Past 2 Weeks in Pictures

These past two weeks have been incredible!  The Lord is moving in some amazing ways here in Fiji!  Below are some pictures showing you different parts of life here!  Thank you so much for your prayers!

I had the opportunity to go to one of my students' (Soohyun) house to share the gospel with the 10 korean high school students who are studying here in Fiji and living with her family!  Brian and Jenny joined me, and we saw the Lord use us to lead 5 students to Christ!  Soohyun is going to begin leading the students who are interested in a weekly Bible study at her house!  The boy to the left of the picture, Tyson, accepted Christ, as well as Jessica, the girl to my right!

A picture of our whole group at Soohyun's house!

We had a STINT Team Decathlon last weekend.  It consisted of ten different events, and it was a ton of fun!  For over four hours we competed in the 100m dash, triple jump, chubby bunny, cup stacking, and many more!  The above picture shows how competitive our men are...and they proved themselves worthy.  Dave got 1st place, Brian 2nd, Kori stood strong for us girls and grabbed a hold of 3rd place, while the rest of us were close behind!

This is why she got bronze...she's intense!

My track and field background came in handy in the 100m dash as I swept 3rd place!

A few days later we hosted a Student Life training day!  Over 30 students came out Monday morning during their semester break and attended a discipleship talk given by Dave and Brian.  We then had lunch, and encouraged the students to choose to attend one of three seminars (Evangelism, Leading Follow-Up Bible Studies, and Leading Small Group Bible Studies).  Rob and I led the Follow-up Seminar (pictured above).  It was so fun!  Students were so excited to learn how to help other students dig deeper into the Bible and learn more about what it looks like to follow the Lord!

The following day, we loaded a bus with over 40 students and headed up the coast to visit "Coral Coast Christian Camp."  This is where we will be hosting our Student Conference at the end of June.  We were able to combine hanging out with students and getting out of Suva while taking close notes of the facility that will help us plan the conference!  We are praying for over 100 students to attend!  Above is a picture of Jenny with some sweet girls we got to hang out with during the day!

From L to R; Charlotte, Annie and Judith!  Charlotte and Judith are form the island of Vanuatu and are 3rd years at USP.  Annie is a 1st year, and actually spent most of her life living in California but moved back to Fiji to attend University.  Jenny got to meet with her during the first week of classes and she accepted Christ!  She has been growing in her faith ever since and is so excited to continue meeting with Jenny for Bible study and discipleship!  It's so cool how the Lord brought both Annie and Jenny to Fiji so Annie could hear the Gospel!!

This past weekend, we invited the women of Student Life to come over to our apartment for a Girls Night!  Nearly 20 girls showed up!  We made homemade pizza and served cookies!  The girls were all over the place!  Some were out on the deck playing the guitar with Kori, others were sitting on the coaches, some were having a dance party with Jenny, a few were helping wash dishes, and the rest were sitting on my bed just chatting.  After a while we gathered the troops together and took over the streets of Suva as we headed down to the cinema.  We treated them to see the movie "Rio" (movies are super cheap here...it's awesome!).  They all loved it, and were laughing the whole way through it!  It was such a fun time.  I got a lot of text messages afterwards telling me how much they appreciated the night, and loved hanging out with everyone!

An example of how the girls seem to take over our small apartment!  It's a great thing, though!

Shareeza and Soohyun!  Such sweet girls I LOVE meeting with and going through Follow-up Bible studies with!  Their hearts are SO eager to learn more about the Lord and how to follow Him with their lives!

Shareeza, myself and Lannie (a 3rd year student at USP that I get to disciple this year!) at the 3D Rio movie!  So fun!!

Infiltration of the Enemy!

At about 6:15 this morning I went into our kitchen to put some coffee on.  Well...this process would be much delayed once I realized that our kitchen had been overtaken by tiny spidy-ants during the night!  I looked and saw a thick row of ants crawling from our cabinets into our pantry!  Usually we are killing them on our counters, etc., but getting into our food...they have gone too far this time!


I quickly got out our ant spray and started spraying them at the source (cracks by our cabinets and pantry).  I then went out to our porch and saw that a branch from a large tree was touching our porch wall, which provided a perfect bridge onto our porch for these little creatures, and then into the cracks that lead to our kitchen!  Again...I broke the branch off the tree that was touching our porch...getting the enemy at the source!


Although this experience was not enjoyable, and definitely put me behind schedule this morning, the Lord, as always, had something to teach me through it!  So often in my own life when I see a problem, I quickly address it at the surface.  I don't like conflict or being uncomfortable, or putting my problems on others, so I try to fix it quickly myself.  Well...God has been teaching me that this is not only wrong, it's not Biblical.  When He reveals an issue or problem in my life, it's an opportunity to get to the core, and allow Him to replace the lies with His truth.  


This has been extremely clear in my life in regards to how I have been viewing ministry here in Fiji.  So often at the end of a long day on campus meeting with students, I look at what happened that day to decide whether it was a successful day or not.  This success is often based on how many students showed up to meet with me, how conversations went, or how "useful" I felt on campus.  Obviously this results in a roller-coaster of days and then weeks on campus.  The Lord has been teaching me that success is not in how well I seem to be doing according to my own standards, but rather, how closely I am walking in step with the Holy Spirit and following His moment by moment leading in my life.  


We are called to live our lives with our eyes fixed on the cross, making loving the Lord our TOP PRIORITY and purpose!  From this, all else will be put into place.  We will see our relationships, responsibilities, hardships, schedules and commitments in light of eternity.  Let us not live to enhance our own kingdoms on this earth, which will burn away in the end, but rather live for the Kingdom of God, ever pursuing Him and thus becoming more and more like Him through our lives!


So instead of focusing on the surface issues (i.e. the row of ants are overtaking our granola box or my constantly shifting emotions regarding my success on campus), let's dig deep and let the Lord break thorough the lies we so quickly believe and become entangled in, and pursue His truth, that will help us reach that root cause.


So get out your ant poison, or in your case, your Bible, and get to the source.  Break off those branches that prove to be a bridge to allow the enemy to enter in, and seek the Lord in prayer.  Ask others to come alongside you to keep you accountable so you don't fall back into those ways.  It won't always be perfect, I'm sure I'll be using that ant spray again, but if I only killed the ants that I see crawling on our food, and not getting rid of them at the source, I would be missing out on actually enjoying our apartment, and living in freedom from ants.  Embrace the freedom our Savior freely gives us, if we allow Him access to get to the root and clean out the lies.  In that freedom is found true life, the life the He desires all those that follow and love Him, to experience!


"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
-Hebrews 12:1-2