Originally posted Thursday, November 26, 2009 on Outreach Blog

Bula, bula, bula! (Hello, hello, hello) We made it to Fiji!! After a pretty uneventful, but long, day of travel we arrived at Nadi (pronounced Nandi) airport. The trip through customs was easy. The people here are so incredibly friendly. They are easy to talk to and eager to hear about you and where you're from. Our CDTS group is made up of 15 people, and at least one gecko, who is living in our room with us. The Derushas are Frank and Denise and their five children Caleb, Tavita, Micaiah, Israel, and Isaiah. They are from Arizona. The Munfradas are Chick and Lynda, they are from Colorado. Bill Cheney is from California. The Oosterhouses are Dan and Robin and their three boys, Caleb, Joshua and Nathaniel. They are from Michigan. We are still in the process of getting settled and accustomed to the time change. One of the Derusha kids was up at 3:30 this morning, he was still on California time. All of the kids are doing great they are loving the pool that is at the hotel. It's a great way for them to expend all the extra energy that has been built up after a 10 1/2 hour flight from L.A. We already had a meeting with Pastor Mike, one of the pastors that we will be working with in Lautoka. He gave us some insight into some specific areas that we can minister too. One of the areas he spoke about was the area of relationships, both in the church and in families. He was glad that our team was composed of couples both with and without kids. He said that we would be examples to the people of good relationships. Pastor Mike also explained to us about how the tourism trade in Fiji has caused the Fijian people to have preconceived notions about western people. They assume that all Americans are Christians. When they see Americans doing wrong things, they see it as Christians doing them,and they have a hard time believing that Christians can do such things. That is also true between the Indo-Fijians and the Fijians. Most of the Indos are Hindu, but they see all of the Fijians as being Christians, even the thieves and such. Why would they want to become a Christian if that is what Christians are doing? One of the most important things that Pastor Mike said, was that the people are sick of hearing about Jesus, they need to see Jesus. We have to give them a positive view of Christianity. One of our speakers, Dean Sherman, said that we need to show people the treasure we are, so that they will want to sell their fields (religion) and buy ours. Matthew 13:44 says: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field" We have to show the people around us that we are not like the world. We have been set apart by God as His treasure. If the world doesn't see us as any different, we have a problem. We hope that we can be a light to the people of Fiji, and that we can show them the treasure that God has made us.

Outreach

We are currently in our outreach portion of our training. To follow our team go to our blog - outreachfiji.blogspot.com

Thanks

Week 4

Somewhere along the way I accidentally deleted my week 4 summary that I was working on. So I will try it again.

Week 4 we had Joe Ferrante teaching on The Father Heart of God. Many people have no idea that the God loves us. We have an intellectual knowledge of it, but that's as far as it goes. We tend to believe two lies: 1. God is not good, and 2. I am not good enough for God to love me. Satan uses a pattern to condemn us, but God counter-acts Satan's deception.

Satan uses doubt, confusion, fear, despair, and isolation. God counters with truth, clarity, confidence, hope, and intimacy.

If we are going to have intimacy with God, we have to let go of one question: Why? It's OK to ask the question, but we need to be content about not receiving an answer.

Satan knows how powerful forgiveness is, that's why he works so hard against it. Forgiveness needs to be a lifestyle. We are unable to do it in our own strength.Forgiveness shakes the very foundations of hell.

This is just a brief summary of week 4. Joe was a great speaker and such a gentle and loving person.

Week 5

Week 5 we had Jim May teaching us. The topic of his teaching was "With Him". God wants us to do everything with Him. It's as if God says "Hey, I'm going for a walk, you want to come? It's amazing to me just how many Christian books are man centered. Why isn't God the center? We need to realign our center to match His.

Below are 11 passages on why we are to meditate on The Word. I would like you to comment on the reasons given in the passages.

1. Joshua 1:8
2. Psalm 1:1-3
3. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
4. John 8:31-32
5. John 15:17
6. Psalm 119:11
7. Romans 10:17
8. Matthew 24:35
9. Hebrews 4:12
10. Psalm 119:98-99
11. Psalm 81:13-14

I hope as you read through these passages that you will see the value in diving in and devouring The Word.

What's happening in Chico

Here's a real life update finally. We only have 3 weeks left of our lecture phase of CDTS. I can't believe how incredibly fast it has gone and don't want it to be over yet! The teachers have been fantastic, most have been teaching around the world for decades. We still love being here. It's even more beautiful now, we've had some rain to bring out new grass on the mountains and the trees are gorgeous. The temps are still in the high 60's and 70's during the day so it feels like summer to us but with the shorter days and red trees it looks like fall...how confusing! The kids are still loving school and life here. I think they would be happy to stay here forever.

There's been a change with our outreach due to flight availability. We leave on Sunday, Nov 22 for Fiji and couldn't get a flight back until Tues, Jan 12. Because of this we won't be able to minister to homeless people in San Fransisco. That's disappointing but it gives us more time to work with people in Fiji. We still need $3,800 for our outreach expenses, this includes airfare plus transportation, lodging and most meals in Fiji. We'll be staying at the Sandalwood Inn in a town called Nadi which is near the airport and the coast. We've heard the beach there is muddy but hopefully it's not too gross. Since we'll be there in their summer it'll be 80-90 degrees in Fiji with high humidity. Sound good? Another thing, women AND MEN should wear skirts in some areas (like villages). They are called sulus and we'll have to buy some when we get there.

