Bula Family

Hi everyone!

During the time of me writing the first part of this letter, I am using the village of Vunamoli's free Wi-Fi. Thank you, Elon Musk. This has been a wild 4 1/2 weeks in Fiji. I am absolutely in love with the people, culture, and nature. The people here are so full of life and so hospitable. We are always making friends with the locals wherever we go. I'm really going to miss being able to walk into someone's house and just start chatting. We were in 4 different locations in Fiji. Cities, rural towns, and a village. We have loved this outreach and bonding as a team more and more. We had some ups and downs but, in the end, we finished strong, rooted in Christ. Here are some ministries and things we did in the different locations.

This newsletter is long but very interesting. If you don't have time or don't want to read the entire thing that is fine with me, feel free to scan through and look at the pictures. I separated it by location and the ministries are bullet pointed. If I elaborated on the ministries or had a testimony from that ministry, it was written like this, so it was easy to scan and find. If you wanted to read more information, here are the ministries that were elaborated on

• city evangelism

• book club

• varnishing the decks

• carnival evangelism

• night club evangelism

• rehabilitation center

• prayer walks

• kid's ministries

• woman's night

• Helping Na cook and clean the kitchen

• Testimony from the rehabilitation center

  
  

Suva:

When Sydney and I were praying we felt to help a pioneering base with anything they need for the 10 days we were with them. Then someone said there was a new base in Suva Fiji that was only a year old. We contacted the base leader Ethan to ask if we could come. He said it was the PERFECT time for us to come because they were very busy with DBS running and every single staff at that base was doing the DBS. We came and cooked the dinner for the base so the students could focus on their final projects and the day we left; they also left to go to a village. Perfect God timing. We made so many beautiful friends, especially the Fijians on base. Some ministries we did besides work on the base was

• city evangelism

• Sunday school

• kid's ministry

• book club

  

Unfortunately, our sweet Emily had an infected mosquito bite that pretty much took her out for these 10 days. Emily and I stayed back from the kid's ministry to go to the hospital every day for about 5 days. At first, the doctors were worried the infection spread to her bone but praise the Lord it hadn't. We got her shots and cleaning of the wound every day for about 3 days. God was very good to us during this difficult time.

When we weren't at the hospital, Emily stayed back, and the rest of the team went into the city of Suva and did city evangelism. We had SO MANY fruitful conversations and met some amazing people. Some of those people were these 3 beautiful Indian girls dressed in traditional Indian dance clothing.

In Fiji there is a large population of Indian people, so we got a taste of Indian culture while we were in Fiji!! We met these girls by me saying to them "you guys are so pretty! Why are you dressed so nice?" and our friendship was born. We chatted about their religion and what we were doing here, and we had SUCH a good conversation with them. They were dancing in the street as part of their religion and that's why they were dressed like that. We talked about how we both are religious and the similarities and differences of our religions. They were very open and loved hearing about what we believed. A lot of our beliefs were similar but of course, not the same. We had a good conversation, we preached the gospel through basic conversation, and they invited us to their house to have an Indian dinner.

We couldn't pass this opportunity up so we told them we would show up and asked if we could bring the rest of the girls. They said "YES! I'll have to buy more food but that's totally fine!" Later that night we all showed up to their house and they got to meet the other girls. Then they taught us some Indian dances; we laughed and danced together until the food was ready. They asked us to pray for the food which was amazing because we had different religions, and they wanted US to pray. Then we ate, SO DELICIOUS. That was so amazing how we met them through evangelism, got to talk with them, and then got to go to their house.

The book club was another ministry we helped at. We helped practice reading with the kids and since it was close to Mother's Day, we also made Mother's Day cards. It was so much fun talking and playing with the kids and they loved to learn with us which was so much fun.

Before we left Suva, we wrote all of our new friends on base encouragement notes and said goodbye. We were having a little bit of a hard time as a team with unity and contentment with the ministry we were doing but this was the middle of outreach, so the enemy was trying to stop the good work we were doing with the Lord. We loved Suva but were ready for our next location, Nadi.

Nadi:

We took our 4 hour bus ride back to Nadi (since the international airport is in Nadi we landed here and had to drive to Suva) and were taken to the beautiful countryside of sugar cane farms. The scenery was so different from Suva. There were fields, beautiful trees, and mountain/ hills (very small mountains). We were warmly greeted by some firecracker aunties that worked and lived on the YWAM Vunayasi base. I was so excited to come to this location because the base where I did my DTS, YWAM Ships, comes to this base all the time for outreach. That meant that some my friends from my DTS would've been there at some point and people knew them.

