Turning 40

Tom turns 40!

As many of you know, I (Tom) turned 40 a few days ago.  A big deal, right?  Not so much on Clove Island.  Birthdays seem to be something of a recent import to the islands, so that even though everyone knows how to sing the “Happy Birthday Song” in multiple languages, it is not really something that is of great importance to them.  Birthday parties are mostly for the very young or teenagers and in both cases are an excuse for excessively loud music and sketchy dancing (now that makes me sound old doesn’t it).  In fact most people won’t talk about their birthday unless they are having a party. We have to be careful because we’ll often casually say, “Next week is so-and-so’s birthday,” and the islanders will follow-up by asking the time and location, assuming that we’re mentioning it because there is going to be a party.

But most birthdays just pass by unnoticed. A lot of people here simply don’t know and don’t care.  I’ve had people tell me their birthday and then when I wish them a happy birthday weeks later, they seem surprised to learn that today is their birthday.  I know people both young and old who do not know exactly how old they are.  They might be able to do some math and figure it out, but the necessity of keeping track or marking the passing of another year is not of great concern.

I used to be amazed, when teaching about birthdays in English classes, to discover how many of my students were born on December 31st.  It seemed like an unusually high number until someone explained to me that this meant they didn’t actually know their date of birth and that for the purposes of official documents the government would simply assign the date of December 31st for the year they thought most likely to be their birth year.

Kids put finishing touches on cake

So birthdays are not a big deal here and yet, for us, birthdays remain important.  A chance to honor people, remember and celebrate. And turning forty—it’s kind of a big one.  Well, many of you made it special with the messages you sent me.  Megan spaced it out throughout the day, so that it seemed like every time I turned around I was receiving another letter, another message wishing me well and remembering something special from the last forty years.  In many ways it was just another Thursday, and even though hardly any islanders wished me Happy Birthday as I went about my normal island routines, I had a very wonderful day reading message after message, amazed that so many people would take the time to write to me.

In case some of you were worried…we still did many of the typical American things…we had a nice meal and cake (Megan and the kids made a wonderful cake with a chocolate pudding layer and vanilla frosting—delicious) and we celebrated a small party with our teammates.  I received some presents, and of course my teammates made sure to make me feel old!  (Those whipper-snappers do that a lot these days…)

At end of birthday hike

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The calm has continued on our island and people have returned to work and kids back to school. We had a good time celebrating Tom’s birthday, including a nice hike over the weekend. We continue to be very thankful for Tom and his 40 years! We’ve made plans to go to the big island next week to get a couple days to step back and relax.



PRAYERS REQUESTED 
The language project started its consultant checking today over Skype. The first day went well. Pray that the rest of the week would also go well, for clear communication, good internet connection and no technology problems. Unfortunately on of the translators didn’t make it back to the islands in time (he has been delayed in returning from his travels), but pray that everything would go well in spite of his absence. Continue to pray for the islands, there have been more arrests of political opponents this past week. Islanders are still nervous about the future and expect more conflict and unrest in the coming weeks/months (though potentially in different ways and locations). We continue to pray for light to shine in the darkness and especially for good and healthy governance on the islands.

A Week of Unrest

From our roof looking toward town center

It didn’t start out that abnormally. It was 7am on Monday morning, the kids were dressed for school and heading out the door when our neighbor called out to say there was no school because of unrest.

We like to think of these as the island-version of snow days. We get a handful of them each school year. Usually the troubles are some kind of protest related to a strike or some other grievance with the government. Islanders are very cautious with their kids and don’t want them traveling between school and home if there might be trouble on the streets, so out of caution they will cancel school. When this happens we stay close to home until things quiet down. Usually by the end of the day, even within a few hours, life has returned back to normal.

This time was different. It wasn’t 15 minutes later that we started to hear gunshots. Islanders are generally very peaceful people. There is nowhere that sells firearms on the islands and I don’t personally know an islander that owns a gun. Gunshots meant something much more serious was going on. First the reports came that major roads across the island had been blocked and barricaded with trees, broken down cars, boulders, old fridges, etc. The pictures showed up on Facebook (islanders love Facebook). Throughout the morning we heard more gunshots and then some bigger booms. It would quiet down and then start up again in spurts. Stories and rumors flitted back and forth on WhatsApp and Facebook, while most islanders stayed inside. We locked up early that night and prayed that was the end of it.

