How Important Is This?

Megan & our daughter heading to event

At first it can be overwhelming— so much happening and yet so much left unsaid.

Someone might tell you that someone died today, expecting you to realize that that means there are people gathering at the closest relative’s house that day and again in two days time and that all acquaintances should be giving their condolences in person sometime during the week and close friends should give money to help with the expenses. Or they might tell you about a wedding and tell you the day of the biggest event, expecting you to naturally deduce the dates of smaller events that are held on the preceding days, not to mention what time such events are and who should attend them, what they should wear to each and whether they are expected to contribute money at said events.

At first islanders don’t know what to expect from us. “Do they go to things? Will they come to our cultural events?” Some assumed we wouldn’t go, but others dared to invite us. Then as soon as everyone sees us at events, they start to see us as part of the community.  Sometimes they assume that we are now “in the know” and understand all the unspoken rules and values of island culture.

So we’ve made mistakes. We’ve not made it to events where we were expected and missed. We’ve gone to events to which we afterwards wished we hadn’t gone. We’ve gone to the wrong location. We’ve gone overdressed. We’ve gone underdressed. We’ve shown up way too early. We’ve shown up late. Every time we learn something. But the most important thing we’ve learned is that much is unspoken, so we need to ask a lot of questions.

Daughter at event

It isn’t always appropriate to ask the person inviting us, so we have our trusted friends (cultural informants) who we know will give us good advice. “Where am I supposed to go? Will someone come and get me? What time? Will it really start at that time? What should I wear? Do I need to bring anything? Can I bring my kids? Is this the only event I need to go to? How important is it that I go to this?”

We get so many invitations (sometimes even from people we don’t know). So the last question (how important is this?) is often our most lingering query as we decide how to spend our time. This is where we have to be careful not to let our Western minds make this judgment call. Sometimes we need to look at these events as opportunities instead of burdens.

Take one recent wedding invitation…our western minds say, “Surely it isn’t important that the wife of the English teacher that gave her an exam last year come to her wedding event! She doesn’t even know our names!” Instead I have to look at it from her perspective. English has been very important to her. She’s invested months of study. Being able to communicate with foreigners and invite us to her wedding is a culmination of those efforts, plus everyone will notice us at the wedding, adding to her honor and highlighting her studies in front of her family. Several times, they will rewatch the hours of video (that will focus on our faces multiple times throughout the proceedings) and she and her family will remember us fondly forever for having gone.

Or take the news of a death this past week…we learned about the death of an acquaintance’s mother-in-law (who died to a village far away). I didn’t know the dead woman. I barely knew her daughter-in-law. The main house of mourning and funerary events would be in the distant village. It didn’t seem like there was much for me to do, and on my own I may not have done anything but offer brief condolences when I next happened to see her. But one of our island friends saw an opportunity. She called all the women who had been at a few meetings with this woman who is grieving her mother-in-law and told us to gather one afternoon to pay our respects together. We all gave a little money, we went, we sat, we said words and prayers of comfort and we left. It didn’t take long, but I do not doubt that it was a significant testimony that not only increased our credibility but the credibility of the good news.

Tom and friend at event

So maybe we need to ask ourselves and our cultural informants a different question. Maybe the question shouldn’t be “how important is this?” (aka, “do I have to go???) and instead ask, “what opportunity does this event offer us? Could I bless others with my presence?”

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our son’s gash on his head has healed well! Our close neighbor and daughter arrived safely in Madagascar for medical treatment and have already been seen at a hospital. Not sure on details beyond that but we pray it is good medical care! The kids made it through their local school exams and only have a couple days of school left! Tom’s friend has finally had the dream he has been praying for, but he doesn’t understand what it means. Pray that God gives him clarity.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Unfortunately our colleagues on the small island have not yet recovered their stolen electronics. It seems like the investigation is still open and there are some leads but we’re not terribly confident that the local law enforcement will do much more. Pray for a miracle and for peace for them. There hasn’t been any movement towards unrest since the month of fasting ended (as was rumored might happen). We continue to pray for constructive change in this country by peaceful means! Last year we had a short-termer from Madagascar, now she is back on the islands, married and set to work on the small island. Pray that she can get her long-term visa easily and without incident (this has occasionally been difficult on the small island). There have been quite a few illnesses floating around our family and team. Pray for healing for all!

