Snapshots From This Past Week!

Below is an array of pictures from this past week here in Suva, Fiji.  It is amazing how much our team has been able to experience together so far, and it makes me so excited to see what the next 10 months hold!

  

Unpacking in my new room!  It feels so good to no longer be living out of a suitcase!  And look at that closet space! :)

Our first night in our apartment!  

Part of our team touring the famous sights in Suva!

Brian is very trusting!  He let us shave his head!  This was definitely a first time experience, but I think I found a hidden talent that I can always fall back on later in life!

The girls at our first Rugby match!  We were surrounded by Fijians but proudly rooted on team USA!

Part of our team sitting on the grass watching the rugby matches...we all got a little burned that day!

We're getting used to finding these little guys crawling around our apartment.  I accidentally decapitated one the other day when I was trying to trap it with a bowl!  Oops!  I felt horrible!

Kori is LOVING watching the storm from our porch!  This one was pretty bad, the thunder literally shook our apartment complex!  But as always, it only lasted about 30 minutes!

Some beautiful flowers Kori picked to put in these little nooks!  The first time we saw this apartment we all agreed that flowers would look so great in this spot, so it's so fun to see the outcome!

We were able to hose our first staff meeting at our new apartment! It was so fun having company over and getting to serve coffee/tea and homemade chocolate chip cookies!  Our team is mostly sitting on the left and everyone else is CCC staff or student leaders at USP.

God is a God who provides, and that has been made so clear to me this week!  Please continue praying that our working visas come through, and that the Lord will continue working in the hearts of the incoming freshmen that we will get to meet in 2 weeks!  God Bless, and thank you so much for your support, encouragement and prayers!

-Mary Lin

"Are those claws?!"

We just returned home from our trip to the grocery store, and are realizing just how different this country is from the states.  "It's not wrong...just different" is a phrase we were encouraged to use as we faced challenges in this new culture.  Well, after today's experience, that phrase is not coming quite as easily.  


Kori was pushing the cart as we made our way up and down the aisles.  We started putting breakfast crackers (a very cheap, 75c a pack, way to snack here), milk (that comes at room temperature and apparently never goes bad...still trying to figure out how they do that), bread, eggs, chocolate (for cookies, they don't have chocolate chips here), etc.  We then started down the frozen food aisle and placed some frozen veggies in the cart.  We have been having some problems finding meat here, so I decided to brave it, and look into the frozen meet bins.  Well, that might have been a mistake.  There, piled high in one of the bins, were bags and bags of some type of popular meat.  I took a longer glance and then started laughing out loud.  There, piercing out of the bags, were tons of claw-like feet!  Yep, you guessed it.  Chicken feet.  Surprisingly, Kori and Jenny were not too excited about this new food choice, so we walked on, trying not to make too much of a scene!


We were successful in buying a coffee pot and are excited to get some good Fijian coffee and begin having students over!  There is a girl from NY who actually just moved in below us, so we're going to make her some cookies tonight!


It's always an adventure here in Suva :)

It's still me, just a new blog! :)

Welcome to my new blog!

I was getting frustrated with my old blog because I could not figure out how to load pictures, so hopefully this one will keep you all updated so much better!

Kori, Jenny and I are off to run some errands in town.  Priority #1: buy a coffee maker!  Instant coffee is completely fine, and we were so thankful for it, but now that we are becoming settled, we think a coffee maker is a wise investment!  And a great ministry tool when students start coming over!

My prayer letter for the month of January is complete!  Please let me know if you would like me to e-mail it to you!  I will be sending it out later today!

Thank you so much for your prayers!  God is so good, and teaching us all so much!  Just two days ago, us girls were heading outside to throw a football and ran into our apartment gate worker and I noticed him reading the Bible in Fijian.  We started a conversation about the book of Mark (which he was currently reading through) and he shared with me how incredible God is, and how the Lord is the only one we can truly put our faith in.  Amen to that!  It is so apparent to us that God has been moving in Fiji for years, and it is truly at a point of harvest right now!