Bula!

Students serve in Fiji

Megan Townend
Co-leader, One Mission
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Ten Avondale students who volunteered during their holidays to build toilets at a village in Fiji have returned as honorary locals.

The Tubarua Settlement in the Nadroga-Navosa Province on Viti Levu had only two toilets for a population of 100, a population that swells during natural disasters. Thanks in part to the work of the One Mission team, Tubarua now has six toilets and four showers.

The toilet block is for an evacuation centre that can now safely meet the sanitation needs of more than 1000 people, which is important in the typhoid prone area. “We started with a patch of dirt, so seeing a building go up is just something else,” says team member Nathan Long.

The team spent four days in the village before its tearful farewell. “We were blown away by Tubarua’s acceptance of us and the love in the community,” says leader Rebekah Eyre.

The hospitality of the locals included, on the team’s last day in Tubarua, a traditional Kava ceremony, “a beautiful learning and cultural experience,” says Rebekah. “The thankfulness of the villagers was a highlight.”

Fundraising was not, with Rebekah describing it as her most challenging task. “We made it just in time—and $100 over our target,” she says. She smiles as she explains the times when she felt most helpless. “God just pulled together all the bits we couldn’t fix.”