Report 4 – Emmaus in Fiji (posted Sunday 27 July)
written by Claire Jago - your (other) roving Emmaus journo in Fiji!
Bula!
Only Great news to share for Saturday! Praise God! The illnesses I mentioned about the team have been healed. There is water for all as the Fire Brigade did a million trips out there today filling the tanks up and will be doing more tomorrow (Sunday). Sleep deprivation has ceased and no one felt that it affected their walk or talks. And the best news of all … these pilgrims are the happiest bunch of people I've ever seen on a walk! Their enthusiasm certainly has not died after the registration which was the last time I saw them. I was at the dinner tonight and the entertainment was a traditional Fijian “Lovo” dinner and live music. The ladies really started to get into the songs that were being played and were singing along and clapping encouragingly at the end of each song. Until one brave lady started to get the groove into her shoulders which then led to her standing up out of her chair and dancing on the spot! Needless to say it went down with roaring laughter and applause. The ladies ended up getting really into the music, nearly lifting the roof off of Evangelism Explosion Campsite! Then they just took over and started singing their own songs in their own language. It was fantastic!! These women are having so much fun, really embracing everything.
Candlelighting was really special too. The service was led by Roy Cowin ASD and was special as his sermon was an outline of all the events and highlights of the first 2 days thus far. There are actually 21 pilgrims – not 22, and the youngest one is just 17. God is doing amazing things in this walk. Everyone is so overjoyed, team and pilgrims a like. They are oozing with that deep-rooted joy you can only get from God – lucky people!! And it was great to see a few of the men came to the candlelighting tonight who just did their walk. They are still looking joyful and enthusiastic and looked so proud to be apart of the candlelighting. I really think Emmaus has a good future in Fiji, but they will still need our support for a little while yet!
Closing tomorrow and I'm really excited to see the response … I think there will be many tears.
Thank you for your prayers!! They ARE making a big difference!
Vinaka Vakalevu (Many Thanks)
Claire Jago xo