Get some energy out: Family exercise time

The next morning it was quiet. Perhaps that’s it?? Neighbors warned that it wasn’t over, but a local shop owner complained, “When you have war, it should just be 24 hours and then everyone should stop and take a rest? Isn’t that right??” Seemed like an okay plan to me, but everyone was waiting for things to start again. We made the quick decision to move our one teammate to our other teammate’s house. We almost waited too long. When Tom left the house with a neighbor, it was only 8:15 but by 8:20, the gunfire started again. Thankfully Tom was being led by a neighbor who is both cautious and knowledgeable about these things. He guided Tom and our teammate through back trails from her house and back to ours. The normally 10-15 minute journey was twice as long but they still did it in 15 minutes, moving at a fast clip the whole way. Once we had our two teammates together and at a safe distance from the fighting we could take a breath of relief. Now we were the ones closest to the fighting but we had food, we had water, we had a contingency plan in place if we needed to leave our house or even evacuate from the island. We were in contact with islanders, our leadership and in turn with embassies. All we had to do now was stay inside, wait and monitor the situation.

We spent 6 days in our house. The normally busy and noisy streets of our neighborhood were empty and quiet. They were not easy days. We have three energetic kids and most of the time we felt like we were just trying to find ways to occupy them:

Puzzle time with new haircuts

Homeschool time!
Get the big puzzle out!
Let’s do family exercise time!
The boys need a haircut!
How about we make some popcorn!
Let’s read another chapter of Boxcar Children!
Who wants to help me make cookies?
Time for a family movie!

You would think that a week at home would have been productive in some ways, but it wasn’t. Between keeping the kids occupied, there was listening to the gunfire and trying to assess the situation. Tom’s phone rang off the hook with island friends (people living in the middle of the fighting, people checking in on us from further out, people sharing information or looking for information on the situation), not to mention colleagues from other islands and our leaders. We found these days both boring and restless, but trying to wade through all the raw information and make wise decisions was stressful. Still each time we felt a peace with the decisions we came to.

Breadfruit chips

Each day had its blessings too. A shop would open briefly so the neighborhood could quickly get a few things. In a calm, I was able to go up the block and find both flour and eggs! A neighbor gave us a couple breadfruit from the tree by his house. The water came on and we were able to fill our barrels. We were able to speak to neighbors about being freed from fear.  We were surrounded by the prayers and encouragements of people back home and around the globe.

The kids knew there was “fighting” going on but they were mostly oblivious to the sounds going on outside. Used to a noisy neighborhood, the kids just tuned out the background noises and went about their days. At one point on the third day our eldest asked, “Is someone popping a bunch of balloons out there??” “No honey, that’s the fighting.” “It’s guns,” our youngest offered. After that revelation, there was some nervousness and questions. “How long is this going to go on?” “What if it goes on for a month?” We assured our kids that if it lasted that long that we would go away somewhere. Already we had seen some neighbors leave, not being able to handle the stress of the situation any longer.

But by the fourth day, the gunfire was less and there were rumors of talks happening on the big island. On the fifth day, there was almost no gunfire at all and we heard a tentative agreement had been reached to end the current fighting (not to mend the greater underlying conflict). Everyone remained nervous and unsure. Soldiers were stationed in our neighborhood and people still stayed at home.  Unfortunately on that fifth day, our daughter came down with a high fever and we briefly wondered if after all this, we’d have to evacuate for medical (not political) reasons.  By the sixth day, the fighting seemed to have completely stopped.  Though movement was still difficult at this point, our team and island contact helped us to get our daughter to a clinic and tested for malaria. She was negative for malaria and thankfully started getting better, and the outing to the clinic showed that other towns and neighborhoods were coming back to life.  The armed dissidents had dispersed and that whole day and night was quiet.

Waiting for malaria test result

On day seven, we woke up to a new day outside. Many of the normal neighborhood sounds were back. Shops were open. Kids were outside. We all got dressed and walked to our teammate’s house to sing, study and have fellowship together.  It seemed fitting that on the seventh day the unrest was over.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Thank you for all your prayers this week. (Our last blog accidentally didn’t get posted but many of you are on our email list and got several updates about this situation as it unfolded. If you wish to be added to that list, please send us an email.) God is good and we saw His hand providing for us throughout this week whether it was through island friends, providing for our needs, giving us encouragement, peace, wisdom when we needed it. We are thankful for our teammates and for the unity that we had with them and our leadership as we made decisions. We are thankful that the fighting has stopped and that more people weren’t hurt or killed. We’re thankful that our daughter is feeling better.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for the islands. This armed conflict is over, but the greater problems and conflict are not resolved. We don’t know how it will come to a head in the future, but we pray that there could be dialogue, that there could be international mediators and that the islands could find justice and good governance without more violence. Pray for the decision makers in this nation. Pray for the transition back to normal life on our island. It will probably take a few days for schools to open and for business to get back to normal. Pray for us personally that we could have opportunities to relax and recover from the strain of the week. Tom’s birthday is this week, pray that we can celebrate it well.  The language project is supposed to be doing consultant checking next week— pray that the one member of the project will make it back to the islands in time for those checks.

