Mission Adventures New Zealand Goes to Samoa

Kiwis in Samoa

I just received an update from Erica in New Zealand. She just returned from taking a team of teenage Kiwis to Samoa. In addition to bringing encouragement to folks in a hospital and sharing in schools, they did some practical work. Erica writes:

The team were teaching at Lepa Primary one morning from 9-10am, and we were stressed because we had nothing for them to do after they finished their classes. We went for a walk down by the beach to pray. While sitting under a palm tree we heard some hammering noises in the distance. So we followed the sound until we found a couple of local guys starting work to rebuild a half-destroyed beachfront fale. We said “We have 19 palagi youth that can work for free. Can we help you?”, at which they took us into the back room of the house that had been filled with rocks and coral from the tsunami. They reluctantly asked us if we could move the rocks, to which we were stoked! So the team came to Fereti’s house, and after many hours, broken fingernails and blisters, we had cleared all of the rocks, and wheelbarrowed enough sand from the beach to pour a new concrete floor. Throughout the course of the day, this middle-aged guy kept popping his head through the holes in the wall where the windows used to be, and smiled at us. The builders were hard-out mocking him (!) and explained to us that this was Fereti, the 46-year-old single guy that no lady had ever wanted! So we instantly loved him, and over the course of the next few days, came back to help put up his new roof, and a bunch of other stuff. On our last day, it turned out that we had an inexplicably large amount of cash left over in the team budget, so we all prayed together and felt to give this money to Fereti to rebuild his house. I double-checked with the local Pastor’s wife whether or not this was a wise thing to do, and she told us that even before the tsunami, the church ladies would take him food parcels to help care for him and his elderly mother who lived alone together. Once the tsunami came, they didn’t qualify to receive a Habitat for Humanity fale, and throughout a series of other circumstances, they also missed out on the government grant to those who wished to rebuild their existing homes. So here you have a 46-year-old single man and his elderly mother living in Lepa, and watching while the rest of their village is rebuilt… Yet no-one comes to help them. So we put together a “fat stack” and gave it to Fereti on our last morning in Samoa. It was one of those moments you just never forget. Check out the attached photo of Fereti (in the blue-gray polo shirt) and his builders, along with the team from Hamilton Christian School.

What a great testimony! It seems so much like God to care for the people on the margins. And isn’t it just like God’s people to be instantly drawn to those the world mocks? God loves Fereti so much that he arranged for a group of Kiwi kids to make a difference in his world. 

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