I am in New Zealand/ and Fiji

I am done in Fiji

2007-11-29T00:05:00.000-08:00

So i am going to make this quick. We are on debrief week in Fiji and the resort we are staying at requires us to give over our first born or a leg to use the internet, it is so much money. But i have 30 free minutes so here is a quick over view. YEs, we are staying on the beach and i wake up and have coffee next to the beach every day, i went snorkeling in beautiful water the other day, yeah i went snorkeling in Fiji, I went on one of the most dangerous ferris wheels invited yesterday ( i seriously thought we were going to roll away or fly out), and i leave Fiji tomorrow. So i have like 8 more days left until i go home. It feels as if the time flew by. We have been in the resort for 6 glorious days and it has been great to chill for the first time in 8 weeks. I have been able to take a warm shower each day and i have done so each day, which is also a first for me in 8 weeks. Well i love you all and will write more later. BYe and see you soon.

liz

2 in one week

2007-11-15T01:13:00.000-08:00

Hey guys i know this is unheard of hearing from me so soon and such, but i need to talk about some really cool things. My group had an opportunity to go to a jail and preach the Word. It was an all guys prison so the guys were the only ones to talk since it was not going to be good for us white ones to talk, especially since we have found out that Fijian men really like white girls. So anyway, the only prisoners to show up were those who became Christians in the jail. As we walked inside the gates and wire we heard what seemed like 30 guys singing and clapping, they were praising God. We quickly learned that there were only 10 and they were seining so loud and you could see the joy on their faces. Are guys brought the word and then after the guys started to sing again. This time it was even more intense. They were singing with so much freedom. How ironic eh? Here were 10 guys some only a Christian for 3 months singing with more freedom and love than i have ever sung in my life. The were locked behind the 4 fences looking at the world through bars but their love for God ran deep and they had freedom in the hearts and a joy that no one could take away. It was very moving and I was so blessed to be there.
Well that was just a very moving time and so i wanted to share it all with you. Also I have found a new love and it comes in a little plastic bag and cost about 20 cents. NO, No, it is not cheap crack but this amazing Indian sweet that has a very difficult name. I do know it starts with an "L" however after asking the name many times and not remembering ever i have given up. So each day when i go to the dairy for this sweet I just point and grunt at the item until the woman picks up the one i want and then i leave a very happy person. Ok, good bye then.

week 6

2007-11-12T02:59:00.000-08:00

Yes, tis true friends i am already into week 6 of outreach. I once again come humbly before you all and apologize for not updating sooner. We were a little more busy than I thought we were going to be and the fact that each hour at the Internet cost $2 was a big turn off. So now I am writing to you all in a whole new town where i have seen the most white people since being in Fiji, minus the airport. We are in Lautoka, Fiji and it was another 12 hour ferry ride to get here. I remember nothing from the ride except waking up a few times to blow my nose, oh yeah and i did wake up to eat and then went right back to sleep. I would normally not have slept that much but I have had a sinus infection for 2 weeks now and it is starting to wear me out. The place we were at before in Labasa didn't have enough beds so i slept on the floor which was not very helpful for a restful nights sleep and the lack of air conditioners in Fiji made it so hot to sleep, athen add a clogged nose and the equals little to no sleep each night. So i am hoping to get much better here.
Let me update a little on what Labasa was like. We worked in an indian/fijian settlement for a good portion on the month and it was a little difficult for all of us. Are main purpose was the children, the only problem was the children lack any sort of discipline. The parents never tell them "no" and the kids love to hit for any reason at all. Whether it is to say "hi", or to tell you something, or to take something from you, or to show you something, or just for fun they love hitting. Oh my our team would come home each night and discuss all the children we wanted to injury that day. We were able to hang out with the youth as well and meet the ladies of the settlement, who slaved every night to make us an incredible meal. It was so good and we had to learn to eat with our hands, not only do the indians eat with no utensils but it is the Fijian way as well. I still don't have the hang of it. Our team also worked with an pentecostal Indian church. They love to sing and pray for many hours. It was nice to see how the 2 different groups of people worship though. Both churches don't have much but they worship with all their hearts.
We also cleaned up trash around the town in the parks. There was so much trash everywhere that it was real disgusting. A big problem was the lack of trash bins as well. If there was one it either had a whole in it or a tree was planted in it. I have never been looked at like a crazy person before for picking up trash but in labasa people sadly thought we were the crazy ones.
I also have a new found respect for those people who have to wash their clothes by hand, which is something we had to do for our month in Labasa. The washer was broken so we had to do it the hard way. I must say i never ever want to do that again. I gave up about 30 minutes into scrubbing my clothes and just threw my clothes around in the soapy water to get them to smell almost clean. It was such hard work, and i would sweat so much. After sweating and putting the clothes out in the hot baking sun all we could do was go into the home with no air and sit in front of the fan praying that the sweat would stop pouring out. I love washers and dryers!!
So now I am in Lautoka, which I believe is the 2nd or 3rd largest city. We can see the ocean from just up the road where we are staying and Praise Jesus we have not only an air conditioner in our room but their are washers here. It is the first time in Fiji we sleep with air and i am very happy. The place we are staying is a children's counseling center so once again we work with children, I just pray that are a little bit more tame, on wed. we are going to a prison. Today was a resting day since we just arrived off the ferry and so some of us went into town. As we walked into the stores we saw Christmas decorations being put up, which was really fun to see very surreal. Since we were sweating and wearing as little as possible, it didn't even feel close to Christmas time to us since we are all use to being a bit colder this time of year. So I know that seasons is upon us but until i stop sweating 24/7 i shall not think about a Christmas tree. Well this one is long and i apologize, so i will just abruptly end it here. Bye for now...liz

