Dreams of a Kid-free Morning

Entertaining with a curtain

We love our kids very much and we love spending time with them. We love that our life on the islands means we see our kids a lot. But it is still nice to have some kid-free time once and awhile. 

We had just had three solid weeks without a single kid-less moment. There had been two weeks where the kids were off from local school and then one week where the kids were on opposing schedules**, so someone was always home. Now all three kids finally had school in the morning. Four kidless hours were all ours. We didn’t have big plans, but we were looking forward to having some quiet, getting some work done and maybe running an errand or two.

I was just finishing my time of prayer and study, when the woman who helps with some of our housework came up the stairs. It was normal for her to come on Monday morning, but this morning she had her 10 month old baby and her 2 year old cousin in tow. She sat down to tell me her story. Her aunt was in labor and was having a hard time of it. They had gone to the hospital but the docs there wanted to do a c-section, so they left and found a clinic in another town. Her mom was gone helping her aunt, so there was no one at home to watch the little ones.

Two year old with her chair & ball

I thought I understood the point of the story, so I told her, “No problem. You don’t need to work here today. You have to watch the little ones.” But she shook her head, “No, I want to work. I’ll do the laundry and the kids will stay here.”

Ahh… so the point of the story was not explaining why she couldn’t work. It was explaining why we needed to babysit while she worked. I don’t think many people in the US would bring their kids to their workplace and then expect their employer to watch them, but there we were. So much for our kidless morning.

She made it sound like the kids would just watch themselves. But they are 10 months old and 2 years— that wasn’t going to happen. Time to reformulate my morning plans. I quickly tried to baby-proof any major hazards, got out some baby-appropriate toys. The kids were pretty easy to please.  After awhile, the two-year old found a little chair and a ball and just sat there hugging the ball to her chest. Soon I saw her eyes drooping— her mom’s labor excitement meant she had been up early. Then the baby starting rubbing her eyes and fussing. Her whines brought her mom away from her work outside where she was hand-washing clothes. And before long both little ones were settled down and resting.

Naptime

Then we had some time of quiet. We got some work done and even ran a couple errands. So ultimately we got what we had been hoping from the morning. We might have looked forward to a kidless morning, but life rarely goes to plan here on the islands.  Just because things don’t follow our plans, doesn’t make them bad.  It may not have been the kidless morning we expected, but it also wasn’t a bad morning, at the very least the kids were super cute…

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The consultant checking for the language project finished! They were able to do even more than they hoped. We are thankful that we got to connect with one of our colleagues from the small island as he passed through this past week. We are thankful for our team and how well they have all gotten along and how they have worked to care and support each other in tough times. Our very good friend Ma Imani has been on the big island for the past several months due to illness- we just got word that suggests that her medical problems are not as serious as feared. We hope she can return to Clove Island soon.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
There have been encouraging signs on the smallest island that they will be able to get their needed visa from the local government there, but it needs to be signed this week- pray that is actually happens. The big island is doing their annual English Conference this coming week. We have three teammates traveling to attend. Our two newest teammates are celebrating their birthdays this week— pray that they will be encouraged and well-loved during this their first birthday away from home.  The former worker we mentioned last week has made it to the islands and is reconnecting with old friends. Pray that his visit would be used to both encourage and challenge. Our teammates have had a hard time meeting to study with the ladies— one is still very interested, the other has been strangely absent— pray for wisdom about how to proceed. A island sister is feeling pressure from family to not meet and study with others— pray for wisdom and strength for her and for the softening of hearts in her family. Megan has been dealing with some back pain (aggravating the old problem spot) and some new kind of headache. Pray for healing and relief.


**On the islands, preschool and kindergarten is always in the morning, but elementary school has an alternating schedule. There are two groups of kids and one week half will go to school in the morning and half go in the afternoon. Then the next week they switch and the other group goes in the morning. For our kids it means that one week, all three go to school in the morning and the next week one (our kindergartener) goes in the morning and the other two go in the afternoon. When not in local school, we do homeschool!