GSL Fiji 2025

Sophia Blog 7/18/2025 I cant believe our time here is already over and in the least cliche way possible it truly feels like just last week when we were first greeted by our new family's, flowers adorned around each of our necks. Our time here has been so invaluable and each of us has formed lasting ties with this community and each other. Since this is our last blog, in a way wrapping up our trip, I wanted to catalogue some of our group's best memories, and for those of you waiting for our arrival home this can act as a sneak peak to all our adventures that I’m sure you’ll hear about soon. Brian: getting his haircut to match with our other fellow rugby stars rocking what we call the “Fijian fade” Iveta: learning to make pie with her Nene and little Faith (her baby sister who btw has the cutest chubby cheeks) finally letting her pick her up. Nate, Wilson & Alex: learning the game of rugby and playing at the school with both the kids and adults, trying not to fall on the mudd...

Chloe Blog 7/17/2025 Everyone on this trip has seen me scribbling away in my GSL journal(s, I have two), so I thought I’d finally share some of the things I’ve been writing. I’m tired and don’t feel like having my second blog compared to her older sister, so here are direct excerpts with some notes. I’ve been advised to caution innocent readers that these excerpts, much like these past few weeks, are chaotic and very odd. Blog No. 1 was written for people who aren’t in the group to try to understand our dynamics; this blog is to supplement the memories of people who lived them with me. Jun 17: Abi had a hamster + beta fish (two) and her dad didn’t like the hamster so it lived in the garage Jun 19: [I thought we were going to play a lot more poker on this trip, because it’s something that most of us know and the rest were willing to learn. I brought an entire set of chips but we played once in the airport and haven’t touched them since. I wrote this when I thought I’d have t...

Emre Blog 25 As I am leaving Nanuku, I can’t believe how much the people here have done for me, especially  my homestay mom Luisa (my nene). Every single day, my nene wakes up early to make a huge breakfast just for me. Although the breakfast changes daily, it is somehow always delicious. I was worried coming here that I wouldn’t like the food, but it is some of the best I have ever had. She makes so much food that I almost always can’t eat it all, and I have a reputation for eating a lot. On the weekends she makes lunch and dinner too, and it is just as good. But making food is not even near all that my nene does for me. She also does all my laundry, and I usually change at least once during the day because I am so hot and sweaty here. She neatly folds the clothes, places them in my room, and then organizes it, even though I have told her multiple times that she really doesn’t need to.  My nene has also put up with my failures and never gotten mad at me, which I find impressi...

Ellis Blog 24  Throughout the trip some things have been constant, like the people we’re with and where we stay, while other things have been constantly changing, like what we do for our service and where we go during the day, but few things have managed to be both. Our hair. though always on our heads, has served a different purpose in Nanuku than in Seattle. In Seattle it’s a way to express yourself, but also not something you pay very much attention to. Here, hair has allowed us to connect with each other and show our growth during our month away. One example of that is braids. Coming into the trip we didn’t have a designated ‘hair braider’ (someone who is very good at doing other people’s hair). Though that isn’t at all a big deal, it did lead to some funny messes full of hair ties and tangles. The practice and moments we had together during hair time lead to connections that never would have been expected. Hair braiding isn’t limited to the people from Lakeside though, and m...

Wilson Blog 23   After almost a month of life here in Nanuku everyone has found their place, both in the village and in their household. For me my “chores” often consist of cooking, hanging up laundry, and my favorite- walking the kids to school in the morning. Every school day after eating breakfast with my Nene and brothers, they put on their uniforms, and we set out for school. From my house the walk is only about five minutes of an uphill walk before we reach the school gate, and from there all the kids who board at the school swarm us and ask about our day, always wanting to show off new handshakes or clapping games they have learned. At first the walks truly did feel like a chore, but now I sometimes walk extra slow just so that I can get a few more minutes of conversation with the twins about their lives, and I think that development has embodied my growth as a person here in Nanuku. The first time I walked them to school awkward silence filled the space. I was still u...

