Finishing Strong in Vanuatu

This week was a blessing!  To start off the week, we visited the hospital to pray for any person that we saw.  We split up into three groups and took different sections of the hospital, morgue, pharmacy, and the waiting rooms.  We didn't see any dead people raised, but we did see amazing things through God working in healing pain in knees, backs, heads, stomachs, etc.  We were very blessed to pray for all sorts of things. Charlene and Hannah got to pray for a baby born prematurely.  Dan and Abbey visited the slums and got to see several healings and a new flame inside of people about God's love!  Before we all left to walk home, Abbey got to talk to two girls and they both accepted Jesus!  God did amazing things! 

Tuesday was a slower day because Dan, Abbey, and Brad got sick and tried recovering so that we could all do ministry.  Everyone (minus Brad) went to the university that day to pray for the students who had exams.  We did not talk to too many people; we were just doing a prayer walk for an hour and a half around the whole campus and residential area. 

Later in the evening after dinner, we all of us (including the two other teams living with us in Grace House) went down into town and had praise and worship for over an hour and a half.  It was great praying with people, feeling an earthquake and seeing another person brought to Jesus!  Overall, that day was amazing (besides all the sickness...)!

The highlight for Wednesday was going into town and doing a street performance followed by a message from Charlene about God's love and the simple Gospel. Brad was still out sick, and Dan had just recovered, but we powered onward with the help of the medical team that was also in Port Vila. At the last minute, Dan had to jump in and take Brad's place as Jesus in the skit, but it still went well and the Spirit was really working in people's hearts.

We did the first skit near the waterfront and the second one over where the little shops are that the mommas work at.  

They were both really good! The first performance led to one man praying to commit to Jesus, and after the second performance we saw lots of great responses. We even got invited to the home of a man named Jackson to pray for the family and neighbors.  

Once we got back from Jackson's house that evening, we just had a short amount of time before we were back out to lead the Bible study for the troubled teens again.  Unfortunately, Abbey and Brad were down for the count with different sicknesses and the rest of us were super tired, but God's grace carried us, so it went well and Ainsley taught about hearing God's voice like a boss! Once it was over and we got back, we all collapsed on our beds and fell asleep.

Thursday was a day filled with many emotions of goodbyes, excitement, and heaps of fun. 

 After we had worship at V2 Life base in Teouma Valley, we went back to Robinson's household for a goodbye celebration.  While we were waiting for the food to be cooked, we got to play with many children which included a hand woven "volleyball " and the girl's hair. 

  We then had a little goodbye celebration which included small speeches, gifts (including super amazing woven hats), food, and heartfelt goodbyes. 

On Friday we got to go to a nice resort island called Iririki for a last relaxing day in Vanuatu. We spent a while reflecting on how we changed over the course of the outreach, and it was really encouraging for everyone. We also got to go snorkeling and kayaking, and do some last minute shopping before it was time to return to Grace House for a final cleaning time and dinner.

Traveling back to New Zealand was fun because we had a three hour flight followed by a three hour car ride to Tauranga. Finally, we arrived back on the Pacific Hope, Marine Reach Ministry's "new" ship!

~The GO Group