Fire in the Night

(THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN ON OCT 15th-- in other excitement it seems we never actually posted it! We'll post this week's blog later today!)

Our neighborhood in the dark

Things were pretty quiet. Our kids were already in bed, falling asleep. All of a sudden, we heard from outside the cries, “Moro! Moro!” (Fire! Fire!) Knowing that neighbors are the only fire brigade people have here, I called to Tom. By the time Tom went down the block and around a corner the road was full of people. He was there in time to see a small child being carried out, his whole body burned and skin barely staying on.

The neighbor came up excitedly telling me to turn off the electricity. They were worried that the fire was started by electrical wires and so one by one the lights in the neighborhood went out. The neighborhood took on an eery air. Everyone was out, quietly talking, trying to understand what happened. The story came in pieces…a simple tin shack built on the roof of one of the concrete houses. A child sleeping. Mother had gone out to talk to friends. No candle, no kerosene stove left on, no matches left out. The child was whisked to the hospital, but then we learned there were actually two children.  At first I had hoped that the other child wasn’t badly hurt, but then someone came over excitedly asking for a big flashlight or spotlight. We gave the only thing we had, one of our newer headlamps. He took it, looking a little disappointed at its small size, and mentioned that they were still looking for the second child. “Surely, it would be easy to find a child in a small house like that?” my mind cried out. But then I realized that they were looking for remains. I went out to stand with neighbors. I saw the door to the house right next to us was open but instead of finding the women who live there, I found her twin boys, just three years old, standing there alone.  One was just in his underwear, another in a hoodie jacket and underwear. They were dazedly watching everyone. “He was burned all over!” they told me, imitating the intonation the adults were using perfectly. I stood close by and one of them took hold of my hand and held it up against his face. They were scared.  I spoke some comforting words about God and reassured them that the fire was out and that their friend had gone to the hospital. The twin in just his underwear got his matching hoodie and had me help him put it on. Eventually a teenage boy that lives near them came and distracted them with games and videos on a phone.

The twins on a happier day

Meanwhile the cloud of sadness continued to descend. Tom said the street right near the fire was full of crying. I saw one hysterical young man being dragged away to be comforted elsewhere. Our headlamp was returned but the man didn’t say anything as he handed it back. He just lit a cigarette and walked away. As we headed inside to pray and then to go to bed, we saw two men grab shovels.

The next morning it was confirmed. Both children had died. The second one’s remains were buried immediately, but even the one taken to the hospital was buried immediately after death. None of the normal washings and prayers and ceremonies. The bodies were just too badly burned. We were sickened with the news and it became our prayer that these little children just never woke up. 

I went to the place of mourning. I was in a room of women looking serious and sad. I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be comforting or greeting. I didn’t even know the mother but apparently most others didn’t either. At one point someone pointed out the mother of the children and then all of a sudden a number of women who had been sitting elsewhere, gathered around her and started to mumble words into her ear. I wonder if she preferred it when she was just crying quietly at the edge of the group, unnoticed. Now she was bombarded with island platitudes, people telling her that there was nothing she could do, it was just what God wanted. “No!” I wanted to yell out and contradict them. “This is not what God wanted.”  Instead I waited my turn to speak some quiet words before leaving and making room for the other mourners cycling through.

Since then we’ve had many chances to challenge the idea that all the bad things in the world come from God, that it is what He wants, that people just have to accept it, forget it and move on. We’ve talked about the true nature of God, the one cries with us, who grieves to see the perfect world He made so corrupted; the one who promises a life to come, a life without tears. God is light. God is love. The idea that He wanted these two children to burn to death should be an outrage, and so we challenge the lie whenever we can.

