Giving thanks in All Circumstance—Even Language Learning

Thanksgiving meal with team!

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?  We hope so.  We certainly did.  We didn’t have turkey, but a couple of whole chickens where quite delicious and we had most of the fixin’s—stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans and mashed potatoes.  We even had pumpkin pie and whipped cream for desert!  Not bad for a tropical island off the coast of Africa!

But Thanksgiving isn’t only about the food.  This is a time when we take a moment and think of all the things we are thankful for throughout the past year and even beyond.  This Thanksgiving was special since we have just welcomed our new teammates and had the chance to celebrate with them as well as our older teammates too.  It got me to thinking about the things that we tend to forget to be thankful for.

A big part of orientation for our new teammates—the biggest part in fact, is language learning.  This is a daunting task.  Many people come to it with trepidation and fear.  For many, it is the most difficult part of living in another country.  I myself didn’t like it very much.  It was really hard and humbling and embarrassing and painfully slow to see progress.  There is certainly still a part of me that wishes language learning could be done via download — just stick the USB drive into the side of my head and viola—I speak French!  But looking back at my own life and looking ahead at the lives of my teammates I start to appreciate the hard lessons of language learning.  Now I am even thankful for it!

Thanksgiving afternoon hike

I am thankful for language learning because it tears down before it builds up.  As adults we get pretty comfortable with ourselves.  Whether we say so or not, we all intuitively think we have things pretty put together, we know how to handle ourselves, we can get around, we know more or less who we are, what we’re good at, and what we want.  Language learning tears all that down.  It strips us down to the basics and makes us start again.  Want to discover if you have pride, shame or complacency in your life—become a language learner.  I would say that language learning has been the greatest vehicle for keeping a check on my pride—and for that I am thankful.

In a similar vein, I am thankful for how language learning is such a great tool for growing in maturity in general.  I think of teammates both present and past and see how much language learning has revealed areas where they need to grow and helping them to grow in those areas.  Personally, I have learned a great deal about depending on others, finding counsel from many advisors, and trusting that time put in will eventually have results.  All these lessons are applicable to many areas of life and have made me a better teammate, a better husband, a better parent, and I have learned these lessons best from language learning.  And so I am thankful.

Language learning has also opened new ways of thinking and seeing.  I do not see the world in the same way as I did before, for now I can see it from another perspective.  I can even think about it and talk about it differently as the words of the island language give things a different spin, a different angle.  The very words we use cause us to think differently.  When I read the words of God, my mind perceives them differently, all because of language and culture learning.  What a gift this is!   But it would not come about without the hard work of living and learning in another language.  And for that I’m thankful.

Lychee season has begun! Our first lychees of the season.

It’s easy to be thankful for things we have, even things we have achieved.  But how often are we thankful for the hard journey of getting there?  My son has been learning to read and it has not come easily to him.  He has worked hard.  He is starting to enjoy it and maybe one day he will be thankful for reading.  He may forget the journey, but I can look back at the hard work we put in together.  And that’s the final thing I’m thankful for.  On these hard journeys, we are never alone.  And the time spent together, even as we struggle, is special.  We struggle and fall and fail and complain, but we are lifted up and encouraged and we try again.  Let’s be thankful for the journey together.

PRAYERS ANSWERED

We had a great week of orientation with our new teammates including a day off on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving.  They continue to do really well and we are greatly encouraged by their excellent attitudes.  It seems like they are sleeping better too, so thanks for praying!  We are so thankful for our team which seems to be gelling well and especially our older teammates who have shared the responsibilities for welcoming our new teammates and have been a great help.  We are so blessed to work with such wonderful people.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Language learning never stops!  Please pray for all of us, that we may progress and grow and enjoy the journey.  Pray especially for our newer teammates who feel most acutely the difficulties of the journey.  Our new teammates have started a week-long stay in a village at the center of the island with a local island family. This will be a hard week but a great chance to learn about island culture. Pray that they would have good attitudes in the hard moments and that this week would be the beginning on special relationships with islanders. We have visitors coming this week from Asia.  Pray that they will have safe travels and be inspired by what they see and hear in order to bring back to their home countries a fire for the great needs of our islands.  Next week will also begin a two week translation workshop.  Pray that this journey will also be a source of blessing and growth.  Continue to lift up Ma Imani and her daughters.  We have no new word on her daughters progress yet. Advent starts next Sunday—pray that this season will give us many opportunities to share about the one who walks with us on the greatest journey.

Arrivals

Kids waiting at airport for teammates' arrival

Our 7 year old son is writing in his journal. He writes,“Two people came to our home.  They’re our new teammates.  I like them.”

He summed it up well. He’s right, we’ve welcomed two new teammates to our island and so far we think they’re pretty great. 

Seeing them come brings back a lot of memories.  It makes us remember our own “first time in Africa,” then “first time on the islands” and then our “first time leading a team” experiences. We remember the excitement and the uncertainty, the jetlag and the intense first days, the overwhelming first impressions of the task before us (usually language learning) and yet the relief of finally being at your final destination after months of preparations.

