Susana Paopao Matamata





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A heartfelt gratitude report.

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 I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Mannings Hill United Church, Oberlin United Church and Salisbury United church for their warm and inclusive welcome during my short visit to their congregations. Your openness and hospitality left a profound impact on me, and I will cherish the sense of community and acceptance I experienced. Your warmth, generosity, and the valuable insights shared will remain with me for a lifetime and as I am about to end my journey as a Training in Mission participant, I thank the Lord that we've crossed path.  To : MANNINGS HILL UNITED CHURCH. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude on behalf of the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa's General Secretary, our Elders, Ministers and all our different parishes, for allowing me to worship with you on the 5th of November 2023. Thank you for your example of a small congregation that has achieved remarkable feats in the service of the Lord. Your dedication, love and work have shown that the size of a con...
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Heading to Suva

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  I was waiting for that day. Although I know I will miss my family very much, I am very excited to meet my new friends over there in Fiji.  I had a good journey through out the flight especially in Fiji Airways got a sleeper coach.  Once we arrived in Nadi had wonderful welcome with the song with Bula (welcome) after that in Suva we were welcomed by a shell ornament. It’s a wonderful first experience for me.
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Sundays

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We all come from churches, so we all have expectations and understandings of church from our own contexts. On our first Sunday, we head to Centenary Methodist Church. It is a large church and we are a bit early. This gives us a chance to settle and observe.  TIMs are encouraged to become disciplined at ethnographic participant observations. This means, we always ask the questions afterwards: - what did you see? - what did you hear? - how did you feel? - what did you observe? etc...   At Centenary, one of the key features is the choir, who blessed us with a rendition of Lift up ye heads from Handel's Messiah. We joined in the hymns and were welcomed. Amelia brought a greeting and Fijian blessing. Most of the beautiful singing was a capella (unaccompanied) but full of rich harmonies. The preaching was by the Past-President, who very graciously gave us a summary of his sermon in English. He was reminding us that we are in the Pentecost season and encouraging us to live in the Hol...
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