It began with a phone call from the Fiji Corrections Rehabilitation Unit, “We start programs next week and we’ll send through the OF Team’s schedules for each prison”. With only a few days to prepare we activated the OF teams to be ready for a Monday start in Suva, Lautoka, Taveuni and Labasa Prisons.

Over the last two weeks the OF team have worked with some 60 new inmates and this will grow to another 60 of the next weeks. We will then be working primarily with these 120 men and women for the next 3 months, taking them through different stages of their rehabilitation. We have also been asked to add and implement several new programs to our existing programs, in response we have been piloting True Identity, Anger Management, and Loving Living Life with these men and women with wonderful outcomes.

Over the last two weeks we have seen a deepening of faith, renewal of faith, and new commitments to faith. The OF team’s training to facilitate with gentleness, authenticity, and vulnerability have seen honesty emerge from previous denials, brokenness emerge from hardened hearts, surrender emerge from rebellion, and new hope emerge from hopelessness. Each day our internal communication system (Slack) is full of stories of what the team have witnessed and are celebrating in the lives of the men and women we are again working with.

We ask for your partnership as we work to restore the image and likeness of Christ in the men and women we have the sacred privilege to work with. Thank you!