Joseph!

And to my surprise, a ships DTS team was staying there at the same time as us and I knew one of the leaders from my time in PNG. Joseph and I met when I was staffing in PNG and he was leading a team. It was so exciting to see a friend again that I didn't know if I would see again. Team unity was amazing after we started serving in Nadi. We started laughing together as a team and supporting one another with so much love. Besides reuniting with past friends and loving on each other well, we did some amazing ministries such as

• yard work/ varnished the decks

• carnival evangelism

• Hospital visits

• night club

• making bread and cookies for house visits

• shared testimonies, a skit, prayer and words at a rehabilitation home

Varnishing the decks 

was actually so much fun. This was our first "manual labor" job we did as an outreach team, and we killed it (in a good way). It was also such a blessing to the base to be able to help with something that needed to be done.

There was a carnival happening that week to raise money for drug awareness because drugs are HORRIBLE in Fiji. There will be 6-year-olds kids living on the streets and 10-year-olds doing ICE (Meth) and sniffing glue to get high. It's horrible, tragic, and a HUGE problem. We really prayed into that problem while we were there and want to continue to pray for the kids and people chained down by the drugs. We went to this carnival for evangelism and had some amazing conversations with lots of people. There was also a dance competition on the main stage, and I felt from the Lord to go up there. It was freezing dance where the music would stop, and you had to stop dancing and if you moved when the music wasn't playing you were out. I danced my little heart out on that stage but the main reason I went up there is because they were playing naughty music, and I felt to go up there and dance to praise the Lord. I did moves that glorified the Lord and continued to point to the sky and get down on my knees and pray in the dance. Everyone was cheering for me, and they called me "America" (I was the only white girl up there). My dancing was good and showed glory to God. I won and received 4 movie tickets. After I got off stage, people were coming up to me saying they loved my dancing and that I "slayed". I asked them if they could tell I was a missionary and they said, "oh yes, we could tell." Perfect, that was the goal. It opened up so many conversations and had a major impact.

One of the nights, we took our good friend and contact Romeo and our taxi driver to the

This is Romeo

town for night club evangelism. We split into two groups and walked down the strip where all the night clubs were. We stopped some people to chat with them and pray for them, and it was a good time. We chatted with these group of girls and just started to talk to them about God and how they wanted to follow God but don't know how to stop the party lifestyle. We chatted with them, shared some Holy Spirit wisdom, and prayed for the group of girls; it was so good. I pray those girls truly had their ears open and something changed in them that night.

We had the opportunity to be the first team to visit a rehabilitation home that houses people who were on the street doing drugs and were asked if they wanted to get off the street. They could leave at any time so the people that stayed and continue to stay, wanted to be there and get better. We had only an hour with them, and it was such a sweet time chatting and preforming the "Everything skit" for them. Our time was so short, but God gifted us the opportunity to go back to that place after our village stay (Amazing testimony of that second time in the "Lautoka" section of this newsletter).

Vunamoli Village:

We then had the unexpected opportunity to visit a village that was near and dear to the Vunayasi's base's heart, Vunamoli. They suggested we visit the village for 6 days and little did I know, the ships teams ALWAYS comes to this village, meaning, a lot of my friends came to this village. They told me about some wild stories from this place (I put the pieces together after we were already there). Before, they told me it was full of witchcraft and some tough realities and when we got there, there was no active witchcraft anymore. Our team could feel the village still had some strongholds that still needed to be broken but nothing like what my friends were telling me before. God has been working and MOVING in this village, and it was so sweet to be a tiny part of God's overall plan for this village. The nature and environment were SO beautiful, like ridiculous. An amazing place to be at peace with God.

• prayer walks

• Kids ministry

• house visits

• Helping Na cook and clean the kitchen

• womans night

• Preformed skits, dances, preached, and provided prayer for the school kids at their school

• kinder class

Since there were still some strongholds on the village, we felt to go on prayer walks in the village. We went during one of the mornings and one of the nights. We walked through the village and prayed anything that came to mind.

We did a lot of kid's ministries such as Kinder class, Primary School, and playing with the kids every night. We preformed skits, dances, and shared some words (with the older kids). It was so sweet to see their faces light up when we would visit them at their schools and laugh when we were being silly.

