Mission Team Inspires Island Dreams
Above: Catch Network training participants in Fiji.
Penny Harding hears about the Catch Network training in Fiji, encouraging leaders to dream up different ways to follow Jesus in their communities.
A farmer in Korovau, a remote village in the north of Fiji’s main island Viti Levu, is imagining what it would be like to be part of a faith community with his friends and neighbours.
A group of believers in Levuka, a small town on one of Fiji’s smaller islands, is also dreaming big dreams, which started with a village clean-up in Natokalau.
In September, The Salvation Army teamed up with Catch Network Aotearoa to travel to Fiji to imagine creative new ways of following Jesus in different contexts.
Leaders and ministry workers came together for training at the School for Officer Training in Suva for learning, reflection, worship and fellowship. The programme focused on strengthening leadership, understanding mission and ministry, developing spiritual practices and encouraging participants to continue growing together in their service to God.
The team was led by Salvation Army Pioneering Coordinator for Mission Captain Steve Molen and Manurewa Corps Plant Officer Captain Faye Molen, and facilitated by Catch Network’s Reverend Scottie Reeve and Reverend Alison Robinson.
Steve says the group explored different types of faith communities that people can experiment with. The teachings focused on Jesus being Lord; the spiritual hunger of people searching for more; and being a sent people.
‘We also looked at discovering who are our evangelists, apostles, teachers, shepherds and prophets and how to use them in ministry.’
‘They have got this passion to do new things and are passionate about Jesus,’ he says.
Steve says he was encouraged by the excitement he saw among the participants. ‘They have got this passion to do new things and are passionate about Jesus,’ he says. ‘People were getting excited and starting to dream about what they could do.’
A good catch
Catch Network founder Scottie Reeve says he welcomed the chance to take their training to Fiji. ‘We have been partnering with The Salvation Army for quite a while, training church planters.’ He says establishing faith communities doesn’t necessarily require a big budget or staff. ‘We can make disciples wherever we are.
When we got the invite for Fiji, we thought that was a really good learning opportunity for us.’ Planning for the training in Fiji involved adapting the Catch approach for the local context, looking for Fijian examples and working on different metaphors to describe things.
Scottie used fishing as a metaphor to illustrate different faith communities—how different types of fishing required different skills. ‘The key thing being that they know more about fishing than we do.’
He says they found the Fijian participants to be warm and passionate people. ‘We had someone there from the Highlands of Fiji. It took them longer to get there than it did for me to get there from New Zealand.’ It would have involved eight to 10 hours on a bus and was a measure of their commitment.
‘I would say that the desperation and hunger for Jesus at the base level is deeper than what we see in Aotearoa New Zealand.’
Not standing still
Aside from the training, Steve Molen also visited Levuka and Korovau. ‘I went there to support and encourage new faith communities that are emerging.’
Levuka is an historic town on the island of Ovalau, part of the Lomaiviti archipelago of seven main islands.
Tour companies urge visitors to Levuka to take a trip back to a Fiji ‘frozen in time’ behind its mountains, still untouched by mass tourism and commerce. Levuka was Fiji’s first capital from 1874 until 1883 when it was replaced by the more accessible Suva.
But believers in Levuka are not content to stand still; they are ambitious to spread the good news of the gospel. Travelling hours by ferry and truck, Levuka representative Savenaca Tamani joined the group of 19 officers, soldiers and other lay people in Suva for the Catch Network training.
The Levuka locals are focused on what their community needs and this year have already constructed a new bus shelter and public toilets in the village.
Salvation Army Divisional Secretary for Mission Major Limaina Turaga says a group from the Lomaivuna Corps in Suva went to Levuka in June for three days. ‘They did visitation and community work. In the day, they did the clean-up in the whole village and at night then it was the open-air crusade, and it was filled with a lot of people. Out of that, two men came to attend the fellowship.’
In July, the bus shelter was built.
‘We are The Salvation Army, and we need to reach out and make Jesus known through practical ways. And that is what we do best, by rolling up our sleeves,’ Limaina says.
Just one dreaming
Korovau is a remote village in the rural north of Viti Levu. Unlike Levuka, there is not a group of worshippers, but so far just one farmer, Waisale Cikavira and his family, dreaming.
Waisale is working with the district headquarters to see what the faith community could look like, and Laimaina says this is what motivated him to attend the Suva training. Now he plans to invite a group to meet in his home.
The Salvation Army in Fiji covers 17 corps and corps plants, alongside three Family Care Centres, a court and corrections ministry, youth rehabilitation programmes, Kauwai Youth Restoration Service, corridor ministries, soup kitchen ministries, and work with street workers.
