January 14, 2010
Hello again from Fiji.
[Written 10:30pm Thur 14 Jan].
Well, it's our last night in Fiji. We will be home again by 6 p.m. tomorrow.
Our visits up the Western and Northern parts of Viti Levu went well. We visited all the Lautoka libraries (3 of them) on the weekend and all of them are going well. We travelled up to Ba and Tavua on Monday (the car broke down in Ba and we were stuck there for several hours). Both those libraries are also going well. Daya in Ba is in a difficult situation living with people who are not particularly interested in the work she is doing with us and her church. She is praying for a place of her own where she will be able to operate more efficiently. We stayed the night in Tavua and then travelled up to Rakiraki and on the Matawailevu (in the far north) and back down to Lautoka the same day - lots of travelling!! These are both libraries that were commenced this year and are doing well. Yesterday and today we completed visiting all the libraries in and around Nadi. One of those was Yavusania and Junior told us about a local pastor who had borrowed the Forevermore movie. He rang Junior and told him how he had been so moved by the movie that it changed his life. PTL.
There are some exciting developments in various areas which we will share when we return home.
It's always sad to leave Fiji each year as we see such enthusiasm and excitement and have seen how many people have been helped by the materials. We continue to thank and praise God for calling us into this ministry to help people in the Pacific. Thanks for your continued support and prayer.
God bless
Leonie & Cliff
January 8, 2010
Hello and Happy New Year from Fiji.
Just a quick update on our trip so far.
We had a good week with our grandson Sam for the first week and seem to have survived having a 14 year old with us for a whole week.
The business end of the trip started on Wednesday when we dropped him off at the airport. From there we made our way to suva stopping at Vatakarasa on the way and checking out the library there. Everything seems to have been going well for their first year. We arrived at suva about 6 p.m.
The last two days have been very hectic. What we would normally do in four days we had to squeeze into two days. Yesterday we visited Nakasi where James and Ruth (Rebecca's parents) are doing a great job promoting the library around the neighbourhood and other churches. Ruth shared with us her incredible testimony - from demon possession for 6 years, to practising as a witchdoctor for 3 years and finally being saved. We are hoping to get it all on DVD one day. Then we went to visit the Prison Fellowship. Their library is also being well used in the medium and minimum security facilities, but not yet in maximum. The volunteers are also using the materils in their own villages. From there we went to Maranatha (Suva CBD) and checked out their library. It is going well too, although there were a few disks missing. Got back to the hotel about 6 p.m.
Today was another full day - we travelled 2 hours up to Vunidawa (Naitasiri) and spent a couple of hours with Peni and Merina. They are a really lovely couple and are doing a marvellous job. Most of the dvds that are loaned out just get written down once, but are usually seen by 5 or 6 families before they are returned and many go right into the interior.
We then went to Namata about an hour & half travelling back towards suva and then into the interior in another direction and along about 1 kilometre of foot path to the village. Asilika was thrilled to see us as she was not expecting us - we had been unable to contact her by phone before coming. She feels really blessed through her involvement in the ministry and wished us to pass on her thanks to all the people who support us and help to get materials to them. She has a great ministry amongst the children with the dvds which she is really excited about. We got back to Suva again at about 6 p.m.
There was one outlet in Nasinu which we were unable to go and see as Torika had just come out of hospital with a really bad flu.
Tomorrow (Saturday) we leave Suva to go back to Lautoka on the western side. The next week will be really hectic as we have yet to visit 12 outlets. Please pray we will be able to make contact with them all and for energy as we will have travelled well over 1,000 kms by the time we finish.
Thanks to all for their prayers and encouragement.
God bless
Cliff & Leonie
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