Fiji (what more can I say?)

I got back from Fiji just over a week ago (you may have noticed I wasn’t blogging – its because I wasn’t in reach of a computer…), and am still in awe of the experience.

We took a group of 20, including 13 youth, into Suva to do Children’s programmes and Christian outreach to the surrounding communities. We were planning on visiting maybe two schools, and performing an afternoon programme a day, but God had bigger plans than that!

In the end, our team performed at 6 schools, 3 prisons, and 3 church services, ran 8 puppet shows, 1 home group, 2 youth groups (an after school & an evening one), and were broadcast on Christian Radio 3 times (Harvest FM97). Our Dance team danced 12 times (and got sick of the dance by the end of it all), we sang our trademark Maori song (Kia Kaha) 11 times, handed out over 200 tracts, saw at least 3 salvations, and reached an audience of possibly 85,000 people!!! All this during the 7 days of mission work…. God is good!!

During that time, God challenged me again and again about reaching out to people, not only overseas, but in my home country. If Christians are called to be the light, we shouldn’t switch ourselves off. We should run all the time, and be visible to those around us. As a friend of mine said as well: the light can’t be seen as much if its surrounded by other lights all the time. The point of this is, that a Christian who only associates with other Christians isn’t being a very effective light at all.

It can be terrifying trying to reach out into the darkness, as we can’t see what is happening or what peoples response will be, but it is important to remember where the light that shines out of you comes from – Jesus, the light of the world.

To those of you reading who are Christians, I challenge you: stop living just as a light in the light, live as a light in the darkness as well.
To those of you reading who are not Christians: If you feel like you are lost, without hope in life, or if you are feeling like you are missing something in life, it could be Jesus. He can give you life, and produce light within you. Trust Him!