This time next month ...

... I will be finalising the last of my packing for Vanuatu, ready to head off for a great week.  A lot has happened in the last 20 days that has made me feel quite a bit more prepared.  We have been doing the training that UnitingWorld has up online, and putting in some comments on the training forums.  I find that I am quite willing to jump to some potentially rather disastrous conclusions, so the training has been great for me so far.  This morning I did the child protection training, with questions like this:

Choose A or B as a precursor for this statement ... "be responsible around children"
A) I will always
B) I will never

I got 100% correct.  This is a good sign I think...

I know I'll be adding some of the following things with me when I go ...
- combined sunscreen/insect repellant.  My doctor recommended this stuff because it means you don't have to apply sunscreen as well as repellant separately.  I know though, that the time when I get bitten most by mosquitoes is in the evening, so I suspect I'll end up taking different insect repellant as well.  Insect bites definitely = bad.
- A laptop, so I can type blog type things.
- a mini hairbrush.  It is from the stuff we sold at the garage sale, and it has a picture of Winnie the Pooh on it.  I mention it not only because it's very cute, but because I forgot to take a brush last time I went to Vanuatu, and it drove me nuts the whole week.
- My sense of humour - as much as I like to think I can get all "chilled" on "Vanuatu Time", my nature is pretty much on time.  If I am late, it is because I basically intended to be late, and even then, I'm normally only like ... 5 minutes late - so I can't even get the "fashionable" bit right.  So will have to work on patience and fun stuff like that.

We are having a catch up this Sunday so we can run through some of the finer points of our trip.  I keep forgetting who I have spoken to about what, so it will be great to get the whole team in one room!

We should hopefully be posting a bit more over the next month or so ... can't wait to see how things go when we are getting the last set of details ready.

Less than 50 days to go now...

What a massive couple of months.  It is about a month and a half until we fly out now - and still quite a lot to do.  I still need to get to my doctor and get her to fill in a form which says I'm ok to go and do these things in a different country.  We have just received the training information from UnitingWorld - so we need to get into that.  And all of the team seems to be pretty busy doing general day-to-day things.

On the plus side, the person who will meet the shipping container which we put all the computers arrives in Vanuatu this week.  It then needs to be moved from one island to another.  We are really praying that everything arrives safely!  So far so good on this one.

We have also been busy selling some things to fundraise further.  We had great fun at the Wesley Garage Sale a couple of weekends ago.  Raised quite a bit too.  We don't have a purpose for some of those funds yet.  We have had quite a few situations in the last few years where we've wanted to give someone extra stuff to take with them to Vanuatu, and we hadn't taken the excess baggage $$($) into account.  I will be quite happy if we don't spend all of that money straight away.

Anyway - we now have 12 people going on the trip.  Three more intrepid explorers have joined us.  I find myself really looking forward to the adventure.

Preparations in Full Swing

My mobile app says there are 99 days until the trip today, so to commemorate that I thought I would run you through what we're going to be doing in the lead up to the trip.

Today Ian Parkin will be taking a number of boxes to a place from where they will be shipped to Espiritu Santo, the largest island in Vanuatu, and from there, taken to Port Vila. We are piggy backing on another shipment to get our stuff over there. What are we sending? (you may ask) Well ...

• Computer Equipment including desktop machines, monitors, mice & keyboards. We'll be setting up a room at the Paama Seaside school which will be used to teach the children during the day, and the adults in the evening. We are hoping it will be a really useful room.



• Some equipment that will be used to paint the school inside and out. This is an activity we'll be doing in conjunction with the youth of Paama Seaside.



• Some gifts for the school children.

So, if you are inclined to pray, please pray that all off this stuff gets there before we do. That will be quite important. :-)

So, what else are we doing between now and then...

We are going to be doing some training in term 2 which will help us to understand differences between different cultures, and tips for travelling, and other things like that. I am also hoping to understand more about the strengths of each team member so we can know how to back each other up. The training is provided by UnitingWorld, and most of it is computer based training (online). I have done my fair share of CBT in my time, and most of it is about as exciting as eating cardboard. Hopefully this training is of the better variety. But in any case if it does suck we can always laugh about it with the team.

There is other paperwork that we need to get through too - like getting all of our passports ready, completing medical checks. Our Travel Insurance is being provided through UnitingWorld, so we need to jump through just a couple of hoops to make that happen.

Speaking of UnitingWorld... We are doing this trip as an "InSolidarity Trip" through them, sort of pioneers for such a type of trip. I prefer not to think of it as a mission trip, although sometimes that is the easiest word to say to explain it. In the Western culture we often fall into thinking that it's all about the 'stuff' we can provide - and don't get me wrong - we have stuff, and we should be sharing it, but it's a constant battle, in my head at least, to not make it all about the 'stuff'. The way I think of it is this:

Basically our primary purpose in heading over there is to build relationships, so all the 'stuff' is actually only secondary to or major goal. If we stuff up the secondary stuff though, I think we stuff up our primary purpose too. So we had better get it right.

On Monday the 2nd of April we are holding a fundraiser at Castle Hill McDonalds. From 6pm-8pm we will get a percentage of the money from all of the food sold at the counter (includes McCafe, but not the drive through). The money raised will go towards more of the activities we'll be doing over there - so things like visiting a museum, or going on a road trip to a school at the other end of the island. It should be a good night. Hope to see you there!

107 days to go...

Hi. My name is Katherine and I am one of the team members for this upcoming trip. I've been to visit Vanuatu before, in July 2009, when myself and three others from Wesley Castle Hill headed over to investigate the possibility of forming a relationship with a church in Vanuatu. Our adventures are catalogued in here.

Hmm... I might just explain where the title of the blog comes from. When we were over in Port Vila we were introduced to the concept of "Vanuatu Time", which, depending on how you look at it, is a lovely laid back attitude, or a huge excuse for being late all the time. Basically, if you say you will be there at 2pm, you might mean 2:30, or 3. I found this concept a little difficult to grasp at first, but by the end of the week, when someone was actually on time (!), I vividly remember rushing through the corridors of our hotel rushing to get my stuff together. So I am looking forward to heading back to Vanuatu time.

I have a app on my phone which I have set up with a countdown to June 30th. Today it says 107. Heaps to do between now and then, I look forward to bringing you on the journey.

Welcome!

Hi everybody and welcome to the Wesley Uniting Church blog about our connections with the Paama Seaside Church in Vanuatu. Currently a team of 9 are heading over to Vanuatu at the end of June on a mission trip. This team includes Katherine Allen, Nerida Weir, Dave Sanders, Ben Speechly, Adam Smith, Jono Case, Kaye Weir, Harvey Weir and myself. We are all eagerly looking forward to the trip and can feel the anticipation building as our flights and accommodation have been booked within the last week.

Anyway, Thanks for taking the time to check out our blog, it will get updated weekly if not more regularly and will be updated (hopefully) almost daily when we are away in Vanuatu.

Ali Case and the Vanuatu Team, 2012