We wonder about the poor mother. Not a full day after the fire, the rumors began. Some said that the mother had left a lit candle inside. Others said her husband beat her and was cheating on her and that it was him who was last in the house. We’ve tried to discourage the gossip people want to share with us. For a couple days it was what everyone talked about. But now, almost a week later, we can feel the neighborhood moving on. But what about her? They collected money to replace some of her possessions, but her life will never be the same. So we remember her and cry out on her behalf.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for our kids continuing to be happy with school.  They seem tired at the end of the week from a full week of school—especially the youngest, but we get mostly positive reports of their experience.  We are thankful for the process of defining our goals and moving towards them.  This has been a great thing for our team and we feel a positive sense of direction and purpose.  Tom’s meetings with his friends to talk about important things continue to go well. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
This morning there has been a marked escalation of political tension on our island. We don’t know details but apparently there were acts of protest in several places around the island. Many (including us) are laying low. It is possible that this will just last one day and that tomorrow will be back to normal, or that it could be the beginning of something bigger. Pray for peace and justice on the islands.  Continue to pray for the mother of the two children that were burned. Pray also for greater awareness of fire safety on the islands.

Which Language?

Island boys hiding from waves

For those of you that have learned to speak another language— you know it is not always easy. But you might also know that not all circumstances are equal. Just because you can have a conversation with your best friend in the new language, doesn’t mean you can talk with anyone easily. Just because you can get around town, doesn’t mean you can follow a conversation of native speakers when they talk at full speed and throwing in expressions and slang. Then there are vocabulary gaps. You may be able to talk about everyday life and the news of the town, but someone starts talking to you about agriculture and you find you don’t have the word bank to have a conversation.  Some areas of difficulty are common among language learners— for example, talking on the phone is usually considered more difficult than normal conversation because you don’t have the visual cues or hand motions to aid understanding.

Another problem area is prayer.

Indeed we’ve known people that are perfectly fluent in a foreign language, able to handle any conversation or situation, but seem daunted by the idea of praying in that language.  This came to our minds recently with the memorial service for Megan’s grandad. It is customary for these events to be opened and closed with prayer and usually the host honors certain guests by asking them to pray.  Our options of who to ask were limited.  We wanted it to be people who shared our beliefs but who were also older and respected. Also for cultural reasons it needed to be men. Unfortunately two of our more obvious choices were traveling when we had the service.

Kids almost getting washed away

A handful of men came early and Tom approached them and asked two of the them if they would pray to open and close, but here was the one condition— we wanted them to do it in the local language. One of the men immediately refused. He couldn’t do it. He has lived in the country for a decade, he is married to an islander, they speak the local language at home with their kids and he speaks it well.  His mother tongue is even fairly close to the local language, but still he wasn’t comfortable. He only prays in his mother tongue.  He couldn’t be persuaded so Tom asked someone else to open the memorial.

The second person Tom asked to close the ceremony was also uncomfortable about praying in the local language, but the situation was completely different. He is an islander. The local language is his mother tongue.  The problem is that he learned to pray from foreigners many years ago, and even after all these years, he still only usually prays in French. We struggle to have a conversation with him about deeper things without him switching to French. It’s like he just doesn’t have the words in his mother tongue to talk about these important things. Tom asked him to pray and challenged him to do it in the local language. “I don’t know if I can do it, but I’ll try,” he said (in French).

We can understand some of this struggle. Prayer is personal. Generally we would expect people to cling to their mother tongues in prayer. We were pushed early on to learn to pray in the local language and we are grateful for that push, because we probably wouldn’t have learned otherwise.  But even with this push it is true that our prayers in the local language are still much more stilted than when we pray in English. In our mother tongue we can let go and have the prayers flow out of us. In a foreign language we often have to think carefully about what we are saying. But practice helps!

Low tide

Sometimes we are torn. Praying in your mother tongue is important. Islanders often feel like the prayers in Arabic are better or more effective. We disagree and feel like we can each approach God in our own language. When we have multilingual gatherings with other expats, the common language is often English but we invite people to pray in their own languages . Partially we feel bad if everyone is expected to pray in English because while  we are praying in our mother tongue, everyone else is being forced to pray in a foreign tongue. At the same time while we are with islanders, we try to pray in the local language, partially to show deference and to honor the local language, and to get rid of any idea of some languages being superior to others, but also because we want people to understand our prayers. We want them to be able to join in and pray with us.  It can be beautiful to listen and to let prayers in an unknown tongue wash over you, but it is also wonderful to at least have a sense of what is being prayed.

