camps at Isei and Daphne’s farm in the Fiji school holidays. The numbers increased each day as the word spread and kids were introduced to more fun and excitement than they had experienced before! We fed them well, played games, held team competitions and challenges, water slides, had a time of singing, devotions and taught memory verses. Many relationships were formed and there were opportunities to talk to kids about a God who loves them and has a plan for their lives. It was a great learning experience for both the Rutland Street youth and us as we look to run more camps in the future, with plans for next time to be an overnight camp at Sabeto Christian Camp!
We loved having this great group of kids at our Day Camps.
MMM New Zealand Conference
We were blessed to have another quick trip to New Zealand to attend the MMM New Zealand conference at Totara Springs Christian Centre in October. While we were there we saw God’s hand in the timing of meeting our needs. Last December, we took our kids to the dentist on their first day in New Zealand. They found the enamel had never formed properly on Kelepi’s teeth and he had three molars in a bad way that needed extracting under a general anesthetic. We spent months looking at all possibilities and came to the conclusion that we really needed to do whatever it took to get this procedure done in the New Zealand public health system. After many phone calls and emails, there was a cancellation during our trip to New Zealand and we were able to get Kelepi in for the operation. This meant extending Rachael and Kelepi’s flights home a few days where they did a quick road trip to Wellington while his gums healed.
We felt very blessed to be a part of the MMM New Zealand conference, reconnecting with old friends, meeting new MMM New Zealand staff and making some MMM Australia connections. It is hard to beat in-person conversations for great networking and dreaming about the future!
Pre-op vibes!
The Kennedy Training Centre
Very soon after arriving back in Fiji we had another encouraging team from Morrinsville Baptist join us for a one-week project. We were lucky enough to meet this team and share at their church while in New Zealand.
This project was working at the Kennedy Training Centre, a small conference venue just south of Nadi that is owned by Evangelism Explosion (an international organisation that trains people in evangelism). They host a lot of events for training, both local and international, as well as other local groups. The centre is needing a lot of general maintenance done, so we made a start on some of the most crucial needs.
There was so much going on at the same time on this job! The projects included rebuilding the main entrance stairway, path and deck to the hall, replacing rotten decking on other decks and repairing the foundations of a building that was unused because of the state the foundations were in. We were also able to have four young Fijian guys that have helped us on different projects come and join in as MMM volunteers too. We love to see these guys working alongside overseas teams, learning from them, being trained and discipled.
We have loved working with this church and look forward to an ongoing partnership with them.
The team from Morrinsville Baptist, Living Way Nadi and MMM Fiji
Oasis Farm
At the MMM New Zealand conference we shared the vision of MMM Fiji buying Oasis Farm in Sabeto as a permanent base. We are purchasing it from Island Encounters Trust who we have had a great relationship with since we arrived in Fiji. You can read more about Oasis Farm in a recent MMM NZ magazine here.
We were able to share about a specific need it had - that the farm house there had been severely damaged by termites and we were concerned that in a cyclone it would not only be destroyed but be a massive hazard to those around it. We had a team of four guys put their hands up to join us in Fiji with just a few weeks' notice to deal with the problem before the cyclone season really set in.
This team was an absolute machine and worked from early in the morning until it was dark to completely demolish and then rebuild the part of the house that was badly damaged. Our young local workers were able to work alongside the team, learning lots, while we were hugely encouraged to see something that could’ve been a huge problem be taken away. The farm house is now looking great (and much stronger!) and a massive blessing to the family living in it.
The buying of Oasis Farm (which will come with its assets and staff) will be an ongoing journey, as all things take time in Fiji. Once the legal ownership of the property is attained, MMM Fiji will need to work on renewing the native land lease. We are keen to change the lease type to something that allows us to build more dwellings than the current maximum of two buildings on the agricultural lease that it already has. Then we can look at building a fit-for-purpose facility, which will include a space for our family to live in. This will be an exciting project in the future!
Why walk when you can wheelbarrow?
Family
Our younger kids are in their last week of school for the year at Fiji Agape Mission School, which is filled with class parties and practices for items at their graduation and thanksgiving day on December 6th. They are both enjoying the school, their friends and teachers and are achieving well. Gabrielle has participated in an end of year gymnastics competition, doing a team gym competition and a performance which she loved.
Josh is glad to be nearing the end of Year 9 with Te Kura (New Zealand Correspondence School) and is very happy to have passed his first NCEA credits being CAA numeracy and literacy reading. He is still loving Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and helps to coach some of the kids' classes. All his hard work recently paid off with him graduating to a higher belt. Josh has also helped out with our last couple of teams, putting in some big days on the building site and learning new skills with a cheerful attitude which has been great to see.
We continue to do lots of connecting with new ministries that seek our assistance, often giving advice on the next steps for them before we are able to help them. Roy also helps a lot of people with advice around termites and now we even have our own supply of termite bait imported from Australia to help people with this problem.
We are staying in Fiji for Christmas and will travel to New Zealand for a few weeks over the end of December and January. We are hoping this trip will be a little more restful than the last two whirlwind visits, though it is still a tricky juggle and we hope to see lots of friends and family along the way. We will be at the New Wine Festival in Masterton for our last weekend, before heading back in time for our kids to start school next year.
We continue to email current prayer and praise points every Sunday evening, if you aren’t on that list and would like to hear from us more often, please let us know.
We want to thank everyone who supports us to do what we do here in Fiji, whether it is through joining us on a team, prayer, finances or encouragement along the way. We really can’t do it without you all and so appreciate the big team behind us that helps make everything happen.
If you want to check out our past updates you can do that here. We do weekly prayer emails if you would like to hear from us more often, contact us on thehogans@hogansonamission.com and let us know.
We pray you all have a safe and Merry Christmas and hope to catch up with some of you soon!
Roy, Rachael, Josh, Gabrielle and Kelepi.
Some Bonus Photos
Here's Josh with his freshly upgraded Jiu-Jitsu belt, well done!
Oasis Farm - Future home of MMM Fiji.
A picture of the destruction termites are causing to buildings in Fiji.
Smashing Stuff.
Do you like what we've done with the place?
Roy working with Josh at Oasis Farm - his latest apprentice!
It didn't take long before the roof went back on for the Oasis Farm project!
The ladies coming to supervise the reroofing work.
Our local helpers ready to go, all loaded up for a project with the new MMM trailer brought to Fiji on the YWAM Koha ship.
We had an early morning astronomy double-header: seeing a comet before sunrise followed by a partial solar eclipse shortly afterwards.
We have enjoyed hosting the church youth for some game afternoons this year.
This is Reapi, she has stayed with us recently after we helped her get a job at gymnastics. Here she is on fly-swatting duty with Rachael before the fish goes into the lovo at Oasis Farm!
This is Suva Josh, he also stayed with us for a while so that he could work on some of our projects.
Guess who will be celebrating 20 years married in January?!
'Team Time' during the Day Camps in August.
There are plenty of good teaching moments with the local workers.
With the help of our local workers we have been able to complete other smaller projects. One of these was Harland Home, the hostel for students attending the Gospel School for the Deaf. We had plenty of willing students keen to help too!
Here's an opinion article that Roy wrote for the Fiji Times. I think Roy's English teachers would be proud.