Lasting Connections

Short-termer & Language helper

As we mentioned in our last blog, we have a short-termer with us.  This brave young soul has agreed to not only join our team, but spend his two months with us living and eating in a Island home and with a Island family.

The home where our short-termer is staying is about 5 houses down from the place where our Canadian teammates stayed (3 years ago now).  It is wonderful to see, in general, the lasting effects that all of our teammates have had over the years.  Though many of them only stayed for a few years before moving on, none of them have been forgotten by the friends and neighbors with whom they connected and with whom they shared their lives. 

In setting up a language partner for our short-termer, we called up a young guy who had been a good friend to our Canadian teammates.  He was eager to help out our new guy as he had many fond memories of practicing language with our Canadian teammates.  So with only a single phone call from us, he arrived at our house eager to help. It was amazing to me that he had not been with our team for more than a few minutes before he was talking about holy books, fasting, and faith.  We were not bringing up these topics, he was. It was a reminder that our teammates had a lasting impression. 

Our youngest hurts head

Eventually he was helping our short-termer with language. When the language session was over, I decided to send a picture of him to our old Canadian teammates.  Almost immediately I got a call from Canada and these old friends were reconnecting across the world by video chat.  The joy on this young islander’s face was unmistakeable.

A few days later, I was taking our short-termer out for a language walk.  This is a wonderful and awkward experience all new language learners experience.  It involves walking up to complete strangers and using the little bit of broken island language they have learned and watching the reactions of islanders.  As we headed out of the house, we saw three ladies sitting on a bench preparing food for dinner.  One of them looked vaguely familiar, but this was our short-termer’s game, so I was leaving the talking to him.  I noticed, as he struggled to form his first words of greeting, the lady who looked familiar was smiling and nodding like this was to be expected.  When he finished she replied in slow, loud, well-enunciated island speak:

    WEL-COME. MY…NAMMME…IS…TU-LA  !!!  WHAT…IS…YOUR NAMMMME?

Protecting against future injury

You also have to imagine the appropriate gestures that went along with these phrases.  She knew how to speak to a new language learner.  It was like she had done it before.  I smiled as soon as I heard her name.  Of course, Tula!  Tula had been a very good neighbor to our Canadian teammates and had helped them learn quite a bit of language.  It was no surprise that she would fall back into her teacher mode.  After a few more exchanges, I entered into the conversation and we talked about her good friends in Canada and shared their news.  She was delighted. 

One of the things we have tried to share with our short-termer is that though he is only here for a short time, though he will not be able to get to a level of language that will allow him to discuss deep things of the soul, the friendships he makes and the life he lives among them is important.  Most islanders have never met, let alone lived with someone of another country, another language, another faith.  The light that shines is not quickly forgotten. 

Father's Day- breakfast in bed

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammate who has been studying with some seeking women, had one woman ask to pray to accept all she has been learning about. This is very exciting! Pray for her and her family who are also hearing these stories and for our teammate as she continues to meet with them. Our short-termer is doing well. The family he is staying with is very kind and he’s even been taken to a wedding already! Continue to pray for him- he has four more weeks living with the island family. Our kids love homeschool so much that they’ve urged us to start the next school year! So we started today, we are thankful for how our kids are learning and growing. 

We had a good Father's Day and are very thankful for Tom and the wonderful father and husband that he is!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We’ve had some hard discussions over the past week over the difficult situation with some fellow foreigners that we had you pray about, but they went well. Continue to pray as we strive to be mediators of unity and reconciliation between others. Some islanders have speculated that now that the month of fasting is over that the political situation on the islands will heat up again. We’ve heard no concrete rumors of unrest, but we continue to pray for justice and good governance on the islands. Our youngest son hit his head last week and got a good gash. Pray that it heals well and that he can play safely so as not to re-injure it as it heals. Our kids are in the middle of exams at the local school— pray that it would be stress-free and that they would shine brightly among their classmates. Our close neighbor has traveled to Madagascar with her daughter for medical care. This is her first time leaving the islands and she asked us to pray for her. Please pray that they would find good medical advice, that there would be healing and that we could continue to show our love for them during this time. A colleague couple living on the small island have had a hard week. Their motorcycle was stolen and found a few days later on the other side of the island as it was being dismantled. Then their house was broken into as they slept and all their electronics were stolen (phones, computers and kindles). They have a tracking app on one of the devices and so have a general idea of where it is. Pray for the safe recovery of their electronics and for their peace of mind as they recover from the theft.

