1. Fiji
So by now I know most of you have heard the story of my apple incident. I thought I checked my bag for food, and ended up missing a giant green apple sitting in the bottom of my empty bag and it ended up costing me 200 USD. Thank the Lord for my generous outreach team leader because I could not afford to pay for it myself and he ended up covering a bit of it for me. God has been teaching me a lot about receiving through that because he won't let me pay him back and it's really hard for me to not feel indebted to him for it. But God keeps trying to teach me that letting others take care of you sometimes isn't bad, it's good and builds unity in the body. I've just seen so many instances where people become wholly reliant on others and can do nothing for themselves so I try to avoid putting myself in situations where I need to ask for things from other people. And then I decided to join the mission field.... Definitely a culture shocking experience.
We spend the first week in Fiji in the city doing evangelism, school visits and hospital visits. We prayed for tons and tons of people because they are so open to it there. They were actually asking us to pray for them when they found out we were missionaries. The special needs school was one of my favorite times in Lautoka. We spent the morning just loving on kids that were waiting for their parents to pick them up for school holidays. We played tons of silly games, did a lot of dances, and mostly just laughed a lot with a group of really rambunctious, loving, 6-9 year olds. The hospital was a really hard experience for me both spiritually and emotionally. There was a lot of desperation and despair, and after being used to first world medicine my whole life, it was heart breaking to see how different the level of care was. I'm not saying the health care in Fiji is bad by any means, but there is an overwhelming amount of people waiting for treatments that are so easily accessible in The States.
After our first week wrapped up we went to the Yasawas Island chain to stay in a village for two weeks. Those two weeks were so much fun! We spent most of our ministry time doing house visits and building relationships with the villagers. Every night we ran a church service in the local Assemblies of God church, which was so cool! Everyone got to share at least part of their testimony and a sermon that they prepared. My evangelism team really really clicked with one particular family and we spent a lot of time around their house helping with chores and playing with the kids. We also did a beach clean up with the village, and did a kids day where we just did games and skits in a field with about a million tiny Fijian kids. I have never had so much fun or been so tired in my life! Leaving the village was really hard because by the end of our stay they felt like family.
We finished our time in the villages and then we went to a goat farm in Lautoka to help a Christian Indian family whose father is busy at a DTS. We did a lot of house work and also prepared a few plots in their garden. It was such a blessing to be there and see how generous they were even though they themselves were praying for finances. Our last week was spent in Lautoka doing more evangelism. We spent one of our last days with our contact and his family at his house. They did this big lovo for us which is a Fijian way of cooking that is usually reserved for special occasions. It was so hard to say goodbye to them even after they came back to our accommodations for a while to spend some family time with us. It was so nice.
2. Australian Re-entry
Coming back to Australia was a bit harder than I expected. I don't normally get culture shock going on a missions trip, but I almost always get it coming back from them. It is really overwhelming to see how much stuff we have easy access to that some people need to ride on a boat for hours to get. The materialism of the first world is always super offensive to me at first too. It is weird going from living off of so little and only have 5 days worth of clothes in my bag to walking past department stores that have thousands of dollars worth of merchandise just sitting. Most of the time waiting to be put on clearance just to make rook for more stuff.
It was really good to be back in Toowoomba though. I have missed my YWAM family here, and my family in The States as well. The weird part of being reunited with everyone was that it didn't feel like we ever left at all, yet everyone was so different! It was definitely an adjustment. Everyone has new inside jokes but still hangs out with their old friends so wires tend to get crossed. Teams want to keep spending all their time together but still want to be part of the bigger body which just leads to confusion and frustration. It's been really interesting to witness.
3. The Closing Bell
DTS is quickly (way too quickly) coming to a close. We only have a week of local outreach left, and then we have debrief week and people start heading home. I guess the fact that I'm not going home makes things weirder for me because it feels like everyone is leaving me. Luckily a few of my closest friends are considering coming back to staff next year, and they want to get together when I come home to visit. It'll be great to see how things have changed and stayed the same. I've been spending a lot of my free time working on visa applications and trying to figure out my plans between my DTS and staff orientation in July. I also need to organize how I'm going to fundraise for staying on as a full time missionary and just what life as a full time missionary is going to look like. It's all a little overwhelming but it is also making me have to rely on God a lot more to know that he will provide and comfort me.
I never thought that any of this would be happening, but God has been speaking so much too me about my future and what I'm supposed to be doing that it's hard to do anything else. Thank you guys so much for all your support and covering me in prayer. It has made this journey so much more exciting and has taken a lot of unnecessary stress off of me. I can't wait to see what comes next, and I can't wait to hear more about what people have been doing at home! The hardest part about being here is that it kind of creates a bubble for me to live in. I find myself having to actively pursue information from people back home about what they have been up to and what is going on State-side in general. It's a new experience! Anyway I hope that you guys are as excited for the next chapter as I am because there are a lot of opportunities that are open to me and so many possibilities that I am almost bouncing off the walls with excitement.
Much Love from Toowoomba,
Kate
