This will be the first installment of a series of articles I am offering to share with you what life is like here. Before we left, and at all the support meetings, we speculated as to what our life would be like here in Fiji. Now, I want to follow-up on that theme and share with you the reality, and you can put together the pieces of how much we guessed correctly and how much we were off the mark. Also, you might find it interesting what we do each day, what are the specifics of our daily routine, etc, so this little series will help with all of that.
First of all, our speculation that we would quickly pick-up the Aussie/Kiwi accent has come to pass. Pam and I even think now with the sort-of British accent and have admitted to each other that when we pray silently, out self-talk is with the accent. It’s really quite natural with the large majority of our friends here from one of those 3 places. We even have an instructor this week that has been to Nashville and has had fun with our Southern drawl and we have laughed, as well.
I will start with our daily routine. We have a very full schedule, it seems, which leaves only scarce free time. We have class from 8:30 to 12:30 each day with a 30 minute tea break at 10:30. Breakfast is from 7:00 to 7:30 and quiet time from 7:30 to 8:30. We usually get up around 6 and try to go for a walk along the waterfront, which is usually about 2 ½ miles and we make this trek about 3-4 times each week. After lunch every day is different. Mondays we have small group, which is 2 groups of men and one group of women. In my small group, we have 3 men students and 2 leaders. We spend the 1 ½ hours different ways, but it includes praying for each other and talking about what’s going on with us from the classwork and/or personally. It will prove to be a great bonding time for us men and will be part of our journey most treasured. Sometimes we walk to a nearby hotel and get a milkshake, and that’s a great treat.
The funny thing is that we don’t have the normal house duties we have at home, but we have less free time. I haven’t quite understood where the time goes, but it gets to around 9 or 10 pm and we’re ready for bed and have not gotten all our personal stuff done, almost every day. Maybe, because of the communal type living accommodation, it’s easy to visit for 5 to 15 minutes here and there, and then at other times it’s tough to find time alone to write and think. Anyway, time is hard to control.
Everybody has work duties every day, and we have 3 rotations of 4 weeks each. My first rotation was on maintenance, which made my work a breeze. Pam’s first job has been as the cook’s helper, and I must admit, is one of the hardest on the base. She works harder and for more hours than anyone else here. Our second rotation starts May 21 and Pam has lunch clean-up plus hospitality for our guest speaker each week. Hospitality duties include making our guests feel welcome with a card, clean sheets, cold drinks in their private “fridge”, snacks, etc. plus photocopies or whatever help he/she might need during the week. We expect this duty will require 3-4 hours per week. My second rotation is dinner (“tea”) clean-up, which takes about an hour per evening. Tough work, but this will not be as long as the 2 hrs/day on maintenance. Our new schedules will allow us some time together in the afternoons between 3 and 5:30 that we did not have for the first four weeks, and we plan to have fun checking out the local town much more during this time.
Every afternoon is different, but I will attempt to share a brief overview. After lunch at 12:30 (this takes about 30 minutes) we have a time slot from 1:30 to 3:00 each day that varies. Monday is small group, Tuesday is intercession (usually for Fiji), Wednesday is free time, Thursday is local community outreach, and Friday is a time for feedback and review with the week’s speaker.
In addition to the above schedule, we have a weekly meeting with our “one-on-one” which takes about an hour. Our one-on-one is one of the staff that meets with us weekly, plus any other time we need it to make sure we are understanding the intended teaching. We also do a weekly journal which has a specific guideline that is an overview of the week’s lectures and how they have affected our spiritual journey. We turn these in to our one-on-one each Monday morning for review and correction, if needed. We also have to read 4 books while we are here, and the first 3 of them require a written book report. We usually write a 2-3 page review of the main points of the book, why it was written, and how its information will affect our ministry. Pam and I are now almost finished with our second book and should complete our second book reports by the end of this week, which is a little ahead of schedule. We just can’t imagine getting behind with so little free time, so we try to stay ahead to avoid that.
We will try to add more later on our weekend journeys and adventures, and also cultural differences.