Welcome to the Islands!

Our short-termer made it in time for the holiday!

We don’t get a lot of outside visitors on Clove Island.  We kind of live at the end of the world.  Over the years, we’ve had a few people on their way to mainland Africa suggest stopping in to visit us (thinking it would be simple), but once they saw the price-tag and amount of travel needed to get to us, they reconsidered. We don’t begrudge their decision. We wish it was easy to get to us.

But because it isn’t easy, we try to be prepared for visitors. We have a document typed up with all sorts of details and logistics for someone trying to travel to us, plus we often have a tentative back-up plan in case of a missed or canceled flight.

This past week we were anticipating our short-termer, coming to the islands for 2 months from the US. He was supposed to arrive on the big island on Saturday morning and would connect same-day to Clove Island. To be safe, we put him on the last flight to Clove island leaving at 4:30pm. It meant he would have to spend most of his day at the airport on the big island but our colleagues arranged for an English-speaking islander to go up to the airport to help him with logistics and to pass the time with him. By sunset on Saturday, he should arrive at our house.

On Friday evening we got word that his flight from mainland Africa had been cancelled. He was put on a later flight, arriving at 2:30pm. Now he would only have 2 hours to make the connection to Clove island (two hours which needed to include passing through immigration and getting his tourist visa). We called the local airline to check, but it looked like he might still make it.

On holiday with our neighbors

Then we found out that the inter-island flight was hoping to leave an hour earlier (at 3:30pm), even though they hadn’t informed anyone. So ultimately our short-termer only landed around 2:45 and was still finalizing his visa when the flight to Clove Island left!

But we had thought of this eventuality! Our island friend just needed to settle him into the hotel right next to the airport…But once they got there, they found out that the hotel had no electricity and no food!

Okay, new plan…our island friend and colleague will help him find a hotel in the capital (plus something to eat), and then they’ll help him to the airport the next morning to get him on stand-by for the first morning flight to Clove Island.

Unfortunately our island friend overslept and so they missed the first flight. All the others were completely full and no one on stand-by got on. Checking at the desk… the next day’s flights had no openings. It was now Sunday, so no offices were open. Would he ever make it to Clove Island?

Finally we were able to secure a reservation for him—on Tuesday—two days away. He was not keen to be alone in a hotel for two days, but housing options were scarce. In the end our colleague arranged for him to sleep on a floor with a bunch of guys from a short-term team passing through.

And so, it was on late Tuesday morning, after 7 days of travel, our short-termer finally arrived on Clove Island! He looked beyond-tired, but he is recovering well.  Travel to the islands—not for the faint of heart!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful that our short-termer made it and that he remained in pretty good spirits. We are thankful for our friends and colleagues on the big island who stepped up to take care of him. We spent the day after his arrival celebrating the biggest holiday of the year! We saw and hopefully blessed many island friends and neighbors on the big holiday! We are thankful for all the islanders that God has brought into our life. Ma Riziki, our old neighbor, burned her arm badly with hot oil. Megan helped take care of the burn with regular cleaning and bandage changes. We’re thankful for how well it is healing and also for the opportunities to pray with Ma Riziki each time. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for our short-termer.  He has been staying with us but last night he moved to his new place, staying with an island family. He has jumped into a world of culture and language that can feel pretty overwhelming.  Pray for his patience, understanding, and ability to communicate, as well as his stamina and strength.  Pray that he would be a blessing and be blessed by the family he is staying with.  With the month of fasting and the big holiday finally passed, we return to more normal life.  That means school and English classes.  Pray for our transitions back to these things.  We hope to start recording portions of a Great Book this week.  Pray that it goes smoothly.  Continue to pray for Megan and our daughter who continue to feel a bit under the weather.  There is a difficult situation with some fellow foreigners here that requires some hard discussions.  Pray for wisdom, patience, and grace for Tom and the group as we face this dilemma.

