Auckland, New Zealand
July 3rd, 2008
Seems that the guys must have been using the McCafe regularly for their bible study.
We believed to go in later in the evening and they were just finishing their study - got this shot of everyone.
It was really great to catch up and get to know some of the men a bit better.
Auckland, New Zealand
July 2nd, 2008
The last couple of weeks have been very full of things that the Lord Jesus has been doing. Here are a few of the things that have been happening.
We shared a wonderful time with the leader of the men's group that we first met while they were holding their meeting in a MacCafe (see below) meeting his wife and some of his children.
And then a few days later one of the men from the group spotted us in another shopping centre, but unfortunately did not identify himself to us at the time. Erik is soon to be making a trip to Perth in Australia, where he will be helping a new outreach there for some three weeks. He feels that God has got more for him to do in the future as well.
Turkey
That night we had believed very strongly that we were to be in that shopping centre for dinner, and had ended up sitting on the edge of the foodcourt. A family sat on one side of us and a lady by herself on the other.
We struck up a conversation with the family, who turned out to be from Turkey. To protect their situation we can give no details. Other than to say that the older son was very concerned about the way evolution is being taught as a fact here.
They all believed strongly in the Creator. I believed I was led to talk about the problems of trying to date rocks and fossils. It turned out that the elder son had been studying these things just the week before, and was not at all happy with the science of it all.
We all shared and talked for some three hours, and Michael and I undertook to get a piece of writing to him covering these things which we were able to drop off to their home the next day.
The mother was also scientifically trained and had severe reservations over the theory of evolution, and the false impact it is having on social and health policies in the western world.
We shared openly on Christ's role in Creation, and were pleasantly surprised that the family were open to discuss all of these things.
In the middle of talking with the family, they recognised the lady sitting on the other side of us as having been their older son's first teacher when they moved to New Zealand. So they had a great time catching up with her as well. She had blond golden coloured hair and very fair complexion. And she spoke to Michael in fluent Samoan! She was in fact mostly Samoan with a Danish grandfather (Michael has a Danish great grand father as well).
Sandy teaches full and partial immersion Samoan classes at a school just down the road from where Michael and I are staying at the moment. She said that there are no government funding for what her school is believing it has to do to help the Samoan students, but they have seen great results with the children. The classes start as full Samoan for new arrivals, and progress to a percentage of English as the children carry on.
Plans for Fiji
Plans for Fiji are proceeding under the Holy Spirit's leading.
He keeps having us in places by faith where we unexpectedly meet people from or connected with Fiji. Last night (31 stJune) He showed us quite late on to head out for a meal. When we got to the eatery, a man came in shortly afterwards who sat at a table near us.
Tavua Fiji
This man, Sam, pulled out a bible! And started to do some sort of prepared study. We introduced ourselves to him, and he latter joined us. He was Chinese part Samoan, we surprised him when we answered his question on where we believe that the Lord is next leading us to go, by saying Fiji.
And we were all surprised when it came out that we shared links with Tavua on the northern part of the island of Viti Levu. Sam's grandad had had married a Samoan woman and shifted to Tavua.
The family still have a home there. And we had been praying that very morning about whether or not to be visiting the area in this upcoming journey! So we took this as a direct encouragement from the Lord Jesus.
Flora
Earlier in the day we believed that the Lord had encouraged us that we were to spend time out west in Helensville area. The Holy Spirit indicated that we only had to flow in what He was showing us, and He would arrange the rest.
Heading out from the West Gate we struck a hail and rain squall ten minutes from the city limits.
And as we came around a corner spotted a man struggling in the wind and rain. He was hitchhiking to Helensville, so we picked 'Wayne' up and took him to the home of a woman who he described initially as being his aunty.
Flora is her name, and she had taken Wayne in as a State ward along with other children when their family lives fell a part for one reason or another.
Flora is a remarkable person, now about 83, she has lived a most amazing life.