Audrey Blog Draft In predominantly Christian Nanuku, most high school students either go to faroff Christian boarding schools or drop out of school altogether. However, for less strictly religious families like my own, there are nearby options for Hindu and Muslim day schools. From my sisters, 16-year-old Miri and 18-year-old Onni, I’ve learned so much about Fijian high school and how it compares to life at Lakeside.  The basic schedule is similar: Students in grades 9 and 10 all take the same seven classes. In grade 11 students choose between two tracks, art and science. Each track has unique elective choices, from which students choose five based on their goals. A student like Miri, who wants to be flight attendant, could choose the art track and take geography, while aspiring pilots take physics on the science track. In total, each grade is about the same size as at Lakeside, but students on different tracks don’t have classes together. There are also gender-specific classes...

Abi Blog 21        The people of Nanuku have become a family we will forever call home. Each and every one of us has built special relationships with our families, the little kids, and the whole entire community. Although I’m not able to interview every person that has made such a huge difference in our stay and lives since that would be pretty much everyone, I decided to talk with a group favorite, Moses. I still remember the first time I met Moses. One of our dance leaders, Wilson, randomly started laughing while we were performing the dance we had learned at Lakeside and I was trying to figure out why because I was depending on him to remember all the moves. I wouldn’t say I saw why but I definitely heard why first. The whole entire time, Moses was yelling “yes bro!” to his host brother which made all of us laugh and naturally smile for the camera. Ever since then, we knew Moses was going to be one of the funniest and most genuine people ever. You could say that w...

Iveta 7/10/2025 Over the course of our time in the village, we have gotten the opportunity to take part in so many new experiences, from learning how to play rugby for the very first time to figuring out how to keep the paint from dripping into our eyes while painting the ceiling of the school’s dining hall. Although we have long since established a daily routine -- which mainly consists of service in the morning, followed by a captivating environmental science class right after lunch and a rather chaotic afternoon playing with children at the local primary school -- we never stop being surprised by the little things sprinkled throughout the day, like the delicious chocolate latte ice cream that was the closing twist to our lunch, the creamy, slightly sticky swirls dripping down our fingers as we crunched on suspiciously neon orange cones. We’ve certainly had our fair share of highs and lows, but each new day has brought us a whole new set of memories that we’ll be able to think back...

  Dionnah Blog Draft The days have all blended together while the time flies by. We all know that time is ticking so we have a million thoughts on how we want to spend what time we have left. I’ve been planning a fishing trip with my whole family, all 12 of us. I can already see the huge crabs the size of my head being held up by my momo or the whole family laughing after someone rocks the boat too much. With all the excitement building up we fill the community hall like busy bees. Today we continued painting the school but this time we got to paint the ceilings and inside of the dining hall. If you looked around at any moment during this time people were talking and laughing while also jumping up and down to get the border of the ceiling if they were short. This activity gave us a chance to get to know new people through our painting because it didn’t matter who you were with, it matters if you could paint and get the job done. I got the chance to have a discussion on the life...

  Brian Blog 17-  We had been living in the village for two weeks already. This is the first time we would be living somewhere else. As we left the village, a crowd of children from the school warmly surrounded our transport, waving goodbye. We were going on our mid-trip reflection. It is a three-day retreat from our month-long trip in Fiji. It has been an accepted fact that trees create the oxygen that we need to live. But oceans actually produce most of the worlds oxygen. However, coral reefs now are increasingly under threat. Climate change, ocean acidification, and overfishing all put stress on the coral. In an effort to learn more about the coral, we were going to go snorkeling. We dove into the salty water and started swimming further out into the ocean. We saw sand, then rocks. Eventually we went across the massive coral reef. The reef was like an ancient city submerged under water, with thousands of houses for the underwater creatures to live in. It was just co...