Every Monday morning, the parents of a small island com­munity in Fiji do some­thing that would be unthink­able in most of the world. 

They send their chil­dren away. 

Not far, in the way a map would measure dis­tance. A neigh­bour­ing island, a short boat ride. But far enough that the chil­dren will not be home until Friday. Far enough that their parents will spend the week without them, trust­ing that where they have sent them is safe, and good, and worth it. 

The school is worth it. There is no school on their island. The nearest one sits on a neigh­bour­ing island, run by the sur­round­ing Chris­tian com­munity, and the fam­il­ies from this outer island have decided that an edu­ca­tion rooted in faith is what they want for their chil­dren. So every week, the same sending. The same quiet act of hope. 

But hope needs some­where to sleep. 

Because the chil­dren travel for the week, the outer island village is respons­ible for provid­ing the dorm­it­ory where they stay while they are at school. The village takes that respons­ib­il­ity ser­i­ously. It is their con­tri­bu­tion to their children’s edu­ca­tion. Their stake in the thing they have chosen. For years, they managed it as best they could. 

The problem was that the dorm was falling apart. 

Roy Hogan, a mission partner with NZCMS serving along­side MMM Fiji, does not use dra­matic lan­guage about it. He is a builder. He looks at struc­tures and sees what is true. What was true here was that the roof leaked. The floors flooded. The walls were giving way. The build­ing that was sup­posed to shelter chil­dren while they were away from their fam­il­ies was not doing what a build­ing is sup­posed to do. 

And the parents kept sending their chil­dren anyway, because they had no other option. 

Roy’s team came in and rebuilt it. Three weeks on the outer island, working along­side local build­ers, tearing down what could not be saved and putting up some­thing that could. The con­di­tions were not simple. Water from the bore came out salty. The shower was a bucket over the head. The toilet was a bucket in a dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tion. Roy, after three and a half years in Fiji, describes it as “enlight­en­ing” to be reminded again of what every­day life actu­ally looks like for the people he serves. 

When the work was done, the chil­dren came to see it. 

One of the stu­dents looked at the new dorm­it­ory and said some­thing Roy has not for­got­ten. He said: “We’re going to feel like we’re living in a hotel.” 

And then, a little later, a dif­fer­ent child said some­thing even simpler. 

“Vinaka na loloma.” In Fijian, the phrase runs deeper than a simple trans­la­tion allows. It speaks of a love that is also kind­ness, some­thing closer to mercy for the deed. Thank you for the love. 

Not thank you for the build­ing. Not thank you for the new roof or the dry floor or the walls that would keep the weather out. Thank you for the love. As if the child under­stood, in the way chil­dren some­times under­stand things more clearly than adults, that the build­ing was never really the point. The build­ing was just what love looked like in this par­tic­u­lar place, at this par­tic­u­lar time. 

There is a verse in 1 John that says we should love not with words or speech but with actions and in truth. It is one of those verses that sounds straight­for­ward until you try to live it, until you ask what it actu­ally requires of you, until you find your­self three weeks on an outer island with salty bore water and a bucket and a dorm to rebuild for chil­dren you have never met. 

Roy does not talk about his work in grand terms. He talks about joining the dots. Fixing the leaky roof so the pastor can focus on Sunday. Taking the burden off the com­munity so the com­munity can focus on what matters. The work is prac­tical and phys­ical and some­times grimy and it does not pho­to­graph espe­cially well. But the child who said vinaka na loloma seemed to under­stand some­thing about what it meant. 

The parents under­stood too. Roy talks about the relief on their faces when they saw what had been done. Years of sending their chil­dren to sleep in a build­ing that was barely stand­ing. Years of hoping the roof would hold one more week. And then, finally, it did not have to hold anymore. Someone had come and fixed it. 

The outer island com­munity could not have funded that them­selves. The labour was the gift. The skill was the gift. The three weeks of being present and working along­side them was the gift. And it all started because a family from New Zealand decided to go. 

Roy and Rachael Hogan coordin­ate build­ing pro­jects for churches and com­munit­ies across Fiji, working with MMM Fiji and sup­por­ted by NZCMS. There is always more work than there are hands to do it. Every skilled trades­per­son who makes the trip mul­ti­plies the number of locals who can gather, work, and learn along­side them. 

The chil­dren are sleep­ing in a dry build­ing now. 

Someone came and loved them into it. 

To support Roy and Rachael and be part of what God is doing in Fiji, go here.