Week 3

2007-10-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

Hello to all,

Well i am in week 3 of Fiji and i am in Labasa Fiji. It is much hotter and sadly there are way more mosquitos here. Yeah, i am a little afriad of getting more because my legs are just starting to look like legs again. Are time in Suva was a little hetic, but we are all happy to be out of the small house and in a house of our own with 4 bedrooms. Working with Impact World Tour was not as much fun as we all thought it was going to be. The were not very organized and didn't really try hard to make as feel welcomed, but we worked our butts off for them anyway cuz we are on outreach and it has nothing to do with them we all came to Fiji to worship God.
We took a ferry ride over here, an 11 hour ferry ride. When i was outside i was fine and didn't feel sick at all but as soon as i got ot my seat i felt the sickness kick in slightly. Suprisingly i didn't throw up i think it was due to the fact that the bathrooms smelled so incredibly bad, like others did go and throw up. Once the boat docked it was a 3 hour bus ride with all the seats filled up, the bus was so heavy that we could barely make it up all the hills. We arrived saftly in Labasa and imediatley began taking off the clothes we could. Labasa is not that big and the fijians call it "Little India". Rightly named i must say. There are way more indians here than other towns in Fiji. That is going to be some of the ministry we are going to be doing with a few local churches here. The Indians have some many God's that it is hard to get them to just worship Jesus.
It is really funny to be walking down the street and have evryone look and point at you. We all stick out so much, the kids really like to just stare at us, and i just laugh and say "BULA", which means hello. This week we are attending a pastors confrence and most of are team fell asleep during the 3 hour confrence. it was just so hot and they don't have air conditioning in most churches. I actually thought we were the only white people here in Labasa but as i have come to find out the other 5 white people are just hiding in the Internet Cafe, go figure. Well i am going to leave you all for now, but I write more soon and very soon.

