July Update

It's been another busy month since we last wrote! We're just now catching our breath after saying goodbye to the last team of the summer. It was a great summer and God has really worked in and through the short-term teams. From now until Christmas we enter into a phase that is focused more on long-term ministry and development. The first two weeks of August Laura will attend seminary classes for two weeks. Read on for more news!


Summer Teams

The last month of teams has been busy, but great. We just said goodbye to the last team. Logistically it was challenging as we had close to 50 people staying at Momi some nights. What a blessing to have so many helping! They got a lot done at Momi and Homes of Hope both.

We also just said goodbye to our SPU engineering interns (working on appropriate technology projects), and our 3 summer staff (thanks so much, girls!). This past month we were able to host several professors and other school representatives on "vision trips" (a shorter outreach to enable them to catch the vision for SI Fiji). We are several steps closer to starting up our study-abroad program in Fiji as the result of SI's academic coordinator and his family coming out as well.

It's all been overwhelming but amazing. The Thompson family, summer staff and our Fijian staff were a tremendous help and blessing. Please pray with us for God to bring the right people to join our long-term staff team here in Fiji. We really need team leaders as well as a study-abroad program coordinator (once that gets going), along with more ministry-site leaders. We have a couple of people who have expressed interest in coming out, so please pray that God would guide the right people to join us!


Family News



Elani turned 5 years old on July 12! She had a very fun party and is a very sweet five year old. Nine-month-old Isla keeps us busy chasing her as she crawls all over the house and pulls herself up to explore shelves, cupboards and anything in sight. Eden (7) is attending a Christian school down the street for a few weeks to see how it goes, with the possibility of her staying there full-time. So far Eden isn't so sure about school, please pray for her adjustment and that we'd make the right decision about enrolling her full-time or not.

Laura will attend seminary (45 min. drive from our house) during the first two weeks of August. This is year three out of four for a MA in Biblical Studies. She's been working hard on her assignments from last year and has finally completed them. Please pray for the seminary classes to go well and please pray for Ray as he will be Mr. Mom while Laura is in school each day! We have some friends in Fiji who have volunteered to help out where they can with the home-school, watching baby, etc. so that is a blessing.