In 1940 her father marched the family from Te Awamutu to Whangaroa district north of Kaeo in Northland, hundreds of kilometres, in the hope of having a new start and a life on a new farm which he had purchased for 100 pounds.
Of their remaining twenty pounds, ten was spent on a family tent to sleep in while they made their journey on foot. Flora remembers that when they went through the Waitangi area, the government was holding celebrations for the 100 year signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Walking in bare feet, the journey took some twelve weeks. Settling on their new farm, the family basically lived off the land and coastal resources. It was war time and many in New Zealand were very poorly off. New Zealand was sacrificially sending all it could off to England and for feeding feed the troops.
1940 Centenial of New Zealand
Flora's job amongst her seven brothers and sisters, was to look after the family cows. Taking them to pasture, and putting two buckets of milk on the table morning and evening.
Along with the other children, she would watch for where the bees flew in the valleys, and bring honey in the comb back for their mother to squeeze out from the wax, and filter through flour bags.
Flora and the other children were all home schooled by their mother on Correspondence, and she feels that they did better from it in life than many others she knows, who were at regular schools.
She married a man of the sea, and together they started raising several children of their own. Then Flora's husband died! Moving to Helensville she looked for a property, but there was little for sale.
God helps widows and orphans and wants us to as well.
27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
One day in a real estate agents, she had just been told again that there was little available, when the firm's secretary/receptionist came into the bosses office to say that a new property had just come in.
The boss read the details and looked up and told Flora that there was a house down in the estuary, but the purchase involved buying a commercial fishing boat as well. Flora had learned the craft from her husband, and said - "that'll do me!"
So she shifted into the place, ran a fishing business, doing the fishing herself, raised her children, and took in State wards.
Flora is considered to have been the first commercial fisher woman in New Zealand, if not the western world. She successfully ran the business for some fifty years focusing on floundering. Paid off her house and boat(s) and raised the family.
At 83 she still makes and repairs nets, and has even made some for Fiji in the past!
Flora lives a morally 'clean' life, and there is no smoking, no drinking, no swearing and she lives to help others.
14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law,
15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
The amazing thing is that she is not a Christian, and has apparently never yet sought God's direct help. She is an example for those who do have God's direct help available through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, but still complain about their lot in life!
Another evening we believed that the Lord showed us to head into one of the older Auckland areas. Believing we had been shown where to eat, we settled down for a meal. Members of a sports team came in after their practice.
They sat near the door. Then some other young men from the same team came in and sat near us. What caught our attention was that this last two bowed their heads in prayer before they ate.
Villi and Nila were both from Mormon families. Michael shared his testimony of how the Lord Jesus had brought him out of Mormonism.
How in walking with God through Christ, Michael had seen the Spirit of God do amazing miracles - even meeting a man who was raised from the dead. We shared more with them, and left them with Paradise leaflets and newsletters about some things the Lord has done in Fiji.
Villi and his family are from Fiji!
Holy Spirit's Preparations
Early in the morning on Sunday 29th, I had felt that the Lord was leading me through some Scripture, as if in preparation for something that was coming up.
Much later on Michael and I ended up catching up with a dear sister we had not seen for a long time. She told us that she and her husband had only recently returned from some time in the States, a belated honeymoon.
I felt strongly to share from the Scriptures and thoughts that the Lord had given me to meditate on earlier in the day. Our sister then shared that she believed that she was to use those themes with the youth group that she and her husband would be running later in the evening. They both had expressed to each other that they had nothing from the Lord - and she strongly felt that these were the things that were to be shared that night.
It was an amazing example of God's Spirit moving for which we were very grateful.
Auckland, New Zealand
June 20th, 2008
This morning the Lord made it very plain that He had an appointment for us over at the Henderson Mall in West Auckland - Waitakare City.
All we believed that we were to do initially was to have a cup of tea in a certain coffee bar there. After paying at the counter, I looked around for a seat, and somehow the Holy Spirit showed that we should sit near a little old lady in the corner by the door.
