L: Sophie and Leanna, check out how they picked up the same drink.
R: Me feeling the heat from the thermal pool. It’s boiling!

We spent Saturday in Rotorua with our friends from Vanuatu.

Rotorua is only about slightly more than 1 hr from Matamata where we are. It’s famous for its smell. You’ll smell sulfur as soon as you drive in. There is a lot of thermal activity everywhere. We went to an open park and you really walk at your own risk! Sophie was really fascinated with the bubbling mud pools and smoke. Ooo the smell!

Spending time with the Ni-Vans is always wonderful, always relaxing. You see the wonderful provision of the Lord everywhere they go and travelling with them, we get to experience that as well! They managed to borrow enough vehicles to take the entire team, someone arranged a BBQ lunch for them, free parks and free culture tours! It was so cool. Gonna miss them when they return and I’m hoping that we’ll get to go back to Vanuatu sometime this year. Maybe after baby is born.

James turned 37 last week! Happy Birthday to the most amazing and humble guy I know

For his birthday treat, he went deep sea fishing with some locals. He’s been wanting to do that for the longest time. See how happy he was? They caught 20 kg worth of tuna and sold it to the base for food.

We also went to the only Jap restaurant in town for dinner at night. It was so nice to have sushi for a change and Sophie really enjoyed herself. It was past bed time for her but she was totally enjoying the moment - a glass of juice just for her, sushi, company and singing Happy Birthday to her daddy.

It never fails to amaze me how prayer & fasting always brings about the breakthrough that we long to see. Last Tuesday was a great testimony to that. If you need a breakthrough in your life, get on your knees, seek the face of God, pray and fast and you’ll see God move in an amazing way.

Our day started at 6am in the morning and we ended with a big feast at 7pm. It was a corporate compulsory fast so there was no cooking until the evening. With exception of the pregnant women and children.

We gathered for corporate prayer at the prayer house at 8am. We worshipped, prayed for each other and the base leaders shared their hearts. At 10am, some of us returned with the children. We set up the creative worship table where the kids drew pictures for Jesus. James stayed behind at the prayer house to pray and some worked on cleaning up the prayer house.

The prayer house has not been well kept and needed to be cleaned. It was symbolic of the state of prayer on the base. The Lord was calling the base to return to prayer.
Through the day, people signed up to pray.

At 3pm, we gathered again to share and feedback on what the Lord was showing us. A few shared and it was an amazing time where everyone confessed their sins and area of repentance. For some it was a time of reconciliation. A lot of walls were broken down that day.

After that some of us took the newly made cross and carried it and worshipped around the village. Some proceeded to prepare the feast. Others helped with the decorations for the feast. Some continued praying.

At 7pm, we gathered for a time of communion and ended with a feast and prayer for each other. The base also showed a video of thanksgiving for what the Lord had done over this year. God has really been so good to them despite of the many challenges.

Rest of the week, we went to Blacksands twice where Sue & Em taught and Jim preached, to the preschool, Gin led worship during the open meeting and James preached. We also organized a kids farewell party for the older kids that have been coming regularly on Thursday afternoons. This weekend we are preparing for a wedding for a couple on the base. In fact, we’re just preparing and cooking in a bit! We’re making samosas, chicken wings and fruit kebabs. Yums!

Last week we felt the Lord leading us back to Him.

We stopped everything the previous Saturday and just spent time sharing and praying. In order to do that, we had to reshuffle a few responsibilities. Thank God that Geoff and Amanda (base leaders) were very understanding and accommodating towards us. As we shared with them, they confirmed that God has also been speaking to them about returning to prayer and worship as the foundation of the base. That was the affirmation we needed to press on.

As a team, we felt that God is calling us to repentance, communion, prayer and fasting. A relook at why we are doing what we are doing. A relook at our hearts and attitudes.

So, we set aside yesterday (Saturday) to pray as team and the upcoming Tuesday as a base to pray and fast and turn our eyes back to God. On Tuesday, we will break fast at 7pm (Vanuatu time) for a village and base celebration. Part of the plan is also to restore the prayer house which hasn’t been in great shape. Also we are going to reinstate the cross on the base and the prayer house.

As we began to once again turn our eyes towards the Lord (which is also repentance - turning away from ourselves and things around us and turning towards Him) and return to the DTS/Lordship day moment, several things began to fall in place. We began to see the team functioning in their giftedness and passion. We began to hear from the Lord like never before and had many words of confirmation from each other. Divine appointments also increased.

