Orchids!

Back in Lautoka... Friday- we got back, and stopped at a Fijian McDonalds on the way back from the airport. The burgers and fries are the same as at home, but they have a few things our McDonald's doesn't- like a spicy chicken sandwich. And our McDonald's has many things theirs doesn't- like wraps, salads, apples, etc. The only side you can get here is fries.

Saturday- in the morning we went to the Garden of the Sleeping Giant, an orchid garden on a mountain. The shape of the mountain resembles a sleeping giant, thus the name. I remember going there when we were here before, and I loved flowers and took lots of pictures, but they didn't turn out so well on a 10-year-old's camera. Well, I still love flowers, so once again I took lots of pictures! Here are just a few. Aunt Becky- we were thinking of you- enjoy! .

We came home for lunch, and then went out again in the evening to Denarau, a touristy area, to hear a concert. We got pizza and ice cream- a treat for my cousins.

This is Jimmy, Luke, (friends of Caleb's),and my cousin Caleb, with stitches on his eye. On Thursday he played (and won) a squash game (like racquetball) and got squashed- litterally, by big German man (there's no age limit) who backed up into him, knocked him over, and fell on top of him! He had to go to the hospital and get stitches. He got them out yesterday (Sunday). He won for their ability-group, and got a $35 gift certificate.

Sunday- we played music in church again, and got to know more people at Aunty Joy's church. After church Ray and Laura Pittman (a missionary family here) and their kids, and some of their student helpers for SI (Students International) came over for dinner again, so we got to visit with them again, and enjoyed that time with them, and rested most of the rest of the day. I had a nice long talk with Litia last night, it was good to get to know her a little better.

Monday (today)- we had a relaxing morning, and went to Daniel's kindergarten (pre-school) class, and played for the kids there. Then we went to town to do some shopping, which was fun. When we got back, I taught Jeremiah Lee (an 11-year old friend and neighbor of Joshua's from school) a violin lesson. He is doing well. I fixed up a violin today that Aunty Joy had stored somewhere, and now it is playable, and ever since Daniel (my 3-year-old cousin) saw it all cleaned up, he has insisted that he needs a lesson. So, after Jeremiah left, I gave Daniel a lesson, and he did very well! All afternoon he has remembered the names of the strings. And now he knows how to hold it, how to use the bow, and he even played a (small) concert on open-strings for Aunty Joy and Joshua, showing them everything he has learned thus far, and they were very impressed. Aunty Joy can't wait to see what Uncle Chen says when he gets home. :)

Pray for Tuesday- we go to two schools in the morning to play tomorrow!

friends in Labasa

One more picture from Labasa- this is Angela, Pastor Sai, Serema, and Pastor Tui talking outside of church on Sunday- Mom, I thought you'd like to see them! :)

Back from Labasa

We are back from Labasa, got back yesterday afternoon. We have many pictures and memories from our time there with friends of my family, who now feel like family to us, they welcomed us so openly there. We do not want to forget all the wonderful times we had there, and all of the wonderful people we met. What a blessing it was to get to know them all. It felt like we were there much longer than a week! Here's a short (or long!) synopsis:

Friday- we arrived and had game night with all the Bible school students at the Ensmingers The 18-seat plane to Labasa, they weigh you and your luggage!

Saturday- we went to Nukubolo, a true Fijian village, in the interior, way back in the mountains- the most beautiful place you could imagine. They rarely get visitors, and certainly have never seen a violin!

On the drive to Nukubolu, in the mountains Driving through the river to get to the village

On the left is Salote (Charlotte) named after my grandma
These boys died their hair red with a seed from a plant- to be like me! :) They haven't seen a red-head before!

Sunday- played in the English and Fijian church services in the morning, and went to Pastor Tui's house for lunch afterwards. Then we played a program (45 minutes) at Labasa College (ages 15-18) in the afternoon, and back at church played a few pieces in a mixed service in the evening.

