posted Jan 20th

We’d like to say a special ‘thank you’ to some unsung heroes that have been a real help in 2012.

We were happy to meet Michiko in 2011—a very kind & helpful Japanese volunteer worker that spent 2 years teaching in a local Fijian school. Michiko helped with several of our distributions in 2012 & also took the initiative to ask around among her neighbors & friends to collect clothes & other items for future distributions. Just like her personality, everything was beautifully organized & arranged!

Michiko came over to our house lots of times & can be seen in this photo teaching Susan how to make sushi!

Dr Soji from Nigeria has been a tremendous help over the years. We first met him 7 years ago when conducting a program at the church he was attending. After the program, he came up & invited us to stay with him in his house for as long as we liked, whenever we come to Fiji! Subsequently, we stayed with him for periods of 3 to 4 months over the next 5 years. Although we didn’t see him so much in 2012, we’d like to share a testimony of how the Lord protected him from serious harm a few months ago.

He was driving from Nadi to Suva & when coming over the brow of a hill, suddenly came upon a parked vehicle in front of him. He wanted to overtake it but there was a vehicle coming from the other direction. That left him with only 2 choices: to brake hard but still crash into the parked vehicle or go off the road. He made an instant decision to go off the road & found himself rolling down an embankment through trees & bushes. As he later told us, ‘all I could feel was the vehicle turning round & round, and all I could see was sky, trees, sky, trees’. The accident damage was so great that the vehicle had to to be completely written off (luckily a rental car covered by insurance); however Dr Soji suffered no injuries at all & was able to go back to work the next day! What a miracle!

To finish off with, thank you to Raiwaqa bakery that for 3 years in a row has made us lovely, complementary birthday cakes for special occasions! And ‘thank you’ to all our other friends & supporters, without whom our charity & missionary work would not be possible. God bless you all!