The New Guy

Island rainbow

Imagine you’re helping out with a youth group and a new kid shows up.  He says he’s just moved to town from another place and shares his beliefs with you openly.  What would you do with him?  Most likely, you’d be rejoicing, inviting him to every event possible, and hoping that he will be a new positive influence and encouragement to the group.  Now what if it turns out that he’s not what he says he is and that actually he is a difficult kid who needs a lot of love and mentoring.  What would you do then?  Most likely you’d be thankful for his interest, invite him to every event possible, and hope that the kids in the group would be a positive influence and encouragement to him.

At this point you might be saying, “So what?”  What’s the point.  But this hypothetical episode reveals a situation of freedom and trust that is not present in other places.  Here on Clove Island, we must be more circumspect.  What is their motivation? Can this person be trusted?

Case in point:  A few months ago we heard through the grapevine that a guy who was living on one of the other islands had moved over to our island.  Our friends over there gave us his number and they gave him our number. They gave a good report of him.  A few weeks later, we talked on the phone once and then we didn’t hear from him again.

Unfortunately this is all too common.  It is difficult to know what motivates someone’s heart, why did they initially befriend a foreign worker.  Do they care about money, learning English, networking with foreigners, gaining wisdom, gaining job opportunities?  Any of these and more could be a reason for befriending us.  And we have learned from long experience now that friendships do not transfer easily.  We also find that islanders may present themselves differently in different places.  They may live a very different lifestyle in a place where they are known as a student versus the place where they are known as the first son of So-and-So. Maybe this guy was a friend of our friend over there, but things may be very different here.  So when he didn’t get in contact again, we thought, “Oh well, I guess nothing is going to come of that connection.”

Preparing for breaking-the-fast feast

But then, after not hearing from him and giving up on him, we suddenly got a call from this guy.  And he wanted to come by and visit.  So just two weeks ago I came to meet Yakub.  So we sat and talked, I liked what I heard.  He told me some of his story—about his life, and his work.  He seemed unassuming and not interested in getting things from me.  He did seem to know a lot of foreigners—which made me wonder.  But at the same time, he didn’t talk about the things they did for him or anything along those lines.  All in all, he seemed like the real deal.  So with prayer and trepidation I invited him to some events.  This is no small thing.  We do these things cautiously and carefully for the good of all involved.  It may seem strange, but it is important in our situation.  Our group is small and one bad apple can ruin the whole bunch. Not just with a bad attitude but with a bad report.  So, in a sense we need to play the role of bouncers even as we play the role of bridges.  The funny thing is, Islanders can smell a rat a lot faster than we can.  We do our best to introduce slowly, but we often see quickly whether it was a good idea or not.  This gets to another important factor—just how inadequate we are to do this job.  Despite our many years of living here, we still lack the understanding of cultural nuance to see things as islanders do.  We simply need wisdom and discernment beyond our own capacity.  Another reason why we pray about these things and hope that we don’t make decisions in our own strength.

The good news is that Yakub seems like the real deal.  He was warmly welcomed by the group.  In fact, one of our brothers is full of joy because Yakub lives near to him.  This brother has been asking for a long time to have another brother nearby for mutual encouragement and growth. He was practically beaming as he talked about how God had answered his prayer by bringing Yakub.  And so we look cautiously and optimistically to the future.  It’s not an easy thing to be both bridge and bouncer, but then again, it’s a problem we’d love to have a lot more often!

Mid-feast

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We had our big breaking the fast meal on Saturday evening. We are very thankful for all the help received from an island sister. There were 21 adults and 17 children! It went well and we had a time of prayer and sharing together afterwards. We are thankful that Yakub has connected well with other islanders here. We are thankful that Elewa’s husband is doing much better. He is out of bed and in much less pain. He came to the feast on Saturday and thanked and blessed us all as “true friends”.  We’re thankful for our teammate and former teammate who both had birthdays this past week. We are blessed with many great co-workers on the islands. 



PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our short-termer was supposed to arrive on Saturday but he still hasn’t made it! Once he got to Africa, the airlines started changing flight times and he missed his connection to Clove Island. We’re thankful to some fellow workers who have been able to take him in, but please pray for him that he would remain in good spirits and arrive well on Tuesday. The biggest holiday of the year will most likely be on Wednesday (though possibly Thursday). It is a day of greeting and blessing all your friends and family (and kids are given candy). Pray that we can use this day to shine light and blessing as we interact with all our friends and connections. The month of fasting was a great month for islanders on our island praying and gathering together. Pray that it would continue! Megan hasn’t been feeling well for the past few days— pray for healing.