The new church building, and the current church building
At Uncle (Pastor)Tui and Auntie Josephine's for lunch
Concert at Labasa College

Monday- day off, but sat in on the Bible School students' choir rehearsal- all of the people there sing in the do-re-me system. They can't read our western music notation, but they sing beautifully in harmony, and they really love to sing! Andrew taught some lessons.

The sunrise from our balcony at the apartment above IBI (Island Bible Institute- the Bible School where my grandparents used to live)

Tuesday- Played for about 200 students at Labasa Primary School (ages 5-12), who were thrilled to see a violin for the first time. We did a half-hour long program. In the afternoon we rested, and Andrew taught some piano and music lessons, then we went over to Pastor Sai's house for dinner.

Labasa Primary School, with Uncle (Pastor) Sai and Auntie Serema
Solomone, Andrew and Poxci at the top of the hill looking out on Labasa

Wednesday- was a relaxing day, with students coming for lessons, and choir practice again, and we did our full concert that night at Labasa Bible Church. It was 2 hours long! But everyone really enjoyed it, including us. It was our way to thank everyone for their generosity to us since we had been there, and the Lord really blessed it.

Myron- named after Grandpa!

Kenni, Kesa, Angela and DeKeri at the concert

Thursday- we were back at Labasa Primary, and did another half-hour program, teaching the students about music, and performing for them. After that we played for Kenni and DeKeri's kindergarten class. Since it was our last day there, Andrew filled it with some last lessons for whoever wanted and needed them. I filled it helping out with a surprise for the Ensminger's 27th anniversary. There was a Bible school chapel service in the evening, and Danny preached, and we played a few last pieces at that service. Afterwards the students had prepared a skit of Bob and Martha's years of marriage, and Pastor Sai and Pastor Tui's sons also poked fun at their dads by playing them in the skit. It was very fun. After the skit, everyone came up to the apartment for refreshments, that Hannah, and I and some others helped prepare. It was lots of fun surprising Bob and Martha, and it was nice to have everyone up to the apartment for one last time together before we left.

Labasa Primary
Happy 27th anniversary Bob and Martha Ensminger

Friday- Andrew went to men's Bible study at 6. We were getting all packed up, and Albert came by at about 8:30, he had not realized we were there until the night before, and so he wanted to visit with us and to hear us play, so we played a piece for him, and thanked him for coming by, but he wanted to stay with us until we left, and so he did, while Kesa had a music lesson. And then some of the students were downstairs just singing and learning a song we had done, so we went down with them and spent the last hour or so there teaching them songs, and learning their songs. It was a nice time. Then we had to say goodbye to all of them, and went to the airport, where all the teachers from the Bible school were there with their families, and the flight was delayed, so we had about an hour to visit with all of them there, so that was nice too. Then we were off, and it was a quiet flight, already missing the people we had left in Labasa.

Us with Albert and most of theBible School students, and Hannah and Paul Ensminger

Labasa

Hi everyone, we have been in Labasa 5 days now, and I don't know if I'll be able to put all our experiences into words! In that short time we have come to love the people here already. They are eager to know us, as they have known my grandparents. It is an honor to be here, where my grandparents lived and worked, and to see the fruits of their labor. We have gotten to know all of the Bible school students, and have had many chances to talk with them. And we had such a nice time at church on Sunday.

We give our concert here tomorrow night, so you can pray for that. Many people heard us on Sunday, and have invited friends, so we are told the church will probably be packed tomorrow, and we hope that is the case, that many can come to hear the music and hear about God, and be encouraged by all that we have to share. It is an experience of a lifetime for them. They have never seen a violin before this, except in the movies, so they all tell us how special it is for them to have us here, and it is amazing for us to bring that kind of experience to them. They just sit in total silence and stare as we share our music. Today Angela played and Andrew sang at the primary school, about 200 kids ages 6-12, and they all just sat still the whole time, fascinated by the sound the violin makes.