We still plan to drive to the YWAM base in Creel, Mexico to visit when we are done here. As much as we love this place and the people here, our hearts are still for the people of Mexico. Please keep us in your prayers during these last weeks of teaching and preparation. Please pray that our finances come in (as well as our team's finances) and pray for wisdom and we prepare puppet shows, dramas and songs for outreach. We so appreciate all the prayers, words of encouragement and financial support that you've sent our way. Praise God!

Week 3

Our scheduled week 3 speaker, Donna Jordan, had to cancel due to Dengue fever. So a little rearrangement of our schedule had to be done.

The first part of the week was covered by Dale Harrison, the base director that spoke during week 1. He continued with Intimacy with God and a couple of other things.

Dale described the original intent of the altar as portable, so that people wouldn't have to travel in order to worship God. God designed it, but it had to be constructed by man. After the coming of the Holy Spirit, man became the altar to continue in the portable nature of it. We do not need to go places to worship God, we are able to worship Him where we are. There were different types of altars described in the Bible. They were made out of four different types of materials: gold, bronze, stone, and earth. The gold altar in the Tabernacle was only for the priests to use and only incense was to be burned on it. The bronze altar was for the sacrifices, very bloody. Stone altars can be built anywhere, and symbolize what we have become. In Exodus 20:25 the instruction for constructing a stone altar were given. They were to use only uncut stones, meaning only natural stones that haven't had tools used on them. God doesn't want us to dress up ourselves. He wants us to use the messes of our lives to build an altar to worship Him with.

The rest of the week was taught by our class leader Carlos Penning. He spoke on the character of God. God inspired the Bible to show us His character. He wanted to be transparent with us. He wants us to ask Him questions regarding His character, He is big enough to handle them. His character shows us that He desires a relationship with us. Our relationships with everything else, people and things, are only to be a compliment to our relationship to Him, not a replacement. We have chosen to replace that relationship with God, and seek after relationships in other places. We have made an abomination of what God desired. Indescribable horror has occurred due to our selfishness. Murder, rape, child molestation, and the list could go on and on. God could step in and stop these horrible things, but then His perfect justice would require Him to stop all sin, even mine and yours. That's not to say that He doesn't sometimes do that, but only when His people intercede for change. God has chosen to limit Himself to using His people for now.

Week 2

Week 2 – Bill Payne

The Truth Box

We all have a truth box. It's the little box that we file things that we know, or think, are true. If you hear something you immediately run through the files in your truth box to verify it's true. Say if I were to tell you that the world is not really round like we all thought it was, but instead that the world is actually square. You'd take that bit of information that I just gave you and check it against all the things that you know about the earth, pictures that have been taken, eye witness accounts that have seen that the earth is actually round, etc... and you reject the idea that the earth is square. We also put things in the truth box about God. Depending on your life experiences and other influences your truth box may have untruths put in there by other people or even the father of lies himself. Untruths like: God can't possibly love me as filthy a sinner as I am or God is just waiting for me to mess up so He can zap me with lightening, or some other such nonsense. The picture of God in our truth box influences how we approach Him. The truth is God loves you more than you can imagine.

Don't believe me? Read it for yourself. Ephesians 3:17b-19 says:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Hmmm.... Sounds pretty clear to me. Yet for some reason we read this passage and the knowledge of it stays in our head and doesn't make it down to our hearts.

Do you ever wonder why you were created? Why would God create such frail and fragile beings as us? Did anyone ever ask you why you had kids? For most of us, we had kids as an expression of our love between our spouses and us. We wanted to share the relationship we had between us with our children. That is why God created us. God had a perfect relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Out of that perfect relationship God created mankind to be a gift between the Persons of the trinity. Mankind was meant to be an expression of the love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God acknowledged that His relationship was good and He wanted more of it. It's like us having a bowl of ice cream and wanting more because it was good. Jesus didn't come so we could get into Heaven, but to restore the intimacy mankind had with the Father.

Did you know that God can't make you love Him? Love is not love unless it's freely given. If God could make you love Him you would because His will is that no one should perish, see 2 Peter 3:9.

If you're not trusting God or believing His love for you, you are attacking His character and are in league with Satan. We believe that our families love us, but we doubt God's love even though He tells us over and over again that His love for us is unmeasurable.

People sometimes reject God because they can't believe in a God that would send people to Hell. God doesn't send people to Hell. People are free to choose which path they follow. God doesn't stop them from following the path they've chosen. It's like telling someone that I want to go to Chicago, but I'm determined to take the road to Detroit. There is no way that I'm going to make it to Chicago, but I keep insisting that I'm going to make it. Then suddenly I end up right where the road has taken me. Then God gets blamed for me choosing the wrong road.

God is more interested in my pleasure than I am. He created us for ecstasy. I am valuable because I am a creation of the living God, created to have relationship with Him! I'm not valuable because Jesus died for me, but Jesus died for me because I'm valuable. If you pick up any person in the world and look at their price tag, you would see the ultimate price for each and everyone of us, every drop of Jesus blood. We are the most expensive things ever purchased in the universe!