Paying Dues

Tom at an event this week

What do you do if you want to build a friendship with someone from a completely different background? Someone with different beliefs, values, and opinions? What if they find your beliefs, values and opinions offensive or wrong?  Or vice versa?

Coming to the islands that is the situation we face. We disagree with island beliefs and culture in many ways and they disagree with ours. Every once and awhile you’ll find an islander that welcomes our thoughts and beliefs without knowing us, but that is rare. Islanders may always welcome our wealth and professional expertise, but they don’t want any differences of beliefs or values.

The islands are almost completely homogeneous in culture and beliefs. They aren’t used to engaging with people that are different from them. And like most peoples and cultures in the world, the assumption is that their way is the best way—their way is the right way of thinking and seeing the world. As such, they can be quick to dismiss foreign ways and ideas as part of a godless package of being a foreigner.

Kids making friends with neighbors

Not that islanders aren’t willing to change and learn in some ways. They embrace new technology easily enough. But islanders have hot-button topics—issues that if you bring up an opposing view you will automatically get a vehement response. Certain debates can kill a friendship before it has even started.  And to make it more problematic, these are not just superficial ideas, these are ideas that islanders feel are very important and basic.  So what do we do? How do we create friendships when so many issues divide us? It’s a simple strategy.  We have to “pay our dues”.

How do we pay our dues?  First, we seek out friendships.  Our human nature is to seek out like-minded people.  But here we actively seek people with differing views.  It seems simple, but being open to friendships with people who are different is not easy.  It’s a big step step in paying our dues.  The second part of the strategy is to build trust and respect. This means holding our tongues sometimes.  It means being patient.  It means letting actions speak louder than words.  There are many things we’d love to share with our island friends but we know they will never be ready to hear our differences if they don’t respect us. We never lie.  If someone asks us directly for our thoughts and ideas, we share them. But we try to focus on the ideas that will build trust and respect. . We want to know and love people. We want them to know and love us.  This takes time—time together, sharing, eating, working and talking.  Only when we have paid our dues will they be able to receive a different idea with listening ears.

So how have we paid our dues? We’ve made friends. We have invested a lot of time and effort into being appreciated and respected in the island community. We’ve learned language. We’ve modified how we dress, eat and live.  We’ve been part of our local community.  We talk about the things we can agree on, for example, the importance of family, the problems of a corrupt government, the need for honesty and trust.  And we’ve waited patiently to speak into areas where we disagree, like marriage, faith, spirits, money, etc.  For years we’ve been doing this.  Paying our dues.  But paying dues has a purpose. It means membership.  And membership means the freedom to speak.

Megan learning about a traditional dance

So this is why Tom could visit his newly married friend and say exactly what he thinks of the broken system of marriages here, where husbands don’t talk about the idea of loving their wives and sacrificing their own desires for that of their spouse.  Or why Megan could say to our neighbor emphatically that we do NOT believe the same thing and that at the core our neighbor has it wrong.  This is why, when we tell someone the story of the 2 Kingdoms and talk about the one way to be free of the darkness in their hearts, they will at least hear us out.  We’ve paid our dues.  We have a right to speak.

It is not our job to change people’s minds.  It is not our duty to convince them of new ideas.  But we have a responsibility to share with them the truth we know.  To do that well, we must have a relationship, we must first pay our dues.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our island brother on Volcano Island who had been rejected by his family a few months ago has seen some softening lately. We thank God and pray for healing in those relationships. Megan’s tummy and our daughter’s allergies both seem to be doing better. There is an app for people on Volcano Island to read the word in their own language. Hundreds of islanders have downloaded it! 



PRAYERS REQUESTED
It is our teammate’s final week on the island before leaving for several months. Pray that she would be able to close up well. We are looking at the future of our team in 2020 (when we hope to welcome new workers). There have been various potential people who could join us— pray with us that the right people would commit to coming and joining in the work. Our boys are going to evaluated by a speech therapist (via video chat) tomorrow morning. Pray that we find a good plan for future improvement of their speech.