Saturday we went into a village in the interior, way up in the mountains, called Nukubolu. It was SO beautiful. And they were thrilled to have me play violin there too. They prepared a feast of a meal for us, all traditional Fijian food, that took a lot of work to prepare. And then they let us eat first, and sit in the chairs, and then the men eat, and then the women and children eat what is leftover after we are finished. After the meal, we went to see the hot pools, which have been in that village for many years, and are fed by hot natural springs nearby. I cannot describe the beauty of this place- it took many hours on terrible roads to get there. We even drove through the shallow part of a river to get there! Not many people travel to this village, they do not often have visitors. They have no electricity. So, to bring them the violin, what an experience for them to hear something they have never heard before.

There are a few couples here who knew my parents in New Zealand, and new me as a baby. Tui and Josie had us over on Sunday after church for lunch, and they had a whole album full of pictures from the Bible school in New Zealand, and many of me as a baby, and other pictures my parents had sent through the years. Tonight we will go to Sai and Serema's for dinner, they are another family who knew my parents then, and we know we will enjoy the time with them too. They each have a son at the Bible school now. And we heard both Tui and Sai preach on Sunday. There is also a girl that I played with the last time I was here, when I was 10, she and I were friends, and after I left we wrote for a while. It was neat to see her again at church on Sunday, and she is getting married in August, and I met her fiance, and have seen her mother and brother too.

We have some difficulty when they all talk in Fijian, and we have no idea what they are saying, but someone usually translates for us if it's important! And we do our best to communicate with them to get to know everyone. In just a short time, we have really come to love it here, and wish we could spend longer. Andrew is teaching some piano and music theory lessons, and many of them are eager to learn much more about music. Anyway, I think I could go on much longer about all of our experiences, but I'd best stop here. Please pray for us to get over our colds. We are still quite sick, especially me, so pray that we get better soon. It is definitely slowing me down a lot to be sick, I have to be sure to get my rest, and am constantly sneezing or blowing my nose. Thanks for your prayers!

Off to Labasa

Well, this is the last you'll hear from us for at least another week. We head off to the other island to Labasa tomorrow, and we won't have internet access there. We are excited to go there and stay at the Bible school my grandparents started. We will stay in the apartment where my grandparents used to live! Can't wait to tell you all about it when we return.

But for now- we have to update you on the last few days. We have been working hard at Nadi Christian Community school. We've been judging the students' convention pieces. Yesterday we heard dramatic reading and story telling. Today all of the music was crammed into one day of judging! We felt like we had to rush through, when we would've liked to give more comments to everyone, so it's too bad we couldn't have more time to work with the students just on their music.

We did get to hear a lot though! First we heard 10 different vocal solos. All of the students teach themselves the music. They don't have regular help from music teachers! So, it is impressive what they are able to do just by ear and teaching themselves. But we were also able to give lots of comments, and take time on breaks to work with them further. After morning tea, we heard instrumental solos, and worked with a few of those students. Then we heard the ensembles, a small choir with mostly boys and one girl, a group of 8 recorder players, and one of the boys had written the arrangement of a hymn for them to play, and then lots of duets and trios, mostly singing, and one flute and clarinet duet. Some of the students have done wonderful work, and it's very impressive to see what they've done completely on their own.

We also have given a small concert for the children each day, and today some parents came to listen as well. We also got to hear a flute player who is their music teacher and comes in once a week to teach recorder, flute and clarinet lessons. He played very well too, and it was neat to meet him and his wife.

Last night Ray and Laura Pittman and their girls and students from Students International came over for Fijian dinner after they had visited all day with people at the Lautoka hospital and Old Folks' Home. It was neat to meet the students, who come for 2 weeks to do short-term missions in Fiji. They were close to our ages, and mostly from the East Coast, it was a group of 10 or so. We enjoyed visiting with them. We had roti with many different kinds of curry, and Fijian pie for dessert. Auntie Joy had prepared quite the spread for them (and us) to experience some authentic Fijian food!

