Philippines Week 3 and 4 & Fiji Week 1!

Just before our outreach to the Island of Catanduanes we were able to speak on a local radiostation, full on share the Gospel and a bit about what we’re doing in the Philippines, sing, and the boys were invited to play basketball at the local arena with the radio station team. We were also able to meet the Governor of the province, which is very rare so we were very lucky to have the opportunity to meet and pray with him as a group. 

Our week on the Island of Catanduanes was eventful! Going there, we had no real plan of where to stay and sleep, but we were made very welcome by a local church and were able to stay there for our entire trip. Provision! With the Upright Generation we were able to organise an open air event and perform our various skits, share our testimonies and share about God’s love for the Island. Almost 100 people came and a lot of them came up to be prayed for after the performance! After almost crashing on the way, we strongly had it on our hearts to visit a village on one of the Mountains, where we went door to door to pray for people and after a sketchy climp to the top of the mountain worshipped and proclaimed God’s name over the whole entire Island. 

We left the Island and for our final week were able to meet with people in the community. We spent time with the blind families and the orphans who live with our contact Pastor Pat. Their joy blew our minds! It humbled us all to see these women and men worship more passionately than a lot of other Christians, and their faith was really inspiring to the whole team, and their faith in God to rely on him to provide for their needs. 

The Upright’s gave us an amazing send off, with skits, songs they’d written and a fantastic dinner. We headed to the Philippines capitol, Manila, where one of the friends we’d made with the Upright’s had kindly offered us a place to stay for the few days we were there. Whilst there we were able to debrief as a team, prepare for Fiji and spend some time at the largest mall in Asia. 

We spent a day in Brisbane airport whilst on our way to Fiji, where we welcomed the visit of our DTS leaders Luke and Bethany Roque, and Mallory who all brought encouragement, news and of course, food. After 19 hours at the airport we were finally able to board our plane to Fiji to start the second part of our outreach. 

FIJI! We were greeted by our contact Koto, a member of the YWAM Fiji - Lautoka base, who took us to our home for the next week. We were very blessed with our time in Lautoka, we were able to join the base in worship and some of us went to the local girl’s school church and the opportunity to share with them. On Tuesday we met with a local pastor and did door to door evangelism in the local area. This allowed us to meet with local families and pray for them. We also visited the local hospital and were able to pray for healing for those we encountered. And some pretty sweet things happened there! Some of the patients that we prayed for got released the next day! Praise God! For example, we prayed for a woman with heart problems, as after the visit she was able to go home. There was also a man with lung cancer who was able to speak to us about his life, and how Jesus had raised him from the dead, and how now, he was going to go out and preach his word which was really encouraging. 

A small local church, and go out as part of Operation Christmas child to houses affected by the flooding in May. This was another great way to evangelise and show God’s provision to those whose homes were devastated by the floods. We concluded our trip with a day off to a local beach, and spent the day relaxing and enjoying our last weekend in Lautoka. 

Tomorrow, Monday, we are off to Suva, where we will stay with our second contact Pastor David for a couple days. It will be a new adventure, since on Wednesday we will take a 5 hour boat ride to a remote village on Kadavu island. Very are pretty excited for what God’s going to do there! 

Please pray for the continued health of our team, passion for the last 3 weeks of outreach, guidance from the Holy Spirit and team unity - of course. Mallory has opted to spend some quality time with her family so please pray for her continued recovery, and please pray for our time on the island and that God will transform that community and change lives! Sorry it’s been so long since the last update, things have been very busy, but thank you for reading!