You wouldn’t believe it! (Ok, my mum wouldn’t, right mum?!?)

We cooked Hainanese chicken rice for the base. Yahhhhh…. Well, they asked us to cook something from Singapore because they were going to pray for Singapore during intercession. Our first intention was to cook Pig Trotters Bee Hoon, a fav of James and I. But we couldn’t find any canned Pig Trotters nor any Bee Hoon!

So, we decided to do chicken rice. I mean what is more Singapore than chicken rice?!? If I don’t think, I’ll eat chicken rice.

Anyways, the truth is neither James and I have really done this before so we got a recipe off the net (duh!). Oooooo it was SOOOOO goood…. it was almost surreal to eat chicken rice right here in the island of Vanuatu! We seriously did the chicken the same way, the cucumbers the same way, the rice the same way. BUT we used chicken wings and sweet chilli sauce instead. Still, the taste was familiar, so good for us. I think everyone generally liked it too!

A piece of Singapore.

We’ve been to Blacksands village four times over the past few weeks. It’s a village near the airport. It is much poorer compared to where we are at Pango village (Pango is near the town and it is more developed). The locals actually call Blacksands a slum. So you can pretty much imagine the condition. There are hardly any schools in the area, hardly any electricity (serious, I brought my laptop and had no where to plug it into!), no proper sanitation, water comes from the river and some kids go around wearing nothing.

We were there to conduct a couple of marriage seminars and ended with a parenting seminar last Sat. It was pretty discouraging at first because only the women would come and only a few of them. We struggled with whether our teaching would even made sense in their condition and culture! Who cares about spending marriage time when they need to make ends meet? How do we encourage them to show love in action when the men are constantly away, drinking and hardly home?

We learnt a lot each time we were there – about their lives, culture and struggles. Each time we went back, we made adjustments in our teaching and our examples.

Finally when we were there the last time, I felt that we had a breakthrough. In that village, although we had a full 3 hour seminar for just 5 mothers, they were so open and willing to learn. We felt that presence of God and even had the opportunity to pray for healing for some of the children.

Sophie had so much fun at the last village that she was a bit sad when we had to go. The kids really took to our straight black hair. It was funny how they kept touching our hair. Like little kids would jump around me, just trying to stroke my hair!

That ended our ministry in the villages. This week we’re teaching on The Father Heart of God in the current DTS and we would be done by this Wednesday! Time really flies!

It’s really quite different being on a mission team with families. In the past I’ve always been leading youth teams and once James and I went on a mission trip with both our parents to China. That was all before Sophie was born.

I used to be really apprehensive what families can do on short term mission trips especially families with small children. Now, I’m convinced that it’s doable and it’s probably one of the most effective ways of reaching out. Somehow kids just open the doors. Once people see kids, they let down their guards and are able to trust us more. It’s amazing.

Between the 3 families we have 6 kids – one 1 year old, 2 that are 2-3 years old, a 5 year old, a 9 year old and a 12 year old. It helps that the 9 and 12 year olds are SUPER matured. They make great babysitters.

I’ve seen what worked with our group the past few weeks and I’ll just like to share how it can be done.

1. Our schedule is super light.
We normally do only one seminar/teaching per day – e.g if we have a seminar in the night, we will not have one in the day. Some days we have nothing to do, only preparation. Teaching requires a lot of preparation. Only once or twice we had ministry in the morning and night.

Other than ministry, we join the base for worship, intercession and also open meeting nights. We also have our team meetings, devotions and intercession every morning for about 1 hr together with the kids. We also meet our leaders as a couple for feedback and personal time once or twice during the prep and outreach.

2. Time for family & spouses
We always have a weekly day off and Sunday after church is free for us too. We are mindful of the need for family time and marriage time. It’ll be ironic if we as representatives of the Family Ministries School failed to have time for our own families and spouses! It is SO important to make sure we spend time with our kids and keep their love tanks full. Sometimes when we’re on the run, they feel it too and tend to act up more. We need to slow down and be with them.