Today I bought a dress, and Andrew bought a sulu (men's dress skirt) and Bula shirt. :) So, now we have some Fiji-wear for the rest of our time here, and to bring home with us! :)

Prayer requests: ~We have both come down with a cold, so please pray that sickness does not keep us from ministry opportunities.
~In Labasa we will have to be careful about the water we drink because there is typhoid in one area of the island, and we don't want that!
~We will be quite busy with playing concerts at schools and churches while we are there (only one day completely off!). We play a concert already tomorrow night after getting there around 12. Saturday, if it hasn't rained, we hope to go into a traditional Fijian village. We literally cannot go if it rains and the river is too high to cross. It will be quite the adventure I think going there, so pray that we are able to go and share music there!

Thank you all so much for your prayers- we need them, whether we're ministering to others or enjoying a holiday on an island by the sea!
Yesterday, we went out to a resort island, and Andrew and I took off on a two-person kayak, and Joshua was with us on his own kayak. About half-way around the island, our kayak got so full of water, we tipped over, and then couldn't get both of us back on. Some fishermen came to help and drained it out, and we made it a little farther, and then had the same problem again. Finally, we sent Joshua on ahead to get help, and we were trying to swim and push the kayak, but help was sent before Joshua even got back, and a boat came to pick us up, for which we were very grateful! Joshua was telling us there were lots of sting rays and crabs in that part of the ocean, and in fact, he had seen some closeby. So, we shouldn't have been standing in the sand, but we had been standing on the sand to dump our boat. We are very thankful we didn't get stung or anything- no problems, and our rescue boat came after us before we were out there too long. Boy did we have an adventure, and boy did we sleep well last night! :)

Today we went to the Nadi Christian Community School all day, and we even took the bus with the kids from Laugoka. It is a very old bus with well-worn, uncomfortable seats, and it bounces like crazy on the roads, which are bad and full of potholes. The windows make so much noise, clattering as the bus bounces along, you can't even carry on a conversation over it, and the bus driver just speeds over all the bumps! To top it off we had my violin and Caleb's keyboard and all our stuff for the day with us. It's a long busride too- about an hour.

When we arrived, we led a small concert during chapel time at the start of school for all the kids, and then the kids split up into their classrooms. We heard and judged the older kids' competition pieces they had prepared for convention. Today we heard poetry (from memory), and sermons (8 minutes long). It was very impressive to hear each high-school-aged student do a sermon! It is a requirement that they all do it, and they all did a really nice job. We did the judging all day, with breaks for morning tea and lunch. It was tiring by the end, but fun to hear the things they had prepared. We were done a little early, and then everyone met together again at the end of the day. The principle asked me to pray at the end of the day for all the students, and we hopped on the bus to go home again.

Anyway, I was very impressed by the verses these kids used in their sermons, and many of them had them memorized, and made personal applications and everything. They really took to heart and presented well what they knew about the Bible. I felt challenged to be prepared always to share my faith. We should all be able to give a sermon and back it up with the scripture we know. They chose some very good topics too, and had some really neat stories to go along with it. We heard on topics like truthfulness, joyfulness, perfectionism, self-control, etc. But some of those in more teenager-terms. The one on self-control was called "Time to Chill". :)

Ok, that's enough for today- dinner time I think. Tomorrow will be similar, we'll go to school all day, do a concert to start, and then judge some different events tomorrow. Love you all! Thanks for your prayers!

First Church Services

Yesterday (Sunday) we had the opportunity to play in a church for the first time. In the morning we did three pieces for their regular church service. In the afternoon, there were about four different congregations coming together to worship with us. Angela and I led a service of music and sharing for about an hour and a half. It was pretty warm and sweaty for us :) but it was their winter, so they were either used to it or a bit cold!