At the end of memorial our friend did a wonderful job of praying in the local language. He may have been uncomfortable but he did a beautiful job of tying together different things that were expressed throughout the memorial in his prayer. One of those in attendance said later how much they appreciated our friend’s prayer.  We hope it will be an encouragement to him to keep trying.  It is a blessing to pray in any language, especially your own.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We’ve had many positive responses to the memorial service.  It seems everyone who we’ve talked to has expressed their appreciation for it.  Tom finally seems to be recovered and is thankful for feeling healthy again.  We took a small retreat together as a team this past weekend (where pics were taken) to think about our goals and to rest and bond as a team.  It went really well with many answered prayers around travel, good team time, and clear goals.  We’re thankful for a sister from the little island who turns out is living nearby to us and who has been able to connect with some of our other brothers and sisters.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our team is looking into getting a computer for team-use to increase the number of people that could be involved in the language project. We are excited about the idea but buying quality electronics from the islands can be difficult. Pray that we’d be patient while we work out these logistics. Pray for our team as we try to clarify the big goal we brainstormed on our weekend retreat and that they wouldn’t be just our plans but His. We haven’t had word from our friend about his passport renewal, pray that the process is going quickly. 

***IMMEDIATE CONCERN: As we were finishing the blog, there was a fire in our neighborhood. We’ve heard reports that two children were badly burned. Tom saw at least one child being carried out whose whole body appeared to be burned. We have seen lots of people crying and wailing in grief. We don’t know much and don't know if the child(ren) will survive, but please pray for this family and all those effected and for the children for miraculous healing to occur.

Grandad’s Island Memorial

Tom speaking at memorial

Everything was ready.  The coffee was made.  Dates were arranged on a plate and the napkins were folded.  The gift bags for the end of the memorial service were wrapped and waiting in a big hamper for distribution.  The room was arranged:  a cloth hiding the kitchen, chairs moved to the edge of the room, mats laid out on the floor,  everything clean, everything ready.  Now we were just waiting for the people.  And at 3:30, with only a few there, and some awkward silences, we were starting to wonder how long it would take the others to arrive.  It was at that moment that something inspired our daughter to quietly sing some worship songs on the porch.  They gave us strength to wait and trust. A little after 4pm we began the memorial service for Megan’s grandad with the room full of people.

The plan was simple.  A prayer, a talk about the 2 kingdoms, a reading, a talk about Megan’s grandad, another reading, a song and a prayer.  Yet for all it’s simplicity, it felt kind of groundbreaking.  All of it was done in the island language and in culturally appropriate ways.  But as we talked about Megan’s grandfather and all that he loved and stood for, the things we shared were things many of them had never heard before.  The words that were spoken, the readings, the song—all of it was new.  Looking around the room, it was hard to know reactions.  Some smiled, some were clearly listening.  Others wore unreadable expressions, were they bored or maybe even concerned.  But as we drew the time to a close, the smiles and thanks were broad.  I think they understood that we were sharing a part of our life with them—they are special to us, and so was Grandad—and bringing these things together was a delight to our hearts.  I think they understood.

Megan sharing at memorial event

But what will they take away (other than the standard goodie bag of treats)? All our copies of the song lyrics were taken. Someone asked for the written out copy of the readings. Someone even demanded that they were taking the copy of Grandad & Grammie’s wedding photo that we had printed out for the event. Beyond those physical remainders,  will they remember the things Megan spoke about her Grandad?  How he gave up big things for the sake of his Father; how he showed love to people in prison for 40 years; how he lived a life that shone with light?  Will they remember anything about the 2 kingdoms and that there is only one day to leave the kingdom of darkness?  Will they desire to live in the kingdom of light?  Will they meditate on the words of the song and sing them for themselves?  We hope they will, and we hope in the coming days we will get the chance to ask them about it.

Kids going back to local school!

PRAYERS ANSWERED

The Memorial Service went extremely well.  We are very thankful. Thank you everyone who was praying.  More than 30 people came.  It was very well received and it all went smoothly.  We’re also thankful for the islanders that helped in the planning. The kids started school this past week!  And it went well!  So glad that our kids seem happy to be back, that so far they like their teachers and classmates.  We are so thankful that they are going to school willingly and come back saying they enjoyed it. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that we would have opportunities to ask people what they thought of the memorial service and that it would lead to many good conversations.  Pray for our brothers and sisters who attended and that we could have some good conversations with them too—that it would spark ideas for future events!  Please continue to lift up Megan’s family as they still have many difficult questions to answer in the coming days.  Tom got hit hard with that virus—his tummy is doing fine now, but he regularly feels muscle fatigue.  Ibuprofen helps, but it’s still not fun.  Keep lifting up our sister with the difficult marriage.  One of the people helping with the language project has had to travel to renew his passport, pray that it would be renewed quickly so he could return without delays.