Here I am back in middle earth. It has been an emotional few days. I had a stellar Christmas in Fiji. On Christmas Eve, the day was pretty laid back. I was able to hit town for last minute souvenirs and gifts. Then I relaxed for the afternoon. Dave gave us all a nice Christmas gift of 10 Fijian dollars, which was actually our money in the first place, but it was pretty lucky because I wanted to buy a fancy machete for 11 dollars and I only had 2 dollars cash left. Yay!
It was an interesting Christmas Eve. Usually on Christmas Eve I am at my grandmas house with all of my cousins and aunts and uncles and we go to church at 4 ish. Usually there is at least a foot of snow and it's about minus 30 degrees Celcius. But we get to come home into the warmth of grandma's house for a massive feast of turkey or ham or both with stuffing and mashed potatoes and homemade bread and maybe veggies if we are feeling healthy and LOTS of dessert like lefsa and pie and Christmas pudding. And then we do a Chinese gift exchange. And all of us cousins get to open our gift from Grandma, which is one of the most exciting gifts. And then we have a restless night while we wait for Santa to eat his milk and cookies and for the raindeer to eat their carrots. Then we wake up early and open Santa's presents and our presents from Mom and Dad and siblings. Then we usually go to another family members house for another feast of turkey or ham or both with stuffing and mashed potatoes and homemade bread and maybe veggies if we are feeling healthy and LOTS of dessert like lefsa and pie and Christmas pudding.
Fijian Christmas Eve was not exactly the same. For starters it was really hot and really sunny and there was no snow and no need for a fire in the fireplace. But we did get to have lots of merriment with friends and family. I skipped lunch because I didn't have money to buy lunch in town, so I was really hungry by 5:30 (which is when we usually have supper). But the staff kept postponing eating. I couldn't really figure out why because the food was already cooked and on the table ready to go. I think it was like 8:00 and I was feeling quite faint. Hungry Steph isn't the most pleasant person. Usually I can control it if I know that there is no food, but there was food right in plain view and I could smell it. My mouth was salivating and I was at the point of hunger where you start to feel nauseous. I was in the middle of whining to the staff and asking why we can't just eat already when two taxis show up in front of the house. These were no ordinary taxis... they were filled with white people. Weird. Then Fiji 2 got out of them. What? My brain wasn't functioning at full capacity due to lack of nutrition. Hannah started screaming at the top of her lungs and jumping and running towards the cars. Everyone else started running by me too. I was standing at the top of the stairs staring down at the people running to the street. I was really confused. Finally Auntie ran by practically in tears of joy. Then it clicked. Fiji 2 was at the house! And Auntie was finally reunited with her long lost son Dan who has been so close, and yet so far, for the last month with his team in Rakiraki. So I cautiously walked down the stairs to the street, trying not to faint. And I got to hug my Nomes and my Kat. Cottage 5 reunited. I missed them so much! What a wonderful Christmas surprise! Then we finally ate. Praise Jesus.
We spent the night chatting and catching up and maybe gossiping a bit... shhh, don't tell. And in the morning we had breakfast and then opened our secret Santa gifts. I got a beautiful necklace from Santa, and he even wrote me a poem:
Merry Christmas to you,
On this day, this is what I am going to do:
I am going to write you this poem, from the bottom of my heart,
Hopefully I can get through without a fart.
Seeing you work with the kids, it's so great!
If you come to Kitchener, I'll take you on a date.
I hope you have a great day!
My poetry skills are pretty lame, what can I say?
You are an awesome girl,
and to Jesus, you are his precious pearl.
Love you sister in Christ!
Merry Fijian Christmas!
Awe! How cute is that? It made my day!
And the best Christmas surprise of all??? The electricity came on! YESSSSS! Living without electricity was exciting for the first night because we got to do everything by candle light, including taking bucket showers and navigating through Beth's stuff in our bedroom. And the best part of having electricity??? We got to plug in the washing machine that we blessed the family with. Auntie was so excited. She wanted to do everyone's laundry. I watched her, standing out by her new washing machine and beaming for at least an hour. I love her.
We at Lovo for lunch. It was similar to Christmas dinner in that I am allergic to most of the food. But everyone else enjoyed it, just like normal! Yesssssss. Then we went to the beach! It was fun. The water was pretty warm, but really disgustingly black. I probably swallowed a lot of poison and had poison pour into my body through all of the holes (ears, nose, eyes, mouth, etc.). Why were bodies designed with holes? Bad idea. If we didn't have holes we wouldn't have to eat or poop. Think about the possibilities...
We stayed at the beach until sunset and then when we got home I took a bucket shower with real light, not candle light. Amazing. And then... packing. Ugh. Gross. I hate packing. I gave away quite a few articles of clothing and other such things. I made a trade with Tom: my pretty newish hat for his old dirty one. Awesome deal. What a good souvenir! I love it. And I gave Jackie my pee wallet (the one that I accidentally dropped in the toilet with pee during Circuit Riders). She loved it. She even got some New Zealand change for when she does her DTS during the next school!