We went back to an old blog about our first impressions of coming to the islands in 2009. We were coming off of months in the States after our evacuation from Chad. Our oldest daughter was just a baby. We were arriving as the only newbies with our experienced team leaders and two other veteran teammates.

Their plane landing

As we read the old blog we remember trying to sort the sensory overload of so many new things. The humidity, the green vegetation, the dominating volcano above us and the realization that we really were on a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Then there were the people—both friendly and surprisingly short in our first observation.  And there was the bustle of the city on the big island. The comings and goings with everything around us being so new— the language, clothes, customs. We remember that feeling of being a fish out of water. Not sure exactly what to do with ourselves as we followed more veteran workers around without being able to engage people in conversation or do much for or by ourselves.

Now here we are, years after our experience with two new ladies going through much of the same stuff. We tell them some about our experiences but at the same time we know that there is no way we can stop the overload. It will take time to sort through everything they are seeing and experiencing these first days. If anything all the advice and anecdotes we share just add to the overload. We also can’t skip them over the awkward moments of not knowing the language or not understanding the cultural dynamics around them.

It’s just part of the transition. We try to prepare them with the knowledge that we can share. Today we talked to them about culture shock and while knowledge may be power— knowing about culture shock will not give them the power to avoid it completely. But we hope that knowing and hearing the stories from us and their other teammates that they will determined to  persevere through the overload and past the culture shock.There will be a time when life won’t be overwhelming and things will begin to make sense. There will even come a time when it will all become very everyday and ordinary. So that is why it is nice to look back and remember the initial wonder at the beauty, the colors, the people that make this place unique. It is an amazing place and we’re excited to be working here and welcoming others to this place.

Our four team ladies!

Do you feel a call to work on the islands??

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our two new teammates arrived safely with all their luggage. The logistics of Megan traveling to meet them, of putting their excess luggage on a boat and the overnight stay on Volcano Island all went very smoothly. We are very thankful for your prayers and for the hospitality of our Volcano Island colleagues. We are very excited to see our new teammates are already embracing learner attitudes and taking everything in stride.  


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for our new teammates’ sleep— getting over jetlag can be tough and our days during this orientation week are full. Pray for good sleep and a quick adjustment to the time zone and climate (it has gotten pretty hot and humid now). Pray also for the rest of this week where they are living with us and doing orientation and initial language learning. Next week they go to live with an island family for a week. Pray for their relationship with each other as they are just getting to know each other but also have to room with each other for these intense initial weeks. Ma Imani will need to stay on the big island for at least another month while they wait to see how things go with her sick daughter. Pray that she finds a good community there and that she can find some temporary work.


HOPE EVERYONE IN THE US HAS A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Bigger Vision

Tom with workshop banners

Sometimes it is easy for our vision to be too small. We focus on what seems small and achievable without dreaming big.

This past weekend I did something I’ve never done before.  I lead 3 session of an English teaching workshop from about 9am-2pm.  As exciting and challenging as this was for me, my own role in the workshop was not nearly as exciting as the very existence of the workshop itself.  As most people in this line of work will tell you, recognizing a problem or need is not very difficult.  Discovering a solution is only slightly more difficult.  But implementing and imparting ownership of a solution to the local people—that is very difficult indeed.

Coming to the islands it was easy to see the felt need among the people to learn English.  It was even easy to see that part of the problem was the way English was being taught.  English is taught like all other subjects on the island— with low interaction, focusing on memorization rather than comprehension, and using avoidance of shame as the primary motivator. There is a sense that this is how islanders teach and this is how islanders learn and that’s just how it is.

But finding a solution to that problem?  Changing society?  These are giant tasks.  Tasks that take a great deal of man-power and cooperation.  We could not expect change like this.  It was too big. So initially we focused small.  We taught English classes and as students developed their English we trained teachers.  Some of these teachers organized themselves into organizations and now these organizations are teaching English classes.  These organizations are taking English all over the island.  We support them with curriculum and training and teaching, advising and even substituting, but we are not in charge of these organizations.  We support and encourage and see new English classes starting up all the time.

At workshop observing teacher

A few months ago one of these programs asked if we would help them with a workshop in a village on the other side of the island.  Their goal—to encourage a new and more effective way of teaching among teachers in the public schools.  This is a shift.  Not only are they teaching people English, but they want to improve education within the system itself!  As they shared their vision with the teachers in the room, I couldn’t help but think how amazing this was.  A great vision, for great change, directed and organized by islanders, to encourage other islanders.

For the final session of the workshop the teachers watched an islander putting the teaching techniques into practice with a real class.  As we watched students responding with enthusiasm and engaging with the teacher and speaking a lot of English, one of the teachers observing next to me leaned over and said, “This man is a great teacher.  I don’t teach like this.  I need to learn to teach like this.”  What a triumph!  If he felt this way, maybe there were others there as well with a similar feeling.  Maybe change is possible…

We don’t know that we can accept too much credit for the success of these classes. Perhaps we just catalyzed the right islanders, giving them a vision that they were well-equipped to take over. Because not all islanders have caught the vision, even as one program is expanding and growing another seems content to stay in its one location, offering its single set of classes to the people of that neighborhood. Their vision is small and they are sticking with it. So maybe the key for our big dreams for change on the islands is about finding the right people, the ones who only need a vision, a catalyst to set them off and running.

