Open Homes

Tom with some kids at an event

We want to have an open home. It is even one of our team values that our lives and homes will be open to islanders. By open home, we mean available, we mean accessible, we mean welcoming. Islanders can already be intimidated to visit a foreigner so we want to make it as easy as possible.

Part of having an open home is very literal. We literally keep our door open. An open front door in island culture tells your neighbors that you are home and that people can visit. A closed door means either you are gone or don’t want to be disturbed. Sometimes a very close friend will knock on a closed door, but often times islanders will just see the closed door and leave. Since visits aren’t usually announced ahead of time, we keep our door open from breakfast until we go to bed at night. And people come— some to say hello, some to ask questions, some to ask for help, some to hang out, some to use our library, and then there are the kids that come to play.

Most island kids don’t have many toys, so kids will come to play on our porch. We’ve encouraged it. We want kids to feel welcome at our house. But it isn’t always easy. Island kids aren’t always easy to love.  Some of the lessons have been hard. When our kids were babies, it was hard to welcome the kids with runny noses and covered in dirt. At our last house, it was hard to welcome the kids because they always came in huge disruptive packs.

Kids coming onto our porch

Now we’re learning some new lessons. It started with some little kids from our street. They don’t listen. We tell them it is time to go home and they don’t go. Or they leave for 2 minutes and then sneak back up when they think we’re not looking. These kids are mostly little, 5 and under, and very cute. They usually scurry away quickly when we catch them. Eventually they seemed to learn that when we asked them to leave, they couldn’t come back, but another problem began. Without us knowing it, as they left they would close our door behind them. We would go whole afternoons without visitors only to find that our front gate was closed! We caught the kids at it and told them not to, but that didn’t stop them from doing it again. Finally we found some wire to stop them from closing it.

Then there came a kid we’ll call Nunyi. We had seen him around before. One look and you can tell that he isn’t like other kids. He is usually unkempt and dirty and will yell and grab at people. If he was an adult we would assume he was mentally ill, but he is just a kid (maybe 7 years old) and neighbors have confirmed that he was born that way. No attempts are made to educate him. Few attempts are made to control where he goes or what he does. One day Nunyi showed up on our porch and we let him play. Our kids were scared of him but we quickly learned that we didn’t need to be scared of him.  As he played on our porch we saw a big smile on his face.  He was loving it! Nunyi acts like a toddler.  Most of the time his words are unintelligable, but his desires are simple and clear— he wants to play, he wants to eat, he wants someone to watch him ride the scooter! 

The problem is when we have to ask him to leave. Nunyi won’t leave. He flat our refuses. The other kids scurry away but Nunyi digs in his heels. Most of the time we have to physically drag him off our porch— not a fun experience. We know the island solution— they would beat him. We can almost see it in his eyes.  He smirks and waits for a raised hand or switch before he’ll respond. We refuse to hit him. One of our friends threatened to get Nunyi’s uncle because Nunyi is afraid of him (probably because he beats him). Another neighbor saw Nunyi playing on our porch and immediately told him that she was going to call the police and that they were going to come with their guns to get him. Islanders wouldn’t let strange kids play at their house, especially not a kid like Nunyi. So that is why we want to let him play o our porch, we want to show him love, but it is hard when it always ends with us having to physically force him to leave. Some islanders have stepped in and helped take him away, but their solution to us is always the same— “close your door!”  But we don’t want to close our door!

Kids playing before an event

We want to have an open home… so instead we begin the difficult task of trying to set boundaries for kids who have never had boundaries, getting kids to listen to instructions who have only ever listened to a raised switch, trying to show love to kids that seem bent on pushing the limits. God grant us patience and may we see them with His eyes.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our new teammates had a great week staying with an island family in a village— the family was kind and welcoming, the weather was cooler up there and they had a lot of cultural experiences. They continued to have great attitudes. Our visitors from Asia have come and gone. It was nice to get to share with them about life and work on the islands— now people in Asia will be praying for us!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Ma Imani will have to stay on the big island until January— in the meantime she caught Dengue fever (which is going around the big island right now). She has recovered but continue to pray for her and her daughters. Also pray for her mother here on Clove Island who has been very sick. A big two-week long workshop has started on our island for the language project. It is long days. Pray for perseverance and good concentration for the participants and that they would get through all the material that the outside consultants wanted to share. We are possibly going to have a short-termer from a neighboring African country join our team— our organization has never had someone from this country work with us—pray for wisdom as the organization considers what the process will look like to have her join us. The next few weeks will be busy! Pray for good rest and endurance for us.  Also, a little thing, family sent a Christmas package to us a couple months ago— pray that it arrives for Christmas! (Mail on the islands is not reliable, some times packages make it in a few weeks, sometimes it takes months, sometimes they don’t make it.)