We had a meeting and we all pitched in for Dan's ticket back to New Zealand. He got about 1300 dollars in total! Now he can come back to NZ to finish the second half of his outreach, and he will be there at Graduation in February. Amazing. God provides. So cool.
Then Pastor prayed us out. To leave Fiji in the past and prepare for NZ. It was SO SAD. I literally bawled the whole entire time. I hugged Jackie and I bawled. I hugged Flo and I bawled. I hugged Falissa and bawled. Then I cut myself off from hugging people because I was crying too much. I saved the rest of my tears for morning.
And then morning came... I woke up with that feeling that one always gets on the day after Christmas - a little bit like waking up from a really good dream and realizing that life has to go on. We got up at 6:15 to finish packing and to have breaky. I enjoyed my last bowl of Aunties delicious porridge with peanut butter and mountains of sugar. I will really miss the raw cane sugar.
I put sugar on everything. So yummy. Pastor and Auntie made fun of me. Pastor always gave me that look, as I was piling spoon-full after spoon-full of sugar onto my food, the look that says "Really? Don't you think that's enough?". But on Christmas Eve morning, as I was piling sugar onto my porridge, he gave me the look... I put the spoon down... and he started spooning lots more sugar on and he said "Merry Christmas". I love him.
Finally, we said our goodbyes to Fiji 2. And we headed to the van. Auntie didn't come to the airport, I suspect because it would be too emotional for her. And Jackie didn't come either. I hugged Auntie. I started to tear up. I hugged Jackie. I really teared up. Then I hugged Auntie again because I love her so much. I didn't want to leave her. I feel like she really is my Auntie, or my second mother. Then I sadly and reluctantly got into the van. Jackie gave me a beautiful card filled with encouragements. It made me not want to leave. Ugh. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry again.
The ride to the airport was wayyyyyy too fast. We got checked in and such. We had a big farewell party there to see us off. Tulia and her mom came! Her mom gave us all shell necklaces. And Ben was there with us, and of course Falissa, Flo, Tom and Pastor. I hugged them all. I held my tears in until I came to Pastor. Then I cried. A lot. Then they started to sing us out. They sang a Fijian farewell song. It was used back in the day to send warriors off. It is a blessing and a goodbye that means farewell forever, give it your everything and that you are not expected to come back. It means 'Don't be afraid, I will be with you.'
Kua ni rere
Au na tiko kei iko
Mo yalo gaga
Mo yalo gaga
Au na tiko kei iko
That's when I really started bawling. Like literally sobbing in the middle of the airport. Who am I? All sentimental and crap. Geeze. We made quite the scene. It was beautiful actually. I will never forget it. I love that song. I never thought that I would get so attached to Fiji and it's people. But I love them so much and I wish that I could stay with them forever.
We conquered the plane ride. I watched the Lord of the Rings to get me back into the mood of NZ, and I filled in some of the team journal. I drew cartoon pictures of all of the people that we spent time with in Fiji. They are pretty accurate I must say. We landed around 2 and went through customs where they so kindly washed my running shoes and machete. They even coated the machete with anit rust stuff. The next time I need something washed, I'll just declare it. And FINALLY, I got a SOY LATTE. Praise Jesus.
And we were picked up by the base director, and she brought us to her home for supper and sleep. I was reunited with my garbage back full of NZ clothes and paraphernalia I traded out some of my Fiji stuff for New Zealand stuff. It took me a while to decide what was critical for me to bring and what is not critical. I think I repacked my backpack 3 times. And I did it in the car port. Then it started to rain. The drive-way is slanted. I was sitting on it. The water started to flow down the driveway directly towards my butt. Why am I Steph? Really? Come on. Give me a break. So my butt got wet. What's new? Ugh. And that's that. But my backpack is beautifully packed to the rim and there is stuff tied to it on all sides. Go Steph! And guess who I have with me now!!!! ... My Barney skateboard!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
I also got to phone the Reynolds clan back in Canada. I haven't talked to any of them in over a month, so that was pretty exciting! I chatted with mom, dad, grandma and sista. It was a good ol' chat and I found out that there is about 3 feet of snow and it was -28 today. Man am I glad that I have been in Fiji in >+30 for all of this time. Win for Steph.
And tomorrow we leave Auckland for Paihia. There is this big 'party' there where about a thousand of the youth of NZ come together for a week over new years and drink prohibited beverages excessively. We will be volunteering there. I think it will involve cleaning up bottles, maybe vomit .. who knows... But also just hanging out and talking with the youth. A lot of them just desperately need someone to listen to them. We will also maybe do a burn night, some karaoke, give out some food and bevies (like water). I am pretty excited for this because I feel like they will be able to relate to me and to my past. If I lived in NZ when I was a teen I would most likely have been at this event. So I am excited to see what God has in store!
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