So I headed over there. God wonderfully caused this lady, Marg, to start talking to me. She was 88 years old and a very kind person. She had just driven herself over from the Auckland North Shore to see an old family friend who she visits twice a week in a rest home.
She was very closed to anything about the Lord Jesus or God in general. She told us how about a hundred years ago, a Catholic Priest had done something to her mother that had caused her mother to leave the church. Although Marg had been put into Anglican Sunday school by her mother, she had been very influenced by her mother's situation, and now held no faith in God at all.
And this attitude had been passed on to three more generations - Marg was already a great grandmother.
Very kind to animals, and to people in general she had decided that all that matters is being kind to people and living a 'clean' life. She was in fact still aiming to live a very Christian values type life, but without faith in Christ.
We talked for a long time, sharing with her that God loves her even more than the six wild cats that she takes care of from the bush, and the thirty year old cat at her home. I explained that even doing all the right things and keeping herself from evil things, was not enough, that we had to first believe in Christ fully and love Him. Or we would be like someone who does not sign on for a factory job, works all year, and wonders why they have not been paid!
A Contrast - Buses used for "Homeless Church" meetings.
More San Francisco Pictures
More on Jesus and the poor
Slowly we saw God touching Marg's heart as we shared testimony of God's great grace in Jesus Christ, but it was very hard for her with all the history.
Please pray that God would continue to open Marg up to Him fully. There are so many people like her, hurt by the false god that is presented by dead formal religion and its unfaithful ministers.
Camera Tripod, an Answered Prayer and an Opening
We had had a tripod for supporting our cameras that broke, and had been needing to replace it and had been lifting the need to the Lord in prayer. It seemed that the day had come to replace it. The Lord indicated which shop to got into in the end.
And we got to share the Lord with the manageress for nearly an hour! Then she said - you were wanting to buy something weren't you? And the tripod that stood out had a small piece missing that was available to me from my old one, and it was on sale for 50% off when she confirmed the price!
Seaward Kaikoura Mountains South Island New Zealand
More Kaikoura - Picton, South Island New Zealand Pictures
So praise God He provided a very good replacement for such a great price. It was a better model with better metal than the newer version of itself sitting beside it on the shop floor!
We were so pleased that we had remembered to pray so much about getting a replacement, as we could have gone out in our own flesh to do it with out the Holy Spirit's leading and not had the wonderful opening that the Lord gave us to share about Jesus.
Fijian Sisters
Later we believed to head to a different shopping mall in the same city, across to the east. And there God granted us to see one of the Fijian sisters discussed in an earlier update (done below here).
Mere had her two grandchildren with her, and a friend from Lautoka City in Fiji, Angelina. It was very lovely to be able to share some simple things of the faith for quite a time together - things that are very precious, but often given no importance in western countries like New Zealand nowadays. Family, faithfulness, proper rearing and disciplining of children, and many other things.
Angelina (also a grandmother) felt very strongly that the New Zealand laws on anti-smacking were not sensible, or workable, and would be producing some very bad people in the future.
Auckland, New Zealand
June 19th, 2008
The last few days have been quite full.
Today we believed that the Lord encouraged us to make a trip visiting certain areas for intercession. We travelled around them stopping as we believed the Lord indicated and praying as we believed the Holy Spirit led.
Later in the evening we believed that we were to call into a certain MacDonalds and have a Sundae.
Men's Bible Study
When we got there a certain group of seats stood out.
Sitting nearby, a group of young men were talking and laughing together. Glancing over I noticed that there was a bible on their table. I asked if they were Christians and they said yes, and that they were having a men's bible study together.
Discussion with Ronald? What Would He Say?
Click the picture to find out.
More Antigua, Guatemala Pictures
Michael and I were able to spend quite a bit of time exhorting them to the needs of World Evangelisation. Discussing the needs of different people groups around the globe.
Turned out that they all knew that one of them was running form some kind of mission call!
