Our last team heading to the airport to fly away home.

Banana time!

Planting coffee and avocado! Grow little plants grow!

Cutting stakes at Homes of Hope for the new coffee/avacodo/banana/ironwood plantation.

Following our new 3 ton truck along the crazy momi road.

Hard at work.

Cooking for a group of over 20 people was a full-time job.

No more bare cement at Momi!

The world's most picturesque playground.

My expert teachers helping out in Sigatoka.

Pauliasi-scheming while coloring

Back to work with a new team in a new truck!

Elani Pittman's fourth birthday party.

Bushwacking has its rewards.

Owen Thompson-Super Star

Break Time!

There has been rumors of a Men of SI calendar...July is all yours Oscar!

Jonathan and Tricia Thompson on our trip to Waya.

We have a friend who owns a bit of land on the island of Waya. It may be used in the future as an SI site and we were able to go and check it out. Incredibly beautiful. This is Tim and Ray trying to find it.

Sugar cane season means the cane trains are rolling through town.

We had about two weeks off before our last team and were able to tour around a bit. This is at the Garden of the Sleeping Giant-the largest collection of orchids in Fiji. It was amazing!

Pictures

The team treated us to a night at a beautiful resort. We had a great time relaxing and taking advantage of all the fun stuff to to-like sailing!

Tim and Matthew hanging out in our house.

After a week sharing a home together, the Students International president finally warmed up to his roommate.

Our newly remodeled home. We had to make many changes responding to the elements; super strong wind, rain storms...

Jima(one of our wonderful Fijian staff) and Lindsay digging our water pipe trench.

Tim and I have been at Ray and Laura's house in Nadi for the last couple days. Our last team of the summer left late Sunday night and now we're not quite sure what to do with ourselves! We were totally exhausted after this team and appreciated resting for a while. We're realizing that our ideas of "resting" are a little different from each other, though. I feel like sleeping and swimming in the pool or maybe watching a movie-you know, resting. Tim on the other hand can't stand being still with so many exciting possibilities available. His way of relaxing and regaining energy is surfing/hiking/kayaking/island hopping/doing everything-all in the same day! I'm beginning to get my energy back now, though, so hopefully we'll be on the same page soon. This week we are just helping out the Pittmans and finishing out SI work. I have taught a little homeschooling while Laura has been taking seminary classes and Tim has been helping Ray run vehicles to/from the shops and other errands.
Tim's brother Kevin is coming out on Monday to spend about 10 days with us bird watching and hiking here on Viti Levu and also on another island- Taveuni. We are really looking forward to seeing family and more of Fiji.
I am working on getting more pictures up here and on flickr. I tried a few weeks ago but the internet was down so hopefully it will work this time!

We haven't had access to post lately so it has been a while. A lot has happened in the past few weeks. We had our 3rd team come through and are now awaiting our 4th and last team to arrive bright and early in the morning. We were only with this last team for a week as the two of us were working at Momi trying to prepare it for living in. That week was full of setbacks and we weren't able to get as much accomplished as we had hoped. Despite some frustrations it was a good week of working alongside our Fijian friends and getting to know them better. Everything worked itself out and the team was wonderful. They had a string of people getting sick while at Homes of Hope and it carried in to the week at Momi. They recovered quickly, though, and all went well. After adjusting a bit to spiders and frogs and cement and dirt they warmed up to the site and helped us get a lot of work done. There remains to be a lot to do, but every bit of help makes a huge difference.
The president of Students International was the team leader for this team and it was great to see him work with the other leaders trying to materialize the dreams that they have for the future here in Fiji. They have a lot of ideas and loads of opportunity to work with. It is exciting to see things happen!
The past 2 weeks have been a bit of a break. There have not been teams here, so we have been working here and there and also have had a chance to have some fun and a little adventure. We have been to the beach a few times, tried out Ray's old surfboard, gone hiking, and took an overnight trip to an island where a friend owns a bit of land. We brought some of our local staff and friends which was fun. It was absolutely beautiful. Now it is Sunday and our last team is on their way. This time has gone by so fast. We feel rested and energized for them and hope to give them our best. Pray for God's strengh to keep us healthy and excited.