While we have put effort to conducting our team meetings via zoom there is nothing like everyone in the same space. Team building takes a different dimension when we get to share the same space space rather than the same bandwidth.

The OF core leaders came together at the OF Ministry Centre at Navua on Sunday afternoon the 12th of March. Its been a while since we have been together like this and so while the next 3 days were full, Sunday evening was dedicated to a meal around the long table and catching up.

Each day had a rhythm of beginning in a time of early and extended prayer and closing with the same. Gabi Buli, our northern team leader creatively led this for us.

Our founder, Peter Schultz, led with the first devotion looking deeply into the story of Cain and Abel from Genesis 4 and its application for us as the Operation Foundation team.

Hector Hatch (Deputy Principal - International School Suva ) then led us through a beautiful exposition of God’s heart for the vulnerable and children. One of our core requirements is to keep in compliance with our child protection and vulnerable persons policies and so following Hector we had Jill Schultz take us through the structured learning requirements to uphold our compliance.

Monday afternoon sessions kicked of with Major General (Retd) Ioane Naivalurua, the previous Corrections Commissioner (2006-2010) facilitating an open dialogue with the team. Mr Naivalurua had introduced Yellow Ribbon and so the team got to hear first hand the heart and motivation behind what is now Fiji’s leading movement of giving inmates a second chance. This was an inspiring session.

Jill Schultz then finished our day out with a practical counselling skills application on ‘reflective listening’. Amongst a lot of laughter as we tried this new skill out on each other there was a lot of learning.

Tuesday we were blessed to have Pastor Pio Tukana Nakesu (Namadi Heights Baptist Church & Associate Director for Langham South Pacific) stir our hearts with a tremendous our devotion before Semi Lutu, our western team leader, led us through a great exercise on what’s so important about OF’s six core values.

Dr Richard Beyer came spoke to the team about his 35 years of experience in agricultural and food technology community development across the Pacific. Richard has had long term success in developing small scale profitable and yet simple projects and this grabbed the team’s attention.

Peter Schultz then led an participatory session where we began filling the while board with OF’s past, present, and future. This became the reference point for everything that followed.

Tuesday afternoon the team from Hopes of Hope came and presented a session on self-awareness, vulnerability and empathy. Homes of Hope works exclusively with victims while we work with offenders and the sharing and following discussions between their experiences and ours was valuable learning.

Wednesday began with Pastor Mike McMillen sharing a devotion from Romans 12 before we headed into our long morning of strategic planning. Our plans, obstacles, capacity building, program development and case loads all became a place of discussion, prayer and planning.

By Wednesday afternoon our hearts, heads and appetites were full. There is nothing like being all together!