Generous?

Regular visitor helps Tom with dishes

“Are we rich or are we poor?” one of our kids asked us once. I turned it back on them and asked them what they thought. They paused for a moment and said, “A little poor, a little rich.” Good answer.

The truth is that while we are not rich by US standards (especially with our style living on the islands), we are still rich by island standards. Almost all of our friends and neighbors are poorer than we are. The islands consistently rank among the poorest nations in the world. But the poverty here is confusing because of islanders’ wonderful ability to care for each other.

Islanders will go months without a salary and yet their children are still fed and clothed. They still go to school and learn. That is because individual islanders are not isolated. Everyone has a network of people that they look to when they are struggling. It is a give and take. If I’m blessed right now then I can give to those who are struggling. If I have something in abundance whether it is freshly baked goodies or a large crop of mangoes— I share with my network. The poorer members of the network receive more but they spread out their requests, not going to the same people too often. They also find ways to give back in small ways— they provide free labor at events, they visit when you are sick, they offer their prayers, and they give small gifts of things they have made.

We’ve only come to understand these networks after years living on the islands. When we first came, we didn’t know what to make of the requests for money and things from our friends and neighbors. We had been warned about dependency issues and creating bad patterns, we had our Western reticence to giving money without understanding the situation well. In the West we prefer “impersonal” giving. We give to a fund or an organization more readily than we put money personally into a poor person’s hand. That is because we don’t feel like we have the knowledge of the situations to give money wisely and we don’t want to complicate relationships with money. But on the islands, the give and take of money is foundational to relationships.

The giving of money is usually based in and strengthens existing relationships. The exception would be beggars. There aren’t many beggars on the islands and they are usually handicapped. Beggars don’t have relationships with people but expect most people to give them a few coins when they ask.

At the river for Easter

So it took awhile to figure out, but generally we feel pretty good about handling giving on the islands. We have some guidelines that have helped us: We always give something but not all. (We realize that we are just part of someone’s network. Many people are supposed to give towards things, not one person doing it all.) We give proportional to our relationship to the person (a close friend should get more than an acquaintance). And we try to give freely with food (we do have friends and neighbors that sometimes go hungry).

But even though we’ve figured out the rules, we sometimes come across someone who doesn’t follow the cultural rules that we have learned. Sometimes they are trying to take advantage of the fact that we are foreigners. Sometimes they are not right mentally and being inappropriate. Sometimes something unusual is going on….we find ourselves in one of those unusual situations right now. 

It started last month— two little neighbor girls came to our house and asked for some food. We have a big sack of rice and some canned sardines for giving away so I sent them away with enough to get them a good way toward a normal island meal.

But then they were back the very next day. Most neighbors that would ask for food like that, would only come once a month, maybe once a week if they were really in a bad place. But these girls were coming every day. Then they started coming multiple times a day. The requests vary. Sometimes they bring their younger siblings. They are cute and polite but they are not following the cultural norms. What is going on?!

Their mother has 5 kids, roughly aged 8, 6, 5, 3 and 6 months. They have 2 or 3 different fathers and the latest father ran off to another island and she doesn’t think he is coming back. Men are usually the ones working outside the home and bringing in the money to buy food and clothes. It is difficult to be a single mother especially with 5 young kids.

But several things feel wrong about this situation. One— these are not new neighbors. They have been here since we arrived over a year ago. In the preceding year, they have asked for things maybe twice, in the past month it has been more than daily. Two— the mother hasn’t visited. She has never gotten to know our kids or otherwise developed a relationship with us. Three—it feels like the mom is trying to manipulate us, like she is always giving the answers that she thinks we want to hear. She claimed that she had a hurt foot and couldn’t walk much but when our visiting doctor friend offered to examine it— she said it was better. She says that she has no one to help her, but later it came out that she has two siblings and that she actually owns her home (we assumed she was a renter). Four— what happened to her network? Why is she leaning on us so heavily all of a sudden? She says that she has some relatives but that they don’t like her. Is she using us as a way of avoiding reconciliation? What happens to her when we leave or go on vacation if she doesn’t maintain her network in the meantime?

We’re not sure what to do.  We are trying to not become weary of doing good. But we find ourselves sighing tiredly when we see the girls come up on our porch yet again. We don’t like the fact that it seems like the girls are being trained to beg and manipulate. But at the same time, sometimes they say that they are hungry and we believe them.

We want to be seen as generous. We want to be vessels of love and light. But we also want this family to have a sustainable way to feed themselves and we don’t want to encourage unhealthy behavior. So we’ve altered our guidelines. We aren’t giving to every request. We’re giving what is on hand and readily available, not always what was asked for. I’ve taken the opportunity to share truth with the mother. I’ve tried to challenge her about her family connections. I’ve also tried to brainstorm with her ways that she could make some money to support her family. She says, “Yes, that’s true” when I talk, she looks embarrassed when I challenge her, and she insists that she will start making things and selling them on the street as soon as she can, but I still get the feeling that she is saying what she thinks I want to hear.

Its clear that we don’t know the whole situation so we keep praying.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We’ve heard news that while problems remain on the French island, the road barricades have been lifted so people can move more easily. Our Brazilian teammates’ papers have all been accepted, they are now just waiting to receive the visas. Our team’s language push went well. Another man (one we have known for a long time) has joined the weekly study group with Tom, we’re excited by his interest.

Boys playing pretend

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for us as we continue to wrestle with what it means to be generous and loving in this culture. We’ve recently confirmed that some money has been stolen from our home— the only person with clear access and knowledge would be our current house helper. We’re saddened by the possibility that it could have been her but we have no proof. We are increasing security and have talked to her about it. Pray for us and for that relationship. Tom was asked to watch apologetic recordings that islanders listen to a lot. He will have a chance to respond to their arguments this week. The kids are still off from school this week— we’re doing homeschool but they still have lots of freetime. Pray that we could find good things with which to fill their time and expend their energy.  The language project is checking their work with consultants via Skype both this week and next week— pray for them as these can be long days and also pray that the internet connection continues to be strong and reliable.