At village ceremony

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammate is back after 6 weeks away! We are thankful that her travels went smoothly and to have her back with us! Things have been coming together well for our new teammates arriving the next week! We are very thankful to have our 2 “veteran” teammates around to help with these preparations. Tom’s workshop went well and was well-received! Tom has been studying with an islander who is really thinking about things— they are meeting weekly and have had very encouraging interactions so far. We went as a family to a ceremony in  a village and we were encouraged by how we were welcomed there.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our new teammates leave the States on the 16th and arrive on the biggest island on Sat. Nov 18th. Megan will travel to meet them and bring them to Clove island on Sunday. Pray for their travels and transitions. It is hot now. So pray for their transition especially to the heat and the time zone. For the first week they will live with us and have an intensive orientation week. Pray it all goes well and that as a team we start on the right foot. Talked to Ma Imani on the phone— no conclusive word yet on her daughter’s condition, so keep praying!

A Different Kind of Giving

Our son with baby of good friend

The other day I was reading the passage that says “Give to all those who ask of you.”  I’ve always found this a tough passage.  Does it really mean everyone?

When we first came to the islands, the question of giving was so overwhelming.  People would come by our house and ask for money all the time.  Most of them we didn’t know.  Most of the time we didn’t know how much to give.  Most of the time we didn’t know if we should give or not.

Looking back on it, I think part of the problem is we weren’t used to being asked.  Who asks you for money in the States?  Most of the time giving happens with organizations.  The giving is very standardized—go to a website, fill out some forms, etc.  We are not used to people from church or neighbors coming up to us and asking us for money on the spot.  That is embarrassing and weird.

How different it is here.  Thinking about it…we are giving every week—nearly every day in some shape or form.  We have multiple neighbors who come asking for food.  In fact, we buy certain commodities in bulk so that we can be ready for such requests.  Rice, oil, sugar or a can of sardines are all regular requests.  Then there are the money requests:
“My child is sick.”
“My son is getting married.”
“My grandmother died. [And the funeral costs are very high.]”
“My daughter is traveling to study abroad.”

Talking under a tree on outing last weekend

Sickness, marriage, funeral, travel, celebrations, holidays, and visitors are all acceptable reasons in island culture to ask someone for money, and since we have many acquaintances and there is almost always someone somewhere getting sick, marrying, dying, traveling, etc, we get these requests on a weekly basis.  And we’ve discovered that, for the most part, we do give to everyone who asks! In fact, it’s become quite normal for us to do so.  When did this change take place?  When did it stop being overwhelming and weird and become normal and good?

I think it happened when we understood two things on the islands better.  The first was, we are part of a community.  If we have a real acquaintance with someone, then their expecting money from us (when money is needed) is normal.  People who come asking and who aren’t part of that community (complete strangers) have no business asking us for money.  For them to do so is rude and no better than begging.  When someone in your community asks for money, they are not begging, they are simply looking for some help and that is very different.

The other thing we’ve come to understand is that most of the time you are expected to give a little—not a lot.  So if someone comes to you with a medical bill for $100, they aren’t expecting you to pay the bill.  They’re expecting to get $10 or $20.  Then they’re expecting to get similar amounts from 5 other neighbors until they cover the cost of the bill.  How freeing this is!  Somehow there’s a big difference between giving someone $5 now and then versus paying a large bill on occasion. 

Tom & kids on same outing

And so we find we basically can give to all those who ask.  Of course there are still those who push beyond the societal rules and there are those who beg.  But even with these, it’s easy enough to give a token—we give them something because they have asked, and somehow it feels better than a refusal.  Is this what the passage means when it says, “give to everyone who asks?”  We can’t say that we’ve figured it all out or that we don’t still make mistakes, but somehow it feels like we’re getting closer to the mark, at least here on the islands.

*a book that was helpful to us when we first got to Africa and struggling with this new culture around money was African Friends and Money Matters.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We have decided on a house for our new teammates (coming this month!) and we’ve signed a contract with the landlords! We’re also well on our way to having all the things we need for the house.  Our friend is out of the hospital and doing a bit better, but is far from healed yet.  We’ve had two opportunities to pray for him and hope to see improvement continue.  The kids continue to enjoy school this year.  We are so thankful for that! 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Keep praying for our new teammates and the all the final details as they come together both on their side in the US and for us here on the islands. Pray for Ma Imani and her daughters (she was gifted a ticket so Imani could travel with them).  They have traveled to the big island for medical treatment.  Pray that they find it.  The woman’s gathering has not happened yet, so pray that rescheduling would happen and it would not simply be forgotten.  Tom is leading a 3 hour workshop on teaching techniques this weekend.  Pray that he could extend light, love and wisdom to the teachers and administrators he meets.  Pray for our teammate as she comes back to a busy schedule after a fun but rather intense time back in the States.