So we spent more time talking on how that does not work, and gave examples of people who had gone quite weird running from such calls, and how they only started to come right when they got back in it with Christ!
We talked on how the Lord Jesus says that if a man keeps his life, he will loose it, but if he looses it (not in foolish things) but for Jesus and the Gospel, he will find it.
The study leader made arrangements to get more time with us later.
Auckland, New Zealand
June 15th, 2008
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
We trust that this email newsletter finds you fine and well in the Love of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Michael and I are presently in Auckland New Zealand, where we have been waiting day by day on the Lord for His guidance and direction.
Prior to heading through North and Central America last year we believed that the Lord was encouraging us to look at using our Qantas Frequent Flyer points to do a trip to Fiji upon our return to the South Pacific.
With the muck up to our travel back through the USA to Europe and Asia, we nonetheless believed that the Holy Spirit started to direct us to look at going to Fiji again. And still hold Europe in our hearts seeking for fresh direction on the details from God.
Fiji
So one morning we sat in prayer before our Heavenly Father, asking for confirmation from Him regarding going to Fiji, to see our Christian family there.
God granted us a general sense of well being about it, and clearly showed us to go to a certain cafe on the way into the Central Business District of Auckland to see Qantas about the refunds on our previous ticket (we were only eligible for the airport taxes and lost thousands on the unused portions).
When we got to the cafe, a Fijian lady came in as well! We introduced ourselves to her and invited her to come over and sit with us. She shared her testimony of how she had come to know Christ growing up in the Fijian Methodist, and how her husband had brought her into the Catholic church.
Now her son is a professional rugby player based in Japan and she looks after the children in New Zealand for him. And the Fijian Catholics get together once a month for a meeting that she said is led by the Holy Spirit in the way that the Fijian Methodists used to be guided by God in their meetings on her island during her childhood.
I was very encouraged by the Lord when it turned out that she was from the group of islands that God first took me to in Fiji in 1984 when He first sent me there to minister.
We had many friends in common.
Michael and I just made it on to the next bus going into the City centre. We called into the Qantas Centre - a bit sad as we were passing our paper tickets over to get the airport taxes back.
Qantas Centre - Fijian Christian
We had prayed much that we would get the right person to handle it knowing that if a good job was not done we would not get all we were entitled to, and would be non the wiser about it.
A machine issues you with a numbered ticket, and you wait for an automated system to tell you which counter to go to.
Our number came up and we found ourselves sitting in front of a very dark lady with her hair in a sort of net. There was a certain dignity and bearing about this woman that stood out straight away.
As we talked she discovered that we were Christian Missionaries (she was keen to know why we had been going to all the places that were on the tickets).
And she also was a strong Christian, for which we were very thankful to God. She volunteered that she would be doing her best to get the most back she could for us!
However even with her best efforts we only got some of the airport taxes back.
Most amazing of all was that she also is from the same group of Islands where I first ministered in 1984.
So with those two encounters we felt utterly confirmed by God to be next aiming for time in Fiji.
Things are a little difficult there at the moment.
Mt Albert
Another day we prayed for a long time in a shopping mall car park and believed that we were shown two things, something about indian people, and Mt Albert (an old low volcano near by, that you can drive up).
We believed to drive up Mt Albert and and wait on the Lord there. The view at the top is excellent and as we waited more in prayer, up the hill came an Indian man and a Cambodian walking and talking together. We continued praying and thought to continue back to where we were staying the night, but felt very strongly that the Lord wanted us to go to the public lookout at the top of the wee mountain.
So up we went, and there were the two men that we had seen arrive earlier. Neville was the unexpected name of the Indian man, and Hipughr the Cambodian guy.
Neville was from a long Christian heritage starting with the ministry of the apostle Thomas in southern India right back in the day. His father and brother had died and he was left with his mother in India, a lady he described as having strong faith in the Lord Jesus.
