David and Chris DeLano went to Fiji for three months, working with Pastor Kory,  they are now back at the Ranch. 

June 22, 2008
3Jo 1:2 “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”

This is the verse God laid on my heart to share in Singapore, and the amazing thing is that, at the same time, this is the same verse God laid on Chris’ heart to share with the ladies she was doing a health class for in Fiji.

I am now back in Fiji from my Singapore trip. It is great to be reunited with my family.
The trip was quite an adventure and I feel very productive as well.

The messages Pastor Kory preached were very challenging and very appropriate for where everyone was.

Both Pastor Kory and I met many great people and had many opportunities to share things God has taught us in regards to family and life. As it is most of the time, we learned and were blessed just as much, if not more, as anyone else we met.

We were taken all over the city and were spoiled beyond belief. We went to an Island where there was an incredible aquarium, insect museum, sky tram, wax museum and many other interesting things. We had an opportunity to play paintball with the youth.
That was all very fun except the youth play by their own rules. They shoot you even after you’re out, as well as when you’re on their team. We also taught them a board game called Settlers of Catan. They all caught on quickly and were a force to reckon with.

On this trip we also met missionaries to Cambodia, India and China. We learned a lot about their challenging ministries.

Singapore is an awesome country. I can really appreciate the vision and effort that was put into this country years back and can definitely see the fruit of it.
Most of the roads and landscape have been planned 30 years back so everywhere you go you see fully mature trees perfectly aligned and spaced by the roads. Fiji has the rugged tropical beauty and Singapore has the manicured tropical beauty. The whole country of Singapore is like a tropical version of the East Side of Western Washington, U.S.A.
This is where I used to live and where Microsoft is based.

The food was so wonderful. One can have any ethnic dish they could desire. The food is all fresh and inexpensive. They have so much sea food there as well. I was taken to an incredibly nice Japanese buffet restaurant as well as a place that served countless courses before the main course of chilly Crab. This crabs pinchers seemed as big as my hand.

I am always amazed how in such a short time one can connect to anyone in the world when you have the same love for God and others. The people we met in Singapore definitely know how to show love and care for others. The way they all worked together to love & serve was incredible.

I am looking forward to corresponding and sharing the family recourses we have enjoyed with them. Lord willing our paths will cross again in America, Fiji, Singapore or in Heaven.
June 7, 2008
Well I just got back to Singapore after my journey into Malaysia.

Pastor Kory and I went up there to attend a family camp Shalom Baptist church was having. It was a six hour “exciting” drive halfway into Malaysia. Almost half have way to Thailand.
We didn’t have too many near death experiences but the snaky, curvy road up into the mountains made us grateful people when we arrived at our destination. Being in the backseat of a car in a land with crazy drivers all around and bad roads also makes you put your trust even more in God rather than man.

Though it's a Muslim country it a moderate one. If a Muslim did happen to convert to Christianity he or she would only land in jail and have to undergo some major reeducation, rather than death or something.

The people were mostly friendly in Malaysia.
Since English is their second language in Malaysia, some seemed to be laughing at me when I tried talking to of them in English.

I did once in a while feel some unfriendly stares once in a while but I just chalked it
up to their possible ant-redhead sentiment and not anti-American.

The people from the church were great. They were all very friendly and always were going out of their way in their care and hospitality to us. Pastor Kory preached some very powerful Biblical challenges to everyone.
He really reached out to the youth and a lot seemed to have made commitments to reestablish a right relationship with God and to their parents. The youth here are going to be an awesome force for good here in this country. I had many opportunities to share and also present some resources that better equips parents and children in Biblical character and development.

The food was great but I’m not too into Asian stir fry and noodles for breakfast. Fruit, eggs and cereal is all I need. I didn’t do too many jungle explorations since there was a lot of blood sucking leaches in there. An Indian family went in there and came back all bloody and covered with leaches.
Call me wimpy and let me hang out in my sage brush hills with my rattlesnakes.

We bought the game Settlers of Catan and taught the men how to play. It didn’t take them long to figure out the game and give us some major strategical challenges.

The week together with everyone was full of laughter and meaningful conversations.

We will stay in Singapore until Monday afternoon and then go to Australia for a day before heading back to Fiji.

All in all, this time has been a real adventurous and fulfilling time with everyone but we do both really miss our families back in Fiji.

Miss you all as well.

Love,…………did I just say that? 

David
5/27/2008

Greetings my fellow Americans!

Life here is going well and swell. After much exploring & foraging, I am now learning the ways of food procurement on this vast and beautiful Island. I never in my wildest imagination ever thought I would actually turn to my lovely wife and say, “Oh how I miss Wal-Mart!”

The basics here are really expensive even with the exchange rate. The products around here are straight from China, and it’s like China sends all their seconds that were rejected for the America markets.