3. Keep to kids’ schedules
As much as we could, we try to keep to the kids’ schedules e.g during naptimes and bedtime, we’re back at the base. If meals are late, we will prepare food for the kids first. This is very important because it gives the kids security and there is a lot less fussing. But I have to say, our kids have been very flexible – Julia sleeps in her pram and so far Micha and Sophie have slept whenever needed and even once on the beach!

4. Keeping the team small really helps.
We are only 3 families. Decision making is tough even with 3 families of different cultures and systems. If there are more families, it’ll be harder to make decisions.

5. Having a baby monitor helps.
We forgot to bring ours but the Swiss family did. So when they are out for ministry at night, we will help to listen if Micha, their son, wakes up in the night.

6. It helps that all of our children sleep by 8pm or so.
I’m forever thankful that Sophie has been habitually sleeping by 8pm. That has really helped in the adjustment to NZ and on missions.

7. It helps to have certain team rules.
For example, we eat everything we are provided with. We can buy our own food but we cannot bring it to the dinner table because it will cause jealousy for the locals who might not be able to afford. That is great because our kids all have to eat whatever is before them. Such a great habit! It’s good to set a few team rules that all the families adhere to.

8. The children are included in almost everything.
The children are present for outreach preparation, meetings, devotions, intercession, ministry etc. We learn to work around them and they learn to play around us. It’s really not that easy. For example once during our turn to teach, Sophie needed to pee. This was in the really rural village – no sitting toilets! In the end she had to do it under a tree and only after much crying. Super stress. Poor girl! But eventually every time she’s at the rural village, she’s fine with doing her business anywhere. Thank God for the breakthrough!

9. Foster the bonding between the children and other parents as early as possible
This will enable other parents to look after your kids and they are able to play well with the other children. For example, one night Micha woke up crying while his parents were teaching at a seminar and James had to put him back to bed. It was not that bad because Micha knows James well and could trust him. Micha is only 2 btw.

10. Arrange intensive prayer time separately
The men meet at 5.30am every morning to pray and at certain times, we meet to pray when the kids are napping. This give us the space to listen in and really intercede. There needs to be a balance because we cannot involve the children in everything.

Finally it’s all a matter of being patient and adjusting our expectations. Communication between families is also key. Most of all, just need to trust God because there is just so much that are beyond us. It’s been a great experience and I’m so very glad we did it.

The base makes fresh bread EVERYDAY! It’s so good…

Sophie is absolutely loving the beach…………. so are we.

Our team spent our first weekly off day at Hideaway Island.

We took a little boat to a small, really small little island with a resort. It was a great place to go snorkelling and diving……. BUT BUT BUT it poured big time that day!!!! What a pity! But that’s the weather here – it is hot and it rains…. reminds me of somewhere I know very well…..yes yes it’s very similar to Singapore except that the temperature goes a lot lower here in the nights especially. Back to the trip, we still swam anyways and it was so cool to see fish and corals.

Sophie really enjoyed the boat ride and swimming. We spent the whole day at the island and the kiddos all fell asleep at some point for their afternoon nap.

A village preschool that meets under a huge banyan tree. It is free to send kids to this school so many of the parents will send their kids early in the morning for a half a day. It acts very much like a daycare.

We were there to do a little program with songs, stories, craft and games. Sophie took a while to warm up and join in the activities. Her favourite part was snack time!

This was the first parenting seminar we did last Saturday.

We taught from the book – How to Really Love Your Child. The book gave three ways in which we can fill the love tank of our children – thru physical touch, eye contact and focused attention. The teaching was very simple but it needed to be for where we’re at. We have to use a lot of simple visuals and illustrations to get our points across.

The teaching was held outdoors at a village close to ours. Very chill and simple.

That’s the team singing our standard intro Jesus Loves The Little Children in 4 different languages – English, Swedish, German and of course in Chinese.