It may surprise some to learn what happened to some of the other Apostles of Christ. It seems that not a few of them took the Lord Jesus' command to go to the ends of the earth quite seriously. I have met a number of people whose families had been Christian since that first ministry of Thomas in southern India.
There are some wonderful accounts of his arrival there. When he first stepped ashore, it was a Hindu festival time, during which the brahamans were scooping water out of a sacred temple pool, and throwing it into the air and it was coming back down on the people.
The Apostle Thomas
Thomas reportedly asked what they were doing, and the priests responded that they were making offerings to their god. Thomas then told them that either their god did not like their offerings, or perhaps he did not exist! As he was not accepting their offering of water into heaven.
Shafts of Sunlight Warkworth Area
Reminds us of the Soon Return of the Lord Jesus.
More Warkworth Pictures
So then he picked up the water scoop and dragged it through the sacred pool, and threw water up into the air, and kept doing it and none of it came back down to earth! As they looked in the pool, God had left scoop marks like in ice cream where the water had been taken from!
Thomas then preached the true God in Jesus Christ to those present and the priests and many others became followers of Christ. And many of their descendants have held to the faith ever since. That is father to son, mother to daughter for going on two thousand years.
Some of the English, when they took over India, were quite shocked to find Christianity alive and strong in many parts of the country, it was quite a shock to their Euro- or Roman- centric view of world history.
Neville's parents were both from such areas of India. And he had many testimonies of greatly answered prayers. But also many issues to openly discuss concerning his as yet lack of personal commitment to Christ.
We spent some 12 hours with him in all.
'Hipughr', the Cambodian man left us after about ten hours saying that he had never wanted to "look into Christ", but he realised now that this was "the true life".
Praise be to God!!!
In the middle of all of this an older man suddenly walked up to Neville and laid hands upon his head and prayed for him the scripture that says that we have not been given a spirit ... of fear but of a sound mind.
6 ¶ For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
It was so very appropriate! And utterly amazing.
The Adi SavuSavu Connection
Last night we believed very strongly that the Lord was showing us to call into Mac Donalds in New Lynn quite late on to have something simple like a Sundae.
Walking around the corner, with a small milk shake each, to sit in the McCafe area, I was surprised to see a Fijian man sitting watching the rugby.
He looked almost familiar, but never in a month of Sundays would I have remembered where from.
After we had exchanged Fijian greetings, Kasiano introduced us to his Tongan fiancee Sal.
Kasiano and I started sharing, and Michael started talking to Sal. Then she looked over at me and said,
“Have we met somewhere before, you look very familiar to me?”
I asked her where she had lived before, and then she said,
“Do you know Saia and Naomi?”
I answered and said, yes Saia Latu. Sal was our friend Rodney Latu's wife's (Bessie) cousin. Saia, Rodney's son. We had met at these Tongan friends of ours house warming after the Lord had brought us back from Central America.
They had moved to Manukau from next door to where we were staying in Avondale.
But more was to follow - mind blowing more!
They both had faith in the Lord Jesus. Kasiano was to go on to share some most amazing answers to prayer God had granted to him, moving in an obvious power gift of faith (1 Cor 12).
Kasiano said he had not been in Fiji for several years. So while Michael was sharing his testimony with Sal, I talked with Kasiano about a trip the Lord had led us in, to Fiji in 2001 up to the island he had been living on. He then blew us away saying that he had been on the Adi SavuSavu on the top deck.
The Adi SavuSavu was a ship that plys between Suva and the other main island, Vanua Levu in the Fiji Group.
Paul On The Andi Savu Savu - Leaving Suva 2001
Read Fiji Newsletters
Fiji - God Still Does Miracles News
Vanuatau / Vanua Levu News
Viti Levu News
The Holy Spirit moved through some words of knowledge, and greatly blessed the rest of our talk.
We left utterly amazed by what the Lord Jesus had done through the evening.
We will try to keep you posted on what God does next with us. Please remember to pray for Hedina as well.
Yours in Christ's great love,
paul and michael