They have Dalo Root and Cassava Root here that is a lot like our potatoes. These are, besides white rice, the main food source for a lot of Fijians. I had some Palusami the other day, and it was pretty good. They just take some corned beef & coconut, wrap Dalo leaves around it. Then, they wrap coconut leaves around that, put it on hot rocks, and cover it until cooked. This is called lovo cooking.

I do have to say that they have a McDonalds in the Capital City of Suva. They have the best hamburgers you ever can imagine. Real beef! No one dollar specials though.

With the low wages and high cost of food and everything else, I don’t know how the people here do it. Most hardly do.

Another extreme hardship here is the lack of any real espressos. I’m not a dependant coffee drinker, but I do appreciate a nice breve’ when I think I need to reward myself.  In the town of Nausori, Fiji that we’re living in, there is no real coffee. If you want a coffee it has to be instant; so no coffee for me. It’s funny, I always find myself, when walking or driving around Nausori, looking for that allusive little Starbucks like coffee shop with wireless access.

For my B-Day, Pastor Kory and his wife, Wendy, took us to the capital city of Suva for dinner on a boat. After that we actually went to a real coffee shop, and Chris and I had our first espresso. What a treat.

I must say that since landing on these shores my already high sense of being pigmently challenged has increase 100 fold. For someone who enjoys the being in the background it’s a pickle.

It’s been interesting getting to know the people here. I have had opportunities to talk, interact, and share with Muslims, Hindus, street youth, and Fijian villagers.

To hear their stories is interesting and at times heartbreaking.

We do feel blessed though to be in this position, as a family, to serve those here in Fiji however we can. The truth as with most the case is that the people here are blessing us more than we will ever bless them.

God bless,
David and Family

May 9, 2008

Dear friends and family,

Thinking of you and keeping you in our hearts. Here is our latest update.

We have a developed a little pattern so far. The children and I still do home-school in the mornings, though we have discussed sending them to their Christian school for PE or more. This way they could mix in more. Rugby is next on their PE agenda. How fun, can I play?!! Right now, after our home-school each day, David has taken Marcus down to the church/school to work with Pastor Kory while the girls and I have been cleaning and do laundering for his wife, Wendy. Marcus has been befriending quite a few Fijian and Indian school boys and enjoying his time with them. The rest of our children met quite a few children on Sunday. They all enjoyed playing tag and other games on the green grass in the back of the church.

We have already had exposure to common problems here. The Mears came down with lice yesterday, but seem to think they caught it fast enough. The routine is to check your children heads daily and take care of any bugs and eggs immediately. So far they have avoided any major problems by staying on top of this. Also, there was a man with pertussis or some bad coughing virus at church. I have to keep giving these things over to the Lord.

The other day we were driving down the road and people were point at us. I told David, “Wow I wonder why they are pointing at us. Maybe they like our van or something?” Then all of a sudden we look ahead and saw a car coming right at us. It was then we realized why people were pointing at us. We were driving on the wrong side of the road! We had forgotten to drive on the left side of the road.  They also are pretty crazy drivers around here. They don’t yield to each other or pedestrians. The only way to get anywhere is to force yourself through, which is pretty scary.

Yesterday, I went out for my second walk. I met several people along the way. (They all walk over to me because of Maximus ) I met Sorojunee, an old Indian lady, a few other young ladyies, and a boy on the way. The boy told me that he didn’t/couldn’t attend school (That made me want to invite him over to have school with us  Hmm. we will see. ) The young ladies with another 100 people live in a flat with only a roof around much of it. I am looking forward to figuring out what that is all about. Everyone I meet is curious and wants to know why we are here from America. I tell them we are helping some friends with a school and in setting up homes for orphans.

The religious population here is 50% hindu, 40% Christian, and 10% other. Though the term Christian is often just a label, where the trust more in their label and good works rather than a real relationship with God. I talked with a young converted Catholic girl the other day which testified this to be true through her own story of conversion. Because of this, you do have to be somewhat careful in how you approach them, so that it won’t be offensive or demeaning to them. Therefore, we have decided to pursue mostly relationship evangelism around our area, unless God prompts otherwise. Yet, it does sounds like there will be some church team work and house calls that will be done later, and we would love to participate in that too.

Today, we went to help move the nursery to the new church building across the street (The new church is actually an old court room, but much nicer because it is bigger and has walls. :)) It is quite a little walk to the old nursery and a bit dangerous, especially at night services. Last night, the pastor's wife was taking a child to the bathroom and saw someone breaking into a car. She quickly ran to the main service across the street to get someone, but then realized that there was only a young lady watching two little children left in the nursery. Everything worked out ok, but this incident has moved this need to priority one. So we are all pitching in today to get the old nursery into the new building by next Sunday. It involves cleaning out a dungy and grimy room that was formerly used for kidney dialysis supplies. One bucket of cleaning water lasts about 3 minutes of cleaning before it is black.