However, the attacks have also been fast and furious. With emotional despair and discouragement to physical sickness - Eli is having hand food mouth disease with ulcers on his hands and mouth, Gin pretty worn out from having to look after two kids on her own and she is also down with a stomach flu, and so on and so forth. It reached a peak yesterday morning when we started to fast and pray. That was when we realized that Eli was sick and Gin’s stomach flu got worse. The pressure was also building up and there was some tension but thank God it was quickly resolved.

Please do keep us in prayer as we make a stand to put God first in our lives and on behalf of the base and land. We believe that Tuesday is going to be a pivotal point in our lives as well as for the base so we would appreciate that you partner us in praying, not just for us but for the Love Vanuatu base and for Vanuatu. God is at work and we are excited to be part of it.

We have Fridays off every week and during our off days, we try to spend more time with Sophie. I find that being on a mission trip really demands a lot of our time and sometimes time with Sophie is sacrificed. We need to be so aware and considerate of her feelings.

Today we had a great time with her. We spent the morning roaming the town looking for yummy things to eat. We had a chicken drumstick, walked the open market (we LOVE the open market!), stopped by the park and then ended up at Nambawan (no prizes for guessing what that means in English!) cafe where we had pizza and ice cream. Sophie got a ice cream treat coz she went thru the night without wetting her diaper for 3 nights. I figured $$ saved from diapers can go into treats! Woo hoo!

This is a photo to show how cheeky she can be, not quite that dainty little girl anymore. I was smiling like an idiot in all the pictures thinking that she was too but she was making funny faces! Take a look at the series of photos, finally got her to smile and it ended up looking so funny!

Oh my, I couldn’t believe how murky the water turned after soaking our clothes! Trust me, it’s not the shadow that makes it look so dark, it was seriously murky.

Sophie is really into dress up so when I saw this at the markets last week, I knew I had to get it for her.

This is her doing her hula dance!

I think if she could, she would want to wear this everyday!

Prisons

The guys spend Mondays at the prisons with the inmates. Jim spoke a powerful message on Salvation last week. Tomorrow James is going to be speaking. Do keep him in prayer.

Preschool at Banyan Tree

The kids seem to be afraid of foreigners so we had a chat with the preschool teacher and decided to bring a smaller team. So Gin, Em and I went with our kids to the preschool instead of the entire team. We had a great time playing with paints at the preschool.The kids really enjoyed it. They’ve never used fingerpaints before so it was really a treat for them. We painted their feet, combined all their pieces and made a cross with them. In the middle, we wrote the words "We belong to Jesus".

Men’s Nite and Women’s Grp

Sadly last week, we didn’t have anyone turn up for the women’s grp and only a few men turned up for the showing of the movie, Fireproof. We figured that it was probably because there were 3 weddings on Friday so everyone in the village was busy. In Vanuatu, weddings are a week long event! Everyone gathers at the bride/bridegroom-to-be’s home and they’ll stay for a whole week and party. Plus the cruise ship came in on Wednesday, same day as our women’s grp so the women were all selling stuff at the market. So, we went to the market instead! Yep, learning to be flexible.

Blacksands

Blacksands is a poorer part of Efate (the island that we’re on. Vanuatu is made up of a few islands.) Most people who live in Blacksands are not from Efate. It’s where all the people from the other islands of Vanuatu live, like a slum area. We spend Thursday mornings with the kids at different churches in Blacksands. Last week we did a Pass the Parcel game with a gift whenever someone gets it and it was hilarious to see how each time a kid starts to open the parcel, the whole village (exaggeration here) jumps in to see what he got! Btw, the gifts were just pencils, sweets or stickers, nothing spectacular. It’s so nice to see kids being thankful for the little.

Kids Club

We organise a little kids club on Thursday afternoons for the neighbourhood kids. God’s put on our hearts to teach them to move in the power of the Spirit so this week Em taught on Hearing God’s Voice.

In the midst of all these, we need to remember our first call is to relationship with the Father. It is so easy to forget it when we get busy. Over the weekend, the Lord’s called us back to prayer. So this coming week, we’re going to realign and press in to pray. Pls con’t to pray for us because we need it lots.

