2016 Spotlight

This special spotlight is a snapshot of sorts of what's been happening in the Fuiava family and missions this year. Even though there's still a few more months left in 2016, we thought this could be a reference if you'd like to catch up with us. It has been especially busy from the moment we returned from our holiday in January to now, September. Enjoy!

Livé teaches in Thailand

I was invited to teach on the last week of a DTS  that was finishing up in Thailand. I also ran the debrief of the outreach teams and did quite a few meetings with staff and students. It was a fresh take for me to teach on Calling and Vision as it was the final week before students and staff moved on to the next season in life. I usually teach in the middle of the lectures before students go on outreach and not after. The school was focused on championing artistic and media minded people how to communicate God's heart and principles. 

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Mateo celebrates his 3rd birthday at the beach!

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Settling in to our home and roles in Kona

2015 had been a year of trying to settle in and feel at home after 4 years of traveling and moving around as a family, but after returning to Kona from Alaska in January for a Christmas holiday with Livé's family, 2016 felt different to us. We felt like we were actually settled in with our home and understood our roles with YWAM Ships Kona more clearly. We are so thankful for the community here and friends from overseas that are continually going out of their way to visit us here in Hawaii.

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Leading a very different DTS in April...

This year we led another Ships DTS in April. At first it looked like Tessa and I were going to lead a DTS of 14 students with one other staff. Then three weeks before the school started, our team went from 3 to 25. Yes, that's right: 25 of us not including the students. That's 7 school leaders and 18 staff. Get the how and why here. Here's a hint: we were planning for the 2017 April DTS.

(Top Left) Group photo of the DTS staff. (Bottom Left) Combined DTS week at our University with speaker Frank Naea. (Bottom Right) Our DTS doing some team building exercises before sending them to the Marshall Islands and Papua New Guinea.

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Tessa leading the base in prayer for different ministry locations around the world. Everyone prays about a word that they can share and writes it down or draws it on a large scroll of paper that gets mailed to each location. Interesting fact: we sometimes facilitate base worship and prayer times as part of our roles on the base leadership team.

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Tessa visits our team in Papua New Guinea

Tessa flew to Australia for a Ship Equipped Ministries (SEM) gathering, which was focused on the medical training and opportunities available with our growing fleet of ships across the world. She then flew to Papua New Guinea to give a pastoral visit to our DTS team working on our medical ship, the Pacific Link. Tessa met with each student and staff to get personal updates from them and encourage them to finish their outreach well. We will be seeing them again, here in Kona on Aug 28th for their final week of DTS.

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Mateo celebrates his first Independence Day in Hawaii.

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(Left) Grandma Dolly arrived in Kona for 10 days to love on Mateo while Momma flew out to Australia. It was a special time for Mateo to get quality time with Dolly. (Right) We've gotten to have a few special friends visit us from, like Stevie, that we worked together with in Newcastle for 5 years.

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Mateo goes to school for the first time! Read how God encouraged Livé as a father ​here.

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Graduation night with our 8 students and 25 staff!

Graduating the April Ships DTS

Our teams returned from Papua New Guinea and the Marshall Islands with many stories of what they witnessed God do through them and around them. Miracles, medical treatments, salvations, discipleship, revelations about God's love, teachings... But this is what really stands out to me: these students had a biblical maturity they lived out resolving issues and conflicts that came up on outreach. I was so encouraged by how much unity and love for one another these guys had. They will always have crazy stories, but to walk away with godly character and deeper reliance on their personal relationship with God is by far, more valuable and precious than a thousand stories of people raised from the dead! Wild thought huh?

(Top left) Just the students of the school. (Top right) The Papua New Guinea team sharing about the culture and some of the stories from outreach. (Bottom left) Me and Tessa setting up the graduation night. (Bottom right) Dessert night with the Ships community.

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Mateo started taking swim lessons! Going to preschool has made a big difference in how he learns. The first day he wouldn't go in pool or sit down and follow instructions. This is the second day and he has grown so much!

That's all for now! Thank you for taking the time to read through this. Stay tuned for a quick update this weekend about what we're going to be doing for the rest of the year!