The children still miss their ranch, animals, grandparents, and places to run. Though, the Mears do have a trampoline and a swimming pool, and they can enjoy those when they feel the need to get energy out. The other night we went over for a BBQ, and they all got lots of jumping time in. We were also able to visit more with the Mears little 9 month old adopted Indian girl, Hadassah. Hadassah adds to the fun of their already big family. With Hadassah they now have 5 girls (one newborn) and 1 boy. Anyway, Hadassah is adorable. She keeps crawling over to me thinking I am Wendy’s mom. I enjoy having a new little friend. I have taken pictures and will upload them to www.facebook.com for anyone who wants to see.

Here is one last story for today. At the ranch the children spent much time chasing rabbit and chickens, but now they have traded their rabbit and chicken chasing for gecko chasing. They had quite a surprise when they caught several Gecko’s by their tail, and found out that they had only the tail in their hand. (If you catch Gecko’s by the tail it breaks off). They also discovered some frogs that they enjoyed catching, until we found out that these particular frogs can spit and cause you to go blind!!! The children have all been journaling some of these stories for themselves, and if I get time I will either have them type their stories out on the computer for you or transfer them myself.

We are now set up on skype. If you have this access we could talk face to face 

God Bless you richly to the praise of His glory,
Chris for the DeLano’s

May 6,2008

Greetings from the end of the earth!

Well I have to say we all made it safe and somewhat sound.

We left Peniel Ranch Wednesday the 30th of April, drove through a snow storm to get to Seattle. We left Sea-tac airport 5:00 p.m. Thursday the 1st of May. We had 50 lbs. totes galore, full of books and Bibles for the school children and street youth.
We breezed through Sea-tac security and had plenty of time.

I have to say our family of seven was quite a spectacle going through the airport and onto the plane.

Our children were very excited to be going on a plane and off to Fiji.

Our travels were wonderful. Thank you for all your prayers. Maximus, our now world traveler 4 month old, was a dream. We would hear other babies screaming all around us, but he was either cooing or sleeping the whole way. When we arrived in Fiji and stood up people all around our seats, gasped and said, “My what a wonderful baby. I didn’t even know there was a baby with you until now.” Now, those are words every parent loves to hear J In addition, traveling with a baby helped us immensely. We were always moved from the back of the line to the front, even at customs.

We finally arrived in Fiji. As soon as we stepped off the airplane you felt like you were swimming in the air. Malachi asked me if there was oxygen in this air. LOL

As soon as the Fijians saw all our bags at customs they looked worried. You could tell they did not want to dig through all are bags. Even when I told them I had some nuts (which you were supposed to declare) they said, “awe, that is ok.” They did tell us to find our beef jerky for them though. It took David a while looking through all 13 totes.

After we got our of the airport we got a rental car, $500 for 3 days (our first experience with the high prices here). Then, we took a beautiful drive through the island to get to where we are at. It is a beautiful lush country, but very poor country for sure. We past many shacks much like our goat barn with naked babies sitting on the stairs.

The people, overall, are curious, friendly people who also love babies, especially little white chunky ones. We can't go out of the house without Maximus getting sniffed (their way of kissing) by every passerby. If they could they would all take him our children home for the day to play.

Things are about 4x as expensive here as they are in the states, even with the exchange rate. 1 pint of peas is $17, $10 for 2 dozen eggs, $10 for ice berg lettuce, rice shortage, flour shortage... etc... Even the fruit is expensive, unless you have your own tree. No wonder the people are so poor. Our missionary friend, Kory, does have an orange tree though, and we are looking forward to helping him pick it. Also, there are no one-stop places to shop. You have to go to like 4 different places just to get everything you need - Veggies at the market, meat at the meat-market, package food at the supermarket, and paper good at there American discount store... cost u less.

As you know me (Chris) I have to tell you that we were so blessed to not have any Jet lag. In fact, even with no significant sleep for two days and being on a different time schedule, we have been out lasting our missionary friends on our excursions to town and elsewhere. This of course, is thanks to God’s grace through all of everyone’s prayers and also….. God provision of extra Body Balance (I brought four cases J) We are going to load up some to our friends J

The next letter I will write about the ministry here they have going and our experiences in that. It is an amazing work of God, though ever so poor the church, the school, orphanage, street children, and more continue to bear fruit. Each one could fill a book.

We do have an address...

P.O. Box 2554 Nausori Fiji Islands 011 679- 347-5392

Isa 42:12 “Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the Islands.”

May God richly bless all of you,

David & Chris

Marisa & Marcus DeLano

Mya & Malachi

& Mighty Maximus



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