Happy Thanksgiving to you all back in Canada!!! I hope you are all enjoying the long weekend, and are spending time with family and friends!! Although I do really miss the turkey and pumpkin pie, things are awesome here in New Zealand. We just had our free weekend, so 10 of us split on renting a van for the weekend, and we went surfing in Raglan, which is on the West coast, about 2 hours from Matamata. We were able to pick up the van early, so on Friday I went rock climbing with my roommate Joep and one of the staff, Epelli. We also spent Sunday down in Rotorua checking out the hot springs and being tourists.
This past week was pretty exciting too, because we found out about our outreach destinations. There are 4 teams going out:
1. Operation: Love Lovu is going out to Lovu seaside village in Fiji for 4 weeks to minister to the least and lost through friendship, service, prayer, evangelism and Children's programs. Lovu is one of the poorest parts of Fiji where people can go without food and water for days, and sometimes even weeks. Our base has reached out to this area a few times in the past, so they are looking to deepen the connections that they already have, and make new connections as well. After 4 weeks, they will be returning to New Zealand to go to drunkfest, which is a yearly festival where over 1000 youth from ages 15-30 come to Northern New Zealand to ring in the new year from December 27 - January 2. It is a place that is rampant with sex, drugs and alcohol, so we are sending in a team to worship and evangelize during this time of debauchery and be a light in the darkness. After drunkfest they will spend the final 3-4 weeks of outreach in Kaitia to work with a church and community there.
2. Operation: Rotuma Restoration is going to be spending 4 weeks in and around Lautoka, Fiji to evangelize, pray and church plant. They will also be spending time working with children and running discipleship camps. After 4 weeks they will then spend 2 days on a boat to go to a small island off of Fiji called Rotuma. This island is a place that our base has reached out to before, and is a 9km x 9km small island that is so small and tight knit that you need to be invited in order to be able to come there. They will be spending 2 weeks there facilitating a discipleship camp and fellowship gatherings, after they will return to New Zealand to join the Lovu team in Kaitia.
3. Operation: Faith will be going to Jharsuguda, Orissa, India to work with Faith Outreach International for 4 weeks to work with the orphanages as well as a bible and worship school, and doing mercy ministries working with the poor and needy. After 4 weeks, they will then either be going to Darjeeling or working with Missionaries of Charity, which is Mother Teresa's ministry, where they will be caring for the sick and dying and the least.
4. Operation: Hope will be going to Varanasi, India, which is the holiest city in Hinduism and is a very spiritually dark place. It is located on the Ganges River which acts as a place for Hindus to be cleansed of their sins. It is also a place where Hindus come to die to achieve spiritual freedom, and bodies are constantly being burned in the street and then dumped into the Ganges. The team will be staying approx 100m from the largest temple in Varanasi, which is also where they burn the bodies day and night. The team will be focusing mainly on evangelizing to the locals on the street as well as the many tourists that come to the area due to it's spiritual significance. They will also be working with Harvest Now, the 1000s of railway kids that are orphans that ride the railways as pickpockets, prostitutes and beggars and working with churches and mercy ministries around Varanasi. After 4 weeks, they will then be heading north to Dharamsala, which is where the Tibetan Government is in exile, and will be working with Tibetan Monks there. They will be connecting with them and witnessing to them, as well as teaching English conversation classes to them.
After hearing the options, Operation: Hope was definitely the one that I felt called to, but I also wanted to be open to wherever I could be used and wherever God wanted me to be. So I put down that my preference was to go to Varanasi, but I would go wherever they needed me. Unfortunately a lot of the guys all wanted to go to the same outreaches, so the staff had some hard choices to make. On Thursday, Josh pulled me and Joep aside and told us that he wanted one of us on the Lovu trip and one of us on the Varanasi trip, and it was up to us. The cool thing, was that that morning, Joep and I had been talking and he told me that if it came to one of us going to Varanasi, and the other not, that he would give up his place for me because God is calling me to Asia, even though Varanasi was his first choice. So when Josh asked, he immediately said that he would go to Lovu, and that I could do Varanasi.
So at the beginning of December I will be flying to India to reach out to the lost in Varanasi as well as to the monks in Dharamsala. Please be keeping us in your prayers as we prepare to go out, as well as while we are gone. Like I said earlier, this is a very spiritually dark and heavy place, and we will definitely need God's protection as we go. I'm not sure if I'll be able to update you all much while I am there, but I will definitely keep you up to date as we get closer to going.
I hope you all are doing great, and I'll see ya in the future.
God Bless!
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