liz

one week

2007-10-07T17:41:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, well the most important thing I have to tell you know is that i now have 76 mosquito bites. Yes, you heard right i have 76 as of this morning i currently hold the record for our team the closest behind me is Karin with 50 something. I spray and spray and spray that bug spray but i think they like it actually. I must say that it is something that bothers me day and night so if you could just pray for a fast recovery that would be amazing both my legs itch so bad.
Impact World Tour has one more week, so that means our team has one more week here in Suva, Fiji then we are off on a 12 hour boat ride to Labasa Fiji. We have seen hundreds of people give their lives to the Lord during thus last week here with Impact and I get chills each time. It is a little difficult trying to counsel with those who come to the altar call due to the language barrier. So i just try to hand out bibles to those without them and hope that a Fijian will come and talk with them. Here in Fiji they speak a lot with their eyes and random grunts so trying to undestand what they are saying is a challenge and i find myself nodding and just nervously laughing a lot and then walking away. I hope we can get the hang of it soon. Our team is also having a little bit of troublem apapting to Fiji time and still trying to get things done we need to. Island people are extremely laid back and really have no western concept of time, so it is really easy to get lazy and just wait around all day. We are going to fix that this week though, we hope!!!
So i will leave you all with a story of our time to the beach. Yesterday we had a resting day and wanted to go to the beach, but being here in Suva there are not amazing beaches but, we asked our home if there was one close. Suprisingly he said yes and it would just take 1 hour walk. Well, we had nothing better to do som off we went. 30 minutes later we arrived at the village he told us to walk through only to find the village dump area right next to the water. Some of the village boys said they would take us to the "beach" so we followed. After walking through mud and a mini forrest we arrived at jagged rocks leading into muddy water. We had arrived at our "beach". Well we didn't walk that whole way for nothing so we got right in. Then i had to take a shower and even though i swore that i would only take 1 shower each week due to only having cold water i had to take one since the water was soooo gross that the village people even laughed at us getting in there. We are truly seeing the part of Fiji that they do not show tourist. Well goodbye for now!!!

I am in Fiji

2007-10-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

So I am now in Fiji and yes it is as beautiful as everyone says it is. We flew into Nadi Fiji at 9 pm monday night and spent the night in a youth hostel. Riiiighhhht let's just say it cost us around $5 US dollars to stay there, i hope that paints a picture of what it looked like. The rooms had no AC and there were things on the wall that only God himself could identify. We survived through the night and breakfast was served for us at 7:45. However we are in Fiji now and so we go by their time which is Fiji time. Here is how it works, nothing ever starts at the time they say. It always will start later. So breakfast was at 8, which isn't bad considering the time we were suppose to be here at the impact world tour office was 8 and we rolled up at 9. So for the first time in my life i am going to be on time for things.
As you just read i am at the impact world tour office and us girls get to mark dates on invitations while the guys go and sweat hard to put together the stage. It is such a hard life here. We are staying in a little house where the bugs out number all of us. Praise God for our small house cuz a few weeks ago we had no place to stay. It is nice though and i currently have about 10 bug bites. All i can say is this is going to be something new. Well, that is all the time i have for now so i will try to update again very soon. Please keep us all in your prayers, THANKS

liz

Fiji

2007-09-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

Here I go to Fiji... What else to say except I go to Fiji for outreach. My team will be working with Impact World Tour. We will be flying out in 2 hours and will come back to NZ on Nov. 30. It will be quite a challenge but an adventure, the greatest one to date. i shall take so many pictures and try to update this as much as possible. Again I thank you all foro your support and help getting here. Everyone one of you are FREAKING AMAZING!!!! Seriously, and I love you all so much. I am looking forward to going to a hot place like Fiji. It is currently 85 degrees there with like 75% humidity. So yes, everyone will sweat a lot but I will be oh so happy. Especially since i will be coming from a winter season where there was not one central heating place anywhere. I will leave you now but I hope to write again very soon to tell you about that greatness of Jesus and Fiji. Good bye lovely ones.

liz

a pic or 2

2007-09-01T02:26:00.001-07:00

It has been some time

2007-08-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

Well hello to everyone who has proabbly stoped checking this. I am getting way to far behind to not write things down, so here is a little summary of my life since the last post. Well when i last wrote i was in the beautiful Queenstown. Now i am still in oxford but i did just get back from church serving week. We broke up into our outreach teams for a week and went to towns surrounding the base and served a church the whole week, it was pretty much a little week long mission trip. I was in my Fiji team, if you were not aware i will be going to Fiji for the outreach phase. I know how cool is that, however it will not be a huge long vacation but a real mission trip. We will be going to small villages hopefully and ministering there. Oh yeah we also get to work with Impact World Tour. It will be going through Fiji the time we are there, if you are not sure what it is go google it.
So back to church serving week. Team Fiji helped out Grace Vineyard Church, it was a huge church with the kids pilled high in their rooms due to the lack of space. We painted a home, helped out a food organization, gave food to the hungry, worked with after school programs and spoke at small groups. The most exciting time for me was speaking to their youth group of about 150 people. Yeah it was a little intense, i gave a portion of my testimony and talked about trusting God. I think God just knocke me out and spoke for me because they all seemed to like it afterward. The youth here are on fire for God. There is a passion in the voice and their heart for the thi gs of God. It is great to see and i think God is going to move ina huge fashion in New Zealand and especially Christchurch NZ where this church is located. People here are not satisfied with the same old religion and God of the past. They want more and are asking for more, and god says if you ask you will recieve!!! So keep your eyes and ears open for works of God to happen in New Zealand.
I stayed with an amazing family in town and they just made me feel like a family member. The daughter of the family who is my age made things a little awkard at first, because she explained to me that she was not to happy with Americans, and that the are a loud group who really don't care much about others. Right, boy was i excited. I am not loud in the least bit huh? Well it all worked out great and i think i may have made her start to think differently about us loud North Americans. So i spent a whole week in a real town here in New Zealand where the only lamb i saw was the one on my plate. Boy, was he/she tatsy. Well i need to get a going now but I will write a heap more in a little bit and even try to post some pictures.
I LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU TONS. Please keep me in your prayers and I shall for real do they same.
liz

