Last Daze in Suva

We’ve finally emerged from the darkness but now we stand looking at another unknown horizon.

It is our final day in Suva.

Tomorrow, the team gets on a bus and takes the four-hour trip back to Nadi.

The past week has been an emotional whirlwind I didn’t see coming.

I must say that I am sad to leave Suva. Something unexpected happened while we were here. I made actual friends – friends where we have easy conversations and laugh about the same things. I thought going into outreach that we would meet people and have standard conversations about where we are from, what we are doing, and so on, but not that we would “hit it off” with anyone. Well, we did. And now we have to say goodbye.

And that actually hurts.

What adds to that ache is that we had an inexplicable power outage that effectively smashed all sense of normalcy to smithereens.

The power company shut off the power on Friday and half the team left for greener pastures (i.e. Airbnb), leaving us to walk around with our iPhone flashlights in a giant empty haunted missionary house. Tough to sleep without A/C or white noise from a fan. Oh, and the toxic smoke from the renewed dumpster fire came back to say goodbye. We had a few ugly days of sweating, migrating bedrooms, and making do with whatever food was left in the fridge.

Not exactly finishing strong. Felt like finishing weird.

Also, in the past week, ministry sped up and crescendoed with a concert in a settlement nearby called “Jittu” (maybe you saw my YouTube Shorts). Then we had a marathon day at church where a group of feral charismatic Texans came in and basically took over the service with all manner of prayers, exorcisms, prophetic stuff…yeah, I mean, I left before noon and came back for a potluck “after the service”…and it was 3:00 p.m. They were just wrapping up.

Highs, lows, laughter, confusion, and spiritual intensity — all unfolding in the sweltering darkness of our powerless house.

I can say without a doubt that we will never forget Fiji.

With the intensity of outreach, our 6.5-week home truly did start to feel like home. I don’t know what trick of the mind makes every place where we sleep a few nights feel like home but I’ve noticed it happens all the time. Wherever we are is home after a few days. But Fiji was deeper.

It’s sobering to think that we are half way through our year abroad. Sobering for sure, but none of us feel homesick.

We aren’t thinking about Canada, our home and native land. We won’t be back there for some time. It’s distant, geographically and emotionally. At least most days it’s distance emotionally. At times, there’s a text or a thought or a comment that makes me want to be back in the Great White North but, for the most part, we are focused on the day-to-day here.

But “here” is changing and, even though it’s an emotional exit, an exit it is.

We’re done.

Farewell, Suva. 

Thank you for everything. Stay in touch.

Dawson