Sophie is growing up so fast. I thought since I have a bit of time I should write about what she’s been up to.

Sophie is 3 years old. What an amazing age to be. She’s old enough to do quite a few things by herself, really expressive and yet still needs us so much.

When she turned 3, we transited her to sleep on a bed instead of the travelling cot. We travel quite a bit so we found that buying a travelling cot a year ago really helped in the transitions from place to place and in places where they do not provide cots, we’re not stuck. However, our little one is really tall and she looked so squashed in the cot so we decided to move her to sleep on a bed. She took to it pretty well after a few sessions of prior prep talk.

SO, she’s been sleeping on a mattress while we are here, next to our bed. We brought her bedsheets, pillow case, blanket and teddy to help with the transition. She was sleeping well the first few weeks but last week, she started waking in the night and climbing into our bed! In the beginning, it was kinda nice. See, Sophie’s always slept in her own room since she was home from the hospital! I was starting to enjoy cuddling with her in our bed. But then she started to do that every night… sigh… I haven’t had a solution to that coz I’m secretly enjoying that very much. Also coz it is really noisy in the morning at about 5am onwards so when she sleeps with us, she sleeps till 6.30 instead of waking at unearthly hours like 5am! 6.30 is still unearthly to me but I can live with that, at least for these 7 weeks. We’ll figure how to break this habit when we go back to Matamata… sleep is more important at this point. Hiak hiak…

Sophie is extremely attached to James recently. When he has to go to do stuff and leave the base, she cries! Even when I’m next to her! It’s kinda strange but I’m really glad that she’s so close to her Daddy. I know that many kids do not have the priviledge of having Daddy close almost the whole day. Sophie is extremely blessed in that aspect and she REALLY loves her Daddy.

Being here has really stretched Sophie in her ability to share. It’s really hard for a 3 year old to share most times and she’s had to learn it constantly living in community. I think it’s a good thing but that means that most days you’ll hear one child crying at different times of the day. Quite often it’s Sophie if it comes to sharing. She is the only one who is the only child so I guess she needs to practice sharing here.

She still sings and talks a lot. As she develops, she seems to be even more wary of strangers and would not really say hi to them. However with the adults on the team, she’s starting to make conversations with them and tell them stuff or ask them for things which is really cute to watch.

She’s really enjoying the beach and the environment here. Mealtimes are ok, need to make her eat coz she gets so distracted by her friends and everything else.

Learning wise, this environment suits her very much because she is quite a tactile learner. She has the freedom to just be and it’s so precious. But the kiasu mother in me has attempted to squeeze in learning alphabets and numbers somewhat and I think she loves it! My mum in law sent alphabet sticker books so that keeps Sophie occupied in the mornings while we are asleep. Hiak. Gotta be real creative with this lil one. For example, she can’t pray sitting still so we exercise in bed, kick our feet in the air and pray aloud and shout out the memory verses that we taught in the village preschool.

Yep that’s it for now!

Left: Baking in the fire oven

Right: Seedlings that grew - Spring onions, pumpkin, capsicum, eggplant

In addition to the ministry that we are doing, our heart was also to serve the people and the YWAM base here and be available to do whatever is needed.

Last week we the girls and the kids helped to plant 4 different types of seeds – capsicum, spring onion, pumpkin and eggplant. The kids had a great time digging and sprinkling in the seeds. Sophie was so thrilled to see the spring onion and pumpkin sprout out so quickly just after a few days. After we helped plant the seeds in plastic containers, we also helped to plough and made the ground ready for planting. This is the FIRST TIME in my life I’ve ever done anything like that! It was pretty cool.

The men went over to the base director’s house to help to do the piping for the new washing machine they have. You must remember that washing machines are a rare commodity in these parts. There isn’t one on the base so we wash our clothes by hand. Makes us really appreciate the things that we take for granted back in Matamata e.g $2 per washing load. It costs almost S$10-15 per 5kg load in town. Sigh… wonder how our grandparents did it… ? look after 10 kids, wash clothes, cook, bake, garden etc. Faint.

This week we also experienced open fire cooking because the gas stove ran out of gas. Wooah smokey. We didn’t last more than 15 mins. Weak lah. My eyes started smarting after like 5 mins!