Since everyone in the village knows we were staying at the pastor's house, all the kids would come to the top of the hill where we were staying and play sports, chat, color, do our hair, and hang out with us every, single, day. At the start it was SO much fun towards the middle it was not as fun anymore and towards the end we were drained. We loved the kids, but we didn't get a break, and they were crazy sometimes. God taught me about patience for sure. At one point I just started pointing to kids when they had holes in their clothes and asked if I could sew it for them. This way, I was helping them and was with them but didn't have to entertain them. Sometimes they would just sit next to me and watch.

One of the nights, we felt to bless the women of the village by having a woman's night, we created a full spa experience for them. The nail salon was for city women so most of these ladies never had their feet massaged and nails painted before. We brought face masks, nail polish, lotion, feet soaking salts, and chill vibes to help these ladies feel loved and relaxed. We massaged their hands and feet and painted their nails while they wore face masks. It was talk of the village after, they loved it.

Na was our lovely mother we lived with while we were in the village.

Natalia, Na, and I

She cooked and cared for us while we were there. We felt like us girls should help her clean the kitchen, so we didn't ask, we just started cleaning. In Fijian culture, they won't let guest help cook or clean to honor the guests, but really, they love the help. We learned our lesson from Samoa, if we asked, they wouldn't let us help. So we just moved things and washed them, wiped the counters down, threw old, moldy food away, and cleaned whatever we could. After a while she saw we were cleaning and let us do our thing. She later told me we were the first team to help with cleaning (since we were the only ones that didn't ask if we could) and it was SUCH a blessing to her and the family. After that, she allowed us to help with the cooking and made some meals by ourselves. Our time in Samoa really prepared us for the rest of our outreach and in the process, really blessed others in a way that connected to their culture.

It was such a beautiful time and a privilege to see another part of Fiji, after the village we had less than a week of outreach!!

Lautoka (kinda):

So, the original plan was 10 days in Suva, 10 in Nadi, and 10 in Lautoka, that didn't happen which was good with us because we were following God, not a schedule. We went back to the Vunayasi base to spend the night and head to Lautoka. After we spent the night, there was an opportunity to go back the rehabilitation center and to go evangelize at a rugby game; we had to stay another day and leave later that night. After that we did go to Lautoka but only for about 3 days because the last days weren't ministry days but debrief days. We stayed with our friends from Queenstown, Bruce and Gillian. but before we braked for debrief, here are our final ministries

• rehabilitation center

• Rugby game evangelism

• a different rehabilitation center

• night evangelism

• litter picking on the beach

Before we left Nadi, we got to go back the rehabilitation center! This time, we bought them basic supplies they needed like toilet paper, pads, soap, food, clothes, etc. to bless them because it's a non-profit. They have girls and guys living at the same place and sometimes children. There were only two girls there, which was less people than before. That kind of hurt our spirits because that means they decided to go back on the street. But we focused on the two girls that we did have, and it was POWERFUL. We had a devotion with them and chatted with them. We talked about faith and turning away from strongholds and the girls were very engaged. One of the girls that I already knew from last time was telling me how a group of the people went back on the street and when she was talking by them in the city they asked if she wanted to sit with them.

The girl in the black shirt gave her life to the Lord!

They were basically asking if she wanted to do drugs with them. She remembered us from last time and remembered what we talked about last time and knew if she sat down, she would do drugs and not come back to the center. So, she decided to not sit with them but instead decided to come back to the center! Praise God! I told her that devotion to the Lord is celebrated and honored and God is going to move TRAMENDOUSLY in her life with that obedience. She then decided to give her life to the Lord and fully devote herself to God! Absolutely amazing and fruitful.

Conclusion

We finished off outreach with a massive debrief and talked through so many testimonies, good times, hard times, and remembrance. I am so thankful for my co-leader Sydney, she is truly going to be my friend for the rest of my life. And I'm so thankful for my team of girls and I am so very proud of them all. I saw so much growth and devotion to the Lord. The ministry we were gifted with was so God breathed, and he gifted me with so much faith. I learned SO MUCH from leading this team and am SO thankful I got to go back to the pacific.

Thank you all whether you skimmed through or read the whole thing, thank you for taking the time to open this newsletter; I love you all. I will write what I'm doing next in my next newsletter, some big things are in the works, stay tuned. Feel free to ask me any questions or for more testimonies because I, of course have many.

Thank you for reading! May God bless you.

Destiny Gentry