Some of the favorite songs included "How Beautiful", "As the Deer", and "The Touch of the Master's Hand". "As the Deer" has become somewhat of a 'theme song' for one of the local congregations here, and they asked us to play it again at the very end. We encouraged them to sing along to the instrumental arrangement. It is fun to hear how heartfelt and "all-out" they sing here.

"The Touch of the Master's Hand", we feel, has quite a significance here. Not many have seen a violin before, so that plays in well to the storyline of auctioning off a violin. There is another line in the song "The air was hot... and the sun was setting low", which is exactly what the setting was last night.

From the service, there were many requests for us to play at different churches. We really do feel the message of the cross was felt last night. Please pray that this would continue to be the case.

Today (Monday) is a national holiday (The Queen's Birthday) and it is the first non-rainy day (so far), so we hope to make it out to the ocean today! For the next three days, we will be working at a school, giving a mini-concert, adjudicating small groups, and working with the students, helping them to prepare for a competition at a convention in July.

Thanks for your prayers!

First day in Fiji!

Hi everyone,
We made it safely to Fiji! It was a very long day of travelling... we left Minneapolis at 1:10, and got to LA at 3:30 (5:30 central time), and then had to wait until 7:30 to check our bags in, and then our flight to Fiji didn't leave until 11:30 (1:30 central)! The flight was delayed one hour, and it was about an 11-hour trip to Fiji. The flight had plenty of movies to watch, and we could also play games on the video screens in front of our seats, so that was fun. We slept as much as we could too, because we got into Fiji around 6am Fiji time, and then tried to stay up for the full day.
Our first day here was very rainy, which made it quite relaxing. We brought Daniel to kindergarten, and then went to the market with Aunty Joy. The open market was fun to see. The rest of the day we mostly rested, visited, and practiced at the house. The rain was really coming down hard, and we weren't sure how it would be today, but when we woke up this morning, the sun was shining in. The sky is a beautiful clear blue with not a cloud in sight! This morning we will go to the "Old Folks Home" which is actually what the name of the place is... to help a lady from their church get fitted for an artificial leg. After that, I think we're going to enjoy this beautiful weather, and go to the beach- I hope so anyway!
Fiji is so beautiful, there are many flowers and flowering trees in the yard here. Daniel loves to go out each morning and get the flowers that have just fallen from the tree, and he likes to give them to me which I love! He's a very cuddly 3-year-old, who loves it when we play with him, listen to him, read to him, or play our music. Caleb and Litia are away this weekend for a single's retreat for the churches around here. And Joshua(12)just got some roller-blades from a friend, and is rolling around the house trying to get used to them. :)
Things are very relaxed here, and everyone is so friendly, but we have to lock things up each night because things get stolen often here, it's just a fact of life. There is a lot of corruption, too. We were hearing about how corrupt the police are, if you don't pay them, they will watch your house be broken into and do nothing about it. Auntie Joy and Uncle Chen might be sued for not paying a sub-contractor who worked on their house renovations, but it was the contractor's responsibility to pay the sub-contractor, it's been 5 years and he still hasn't paid them.
The prayer request that sticks out right now is that a friend from New Zealand's two sons were both arrested for their part in a robbery and murder there, all for some alcohol. Their mother is a Christian, but the boys are not, and she is distraught. So, please pray for their salvation, and for the whole situation.
And pray for us giving a concert tomorrow night at the church here. 4 churches are invited, but there is no way of knowing if there will be lots of people, or only a few because of the holiday weekend. Pray that those who are meant to be there would come, and that the Lord would guide us as we select which songs we will do, and what we will share during that time. Thanks!

Hi Everyone,

We will be using this blog page to keep you all updated on our Fiji trip. We leave June 11th, and come back on July 9th. Check here for updates on our trip, and hopefully a few pictures too! We're not sure what the internet connection will be like in Fiji, but we'll do our best!

In His love,
Andrew and Angela Hanson