a little more love

2007-08-18T03:05:00.000-07:00

pics

2007-08-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

2007-08-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Queenstown!!

2007-07-31T06:48:00.001-07:00

Once again i say hello,

So this past sunday our group just got back from Queenstown NZ, and oh my how beautiful. Seriously look at the pictuers if you do not believe me. We stayed at a christian campsite that overlooked the town. We finished up lectures that thursady and friday about the Kingdom of God. There is a church that meets in Wanaka NZ called The Lighthouse that also came down to help finish out the week. This group of christians were filled with the Holy Spirit for sure and i witnessed new things the whole weekend long. As you all may know i grew up in a southern baptist church my whole life, so when the church group started prophesying over people and laughing in the spirit and just worshiping in the spirit I was a little taken back. I was not scared in any way but everything was a little new. They also did this prayer thing. The best way i can describe is it like soultrain when everyone gets their chance to dance down the train. That is what it was like except we were not dancing down and the church would pray for us as we would pass them. Well i guess i cannot say that everyone was not dancing cuz some were dancing right on down that "train". I am probably not making sense so hit me up some how and i will explain better.
Ok moving on this past Saturday we then got to go riding at Snowpark NZ. For those who do not know of what i speak of i say you pick up a snowboarder magazine and chances are you will see shots from snowpark. IT was INCREDIBLE!!!! Seriously the day was a perfect day, it was no bluebird day but was amazing. I got to work more on park stuff seeing as it was just a place with park features and i got to witness of few of my friends here at the SDTS tear it up. I have come to realize that i need to be practicing even when i am sleeping in my bed. The whole weekend was a great new experience with the riding and with the times of worship it was a lot of fun. Oh, but i have come to find out that next time i am in a van full of girls going on long road trip i will either, #1 give everyone a sleeping pill, or #2 try to find another van. Apparently girls can get moody , especially when the have been in a car together for over 6 hours. Well that is all for now. Oh wait j/k. i forgot one thing. I did get to drive on the wrong side of the road on monday. i would like to say i have scary stories for you about that time but it was only down the street and no one was coming on either side. But, the steering wheel was on the other side so the amount of excitement was raised ever so slightly. Oh yeah and before i forget it looks like i will be heading of to the Fiji island for my outreach time. Alright, guys until next time buh bye!!!

pictures

2007-07-30T20:11:00.001-07:00

Here is my first blog

2007-07-29T01:31:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Well i thought that since some of my friends and family have a myspace and some just only have an email address i would just get a free blog thingy. Here it is. Well i have been in new Zealand for almost a whole month. That is right i am living and surviving in another country where people drive on the "wrong" side of the road, and there are more sheep than people, which would be a sad fact if i was one who was looking for a man in this beautiful country.
So I am Doing this YWAM SDTS (snowboarding discipleship training school). It is absolutely amazing and am having lots of fun. Coming from a relatinve conservative baptist background I am being introduced to many new things, but it is a real faith bulider. However, not only am i learning a lot about the things of God but i am also getting to snowboard here in the country of loveliness. I am hoping to come back home and tear it up and my home mountain. We shall see though. Ok then i will write another one right after this one but i wanted to put up a very first blog so here you are. Bye now.

liz