While the parents are attending the seminar, we put on a little Sesame’s Street video for the kids. They loved it! About 20 kids crowded over a little computer to watch the show.

It started to rain halfway and we had to move into the nearby church to continue the seminar. When the seminar ended, we all had dinner together. The local ladies prepared the food, local style.

The first seminar gave us a taste of how simple our teaching needs to be in order to make it applicable to where the people are at. A lot of things we take for granted that people understand might not be understood by them. For example, even simple things like hygiene and wiping the dripping nose of the kid are not observed and children are constantly put down and abused. It’s hard to even start to teach that children need to be loved. But I’m glad we can start somewhere and the rest we just need to trust that God will do His work.

On our off days we’ve been enjoying the beach and James of course has been getting the local guys to bring him fishing. Here’s a great fishing spot. They walk halfway into the sea and cast their lines. It’s really cool to watch. Sophie and I trekked 15 mins thru the jungle with one of the local girls to get to the spot to join them. Serious jungle. I’m a real city girl, halfway carrying Sophie I almost died and the local had to take over and put her on her shoulders.

The boys caught about 5 small fishes and we had it for dinner. So yummy! Fresh fish! I can get used to this!

Sophie played on the beach a little and started eating a coconut that the guys helped crack open. She absolutely loved it. I’m so thankful our little one is quite experiential. She’ll ask "What’s that?" and wants to try. Sometimes she doesn’t like it and will junk it but i’m glad she is willing to give it a little try.

P/s More updates soon! Guess what???? We managed to secure unlimited internet usage and bandwidth for the whole time we’re here for a good price!!! Woo hoo!!!

Yeh! I finally got some photos loaded on the flickr site. Here’s one of Sophie with her new friends at the local free playschool that meets under a banyan tree. We’ll be there tomorrow again to play and teach.

More photos soon!

- When she is able to walk barefooted on rocks and stones
- When she uses the stalk of a flower to scratch her neck
- When she walks around the village and people that she doesn’t even know calls her name each time she walks past – Sophie! Sophie! Sophie fee fee!
- When she sits in the sand pit and plays, ignoring the huge dog that is sitting right in the pit with her.
- When she is washes her own clothes in her bathe
- When she plays with marbles and think they are the most precious thing in the world
 

P/s Sorry I can’t seem to get my photos uploaded. Check James’ facebook account for photo uploads ya?

Praying for the people of Vanuatu
- That they will see value in children. Some parents will leave their young children and go to work with no one to take care of them or even provide food for them. Some are as young as 4 years old.
- There is a DTS going on on the base. There are about 9 students, mostly locals. Pray that they will grow in the Lord. This week a speaker cancelled last minute and they have no speaker. Pray that we can bless the DTS students and staff. Many of them are in their twenties.
- There is much to love about Vanuatu – the people are so friendly and open. Pray that they will remain open to the Lord and grow.
- Most are church goers but there is a great need for discipleship. Pray for effective discipleship in the churches.

Praying for our team
- I’ve been getting migraines and James’ got a throat infection. The weather has been very humid and hot and we really need to drink a lot more than we have been. Pls pray for good health and for us to adapt quickly.
- Pray for sensitivity to the local culture and love for the people.
- Pray that we will be able to share the heart of God with the people and bless them.
- Hygiene is a big worry because the kiddos are so young and some put their hands into their mouth. We need to be careful yet not paranoid. Pls pray that we will trust the Lord to protect us and the kids.
- Pray for good communication in our team (remember we come from 3 different nations!) and also with the leaders of the base here.
- Pray for strength and tenacity in the midst of settling our kids and also as ministry begins.

What we will be doing
- Teaching parenting to some of parents of the village. Their kids go to a free preschool run by a local lady with a heart for children.
- Next week we’ll be going to the help out at the preschool and teach at another village on marriage and parenting. We also plan to spend time at the local "community" hang out place near the beach and get to know the villagers.