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.