We also attempted to bake in the fire oven. Oh, that was really interesting. There was no way of gauging the temperature and no open window to see what was happening in the oven! Try that! But our experienced mother of 6 and super cook, Sue, was brilliant. She managed to whip up cream puffs and even a cake! It was such a treat. As part of our programs, we try to provide a little snack. We’ve been making popcorn and cookies. It’s really much cheaper to bake than buy cookies off the shelves. Things are really expensive here e.g. a box of tissues costs US$2.20.

Playing "Let’s Go" with the neighbourhood kids

The cool thing about being a family team is that the villagers can easily identify with us.

We have a wonderful mix of team members. We have an older couple on the team – Jim and Sue with their youngest child, 11 year old Simon. That gives us inroads to pastors, elders and generally the older folks. In a culture where elders are highly respected, having Jim and Sue with us has been a great advantage. The rest of the couples are the same age as us and we have 5 preschoolers between us - that is a sure way to win the hearts of the villagers!

Some of the women that we spoke with last Sunday at church turned up for the Women’s Group. We had a cooking session where Sue taught the women how to make “No-Bake Oat Cookies”. Gin led the women’s group and got everyone to share a little. We hope to share God stories and conduct some food and culture exchange during this time. Our desire is to share what God thinks of women and how He values us as women. It’s amazing how God is using the way He has gifted us to reach the people. For example with Gin and Sue who enjoy cooking and baking, this is such a great platform for us to reach the women! Our great men did their part by entertaining the children with a Veggie Tales video while the women enjoyed their cooking time.

During our Wednesday village walkabout and prayer time, we had the opportunity to play with the kids. They taught us a local game called “Let’s go!” – super complicated. We had to play it several times before we go it! Watching them play reminded me of my childhood days playing with my cousins. The children really open the door for conversations with the adults as well. Some of the kids we played with that day turned up on Thursday on the base. We originally planned for a Youth Club but looks like we might end up doing a Kids Club instead. One man that we spoke with turned up for the Men’s Devotional Group on Wednesday night.

The Ni-Vans (the locals) are extremely relational people. Everything happens thru relationship. That means that we really need to spend a lot of time talking to people and hanging out with them. It’s not like back home where you advertise for a seminar and loads of people turn up. No one will turn up if they have no idea who you are over here. It’s a change of mindsets but I think we’re getting the hang of things.

God’s been doing some amazing things in our group. Little Elijah Freestone lost his little precious bunny (again!) for about two days and was distraught. He didn’t sleep well at all. He’s had that little bunny since he was born! Anyways we prayed and his older brother Toby prayed a wonderful prayer and the next day the bunny appeared out of nowhere! God listens when little kids pray! The kids are learning to pray.

It’s not been an easy week but it was a good start. Praise the Lord!

P/s: Em and the two boys are down with stomach problems today. Pls do keep them in prayer. The rest of us are well. Also, we’ve uploaded more photos on Flickr and Facebook so do check that out.

The team has been slowly easing in – new food, new culture, new climate, new people, new everything! We’ve had a few battles e.g. sickness, grumpy kids and sometimes adults but overall I think the team has done very well despite of it all.

We had our first ministry time on Thursday night where the team shared their testimonies at the base community meeting. Gin did so well even after a whole day of stress with the kids. She rose up well to the occasion and it was such a powerful testimony.

We have also been visiting the preschool under the banyan tree. Rachel who runs it just gave birth two months ago and she is still teaching everyday. She has 7 kids of her own plus she operates a free preschool for 20 neighbourhood kids who cannot afford to go to the local preschool. We’ll be helping her out from this week onwards.

This time, we have base duties. We do breakfast cleanup every morning and the base has rostered us for dinner duties twice a week. So far James cooked on Wed and Stuart cooked on Sat.

Jim, the oldest member of our team has been having divine appointments every day! God has just been bringing people to talk to him. Somehow having white hair helps! ? We are really thankful to have him on the team.

We also made some friends at church this morning and invited them to the outreach that we’re having.

We have a full six weeks ahead. We are helping to spearhead YWAM’s community outreach with a women’s group, youth group to teach life skills, youth mini-DTS, men’s group, and the men are going to visit the prisons and do some building work on the base.

Please continue to keep us in prayer.

P/S: Update on team health - Stu and Sue are well now. Evan and Eli were down with fever but they have recovered. Simon is still recovering from flu symptoms. Rest are well, praise the Lord.