Living Water

Yesterday six students and one leader were baptized in the Pacific Ocean in Plantation Island, Fiji. They publicly declared Jesus in front of everyone on the trip and a good portion of the resort that we were in front of.

Dinner with Praveen (nailed it)

After we finished with our Fijian village, we went back to the church for a traditional home cooked meal.

When I say traditional, I mean cooked in a hole in the ground. Pastor Praveen does not have an oven. What he does have is a hole in the ground that has some rocks in it. They fill this with local semi-hardwood and light  it. For two hours they feed the fire heating the rocks until the pit is several hundred degrees, then they remove whatever is left of the wood leaving only hot rocks behind. Then comes the layer of banana leaves, the food to be cooked, more banana leaves, burlap then dirt.

Two hours later it is dinner time.

After dinner, Pastor Praveen shared his testimony. He was originally a Hindu Priest involved in witchcraft, possession, curses, fire walking, and more. He went to a Christian meeting to disrupt it, he was losing customers (yes, customers) that normally came to him for healing. Instead they were coming to this Christian Pastor for prayer. He ended up coming back again and going up for the altar call. He was kicked out of his hime and told that he had disgraced his family. He has had death threats and vandalism. He left a life of comfort  and wealth in New Zealand because he felt called to be at this church. I would encourage you to ask the students about his testimony, it is definitely powerful.

Romans 10:15 (Yes, you have to look it up)

This post is going to be on the short side. We have a very early day tomorrow and at this point, I think I am the only one awake. I will catch up on all the posts tomorrow. Today was the Fijian village, a community that is supplied by wells. We were welcomed into the village by some of the more important members, including the tribal spokesperson. Being that they were Fijian, we were welcomed with a Kava ceremony. Good news, it hasn't gotten any better tasting since yesterday. Again, this ceremony is how they welcome people into their homes and villages. It makes one a part of the community, welcome. Bula.

What did taste good was the snack spread that they prepared for us. It included some watermelon and banana, some home made pastries, and some kind of milk/tea. Not sure what that was all about, after my obligatory Kava, I stuck with water.

After the Kava ceremony we split of going to several different houses setting up about 20 kits and leaving a few for those who were not home. Chris and I got to venture out and set up a water filter for a local soccer champ. He played for Nadi District and won a few championships while on the team. When we got back to the hub of our distribution, the party had gotten started without us. There was more Kava, which I avoided. There was dancing, which I tried to avoid unsuccessfully. And there was guitar and singing, which was a good time for everyone. We are almost positive that no one ended up engaged or married by the end, but no promises.

Hitting the Wall

Thursday is "hit the wall" day. It is the day that we are tired and everyone wants to just stay in bed. Friday is the last day, the day of the second wind. Thursday is the end of the marathon. That being said, Newbreak Students are rock stars. I have no idea where the energy comes from, but it was there. There were weird games and selfie contests and the whole bus sang all the way back to the hotel. As I was editing and falling asleep at my computer last night, there was an impromptu worship jam session going on outside. Like I said, Rock Stars.

But, also water

Thursday was another eye opening experience. As we went to the different homes with these water filters, the conditions continue to surprise. A woman shared before we even started our presentation that her family has had many cases of illness and several hospital visits for her children due to contaminated water. The cistern that this community stores it's bore water in goes through no cleaning process of any kind. It comes out of the ground, is stored in a concrete vault, and gets piped right into their house. It has made me thankful for the odd tasting tap water at home. It has no bacteria, no metal, no dirt. As our teams poured water into the pre-filters (a little screen at the top of the bucket made to catch the bigger items and preserve the heavy duty filters inside), they were seeing small spiders scurrying around and other bits as well. One group even saw a baby scorpion. None of this was a shock to the people who live here. Let me say that again, a baby scorpion in the drinking water was not surprising. Say what you will about our tap water. Use your Brita filters and buy your bottles, but nothing in my tap water has ever had the ability to come after me with a stinger. When I left for this trip, I thought that we were going to help keep people from getting sick, which we are. We were going to help people have clear water instead of brown, which we are (except in the Kava situations!). But, seeing the conditions is something more than I expected.

It is easy to look at the beauty of the island and it's people, and miss the needs of those people.

More than Water

This post is going up in the early hours of Friday instead of the late hours of Thursday. Yesterday was another long day that left me falling asleep on my keyboard, so I figured it best to rest before posting rather than spelling every other word in face type. Thursday we started early, Sumner and David (Give Clean Water's Fiji Local) mapped out the homes in the community that we still needed to reach. We loaded the bus and headed to the church to load up the filters we would be distributing.

We went back to the same village, making rounds to the other half. Some of these homes were a bit closer together, so it was easier to move as a group instead of spreading out. We were blessed to be invited to drink Kava with the members of one household, and I don't care what anyone tells you about Kava, the truth is: It's gross. I can best describe it as muddy tea with a splash of Novocaine that leaves the tongue numb. Now, of course there is no Novocaine in it, that is just the effect this root drink has. It is a traditional ceremony that many Fijians practice and today (Friday) there will be another ceremony as we go to the Fijian village.

One of the best parts of this trip, as I have said before, is building relationships. This trip is about more than water, important as that is, it is about the people. It is wonderful to pray with people who are not of our faith. The people of this village are Hindu. The majority of them have alters in their yards to a god named Lord Hanuman, the monkey god. Feel free to look him up. I did, and the story is long and confusing enough that I am not going to attempt to put it here. In any case, this is who these people believe in, this is who they follow. Being welcomed into these homes and being allowed to pray for them is a blessing for us, and hopefully for them as well.