Innovation

English club being encouraged to apply!

I spent three hours yesterday filling out an online application. Not for myself, for an island friend. This is not the first time I’ve helped someone fill out this same application.  I did it for someone else just last week, not to mention last year or the year before that or before that.  Every year 2 or 3 lucky islanders are chosen to go to the States for 2 months of study, joining hundreds of other young African leaders from all over the continent. The selection process is very competitive and every year friends and students come by the house asking for help with the long and difficult application. 

We are happy to help.  But that doesn’t mean it is easy. The questions are written by North Americans but the people answering them are islanders— the process gives insights into both cultures.

Take a relatively simple question like, “Talk about a mistake you’ve made and how you learned from it.”  This is a very challenging question for islanders and I have yet to see anyone answer this question correctly without help!

To begin with, islanders don’t talk about their mistakes.  Mistakes are something to be covered up and hidden.  To admit your mistakes and failures is to shame yourself.  So who wants to do that?  Right from the start, they are not inclined to answer this question.

Several of our English Club members are applying

Moreover, there seems to be a general problem, no matter what the question, that islanders do not see the importance of actually trying to answer the question that is asked.  Something I say again and again to the applicants is, “You have not actually answered the question.”  They often stare back at me like I am crazy.  Haven’t they written ten sentences in response to the question?  How can I say they haven’t answered the question?  Isn’t saying something enough?  Not in America it’s not.  We expect people to answer the question that was asked, and failure to do so could be reason to immediately reject the application.  So it is with no pleasure that I find us deleting their answer and starting again. 

Another thing I find myself saying again and again is, “You need to be specific.”  Questions like, “What have you achieved in the past year?” are the sorts of questions that island applicants think they can answer well, but Americans would see their answers as just fluff and not meaningful.  Here’s a sample of what they might say, “In the past year I have achieved many great successes in my life that have allowed me to see great things and have benefited many people in my community.  I have learned many new things that have helped me in my work and now my work is going very well and people are so appreciative of my hard-working excellence in what I do for them.”  To island ears, this sounds like an excellent answer.  It talks of achievement and hard work.  Yet, I know that most of you reading this will say, it’s all a bunch of empty talk .  Once again, I hit the delete button and see my island friends wince. 

But the last, and possibly saddest part of this process, is the overly apparent lack of initiative and innovation I see among islanders.  Again, there is a large cultural bias in play.  Volunteering is not something many islanders do nor are they encouraged to do.  Many times, the part of the application asking about volunteer work is left blank.  What about innovation —starting something new at school or in your community?  This is not only rarely done, but may even be viewed negatively.  Who are they to start doing things differently?  Applications have places to list your rewards and achievements, but Islanders don’t do this.  I don’t know of anyone who has ever received an award or been acknowledged for an achievement.  Americans value new and original ideas.  Islanders generally do not.  So every applicant has the same dream:  to start an English school. But rarely do their dreams look any bigger or different than the English schools that already exist.

Could she be a future innovater?

How do you teach initiative and innovation?  Where does it come from?  By valuing these things so highly in the West, do we underestimate the importance of other things?  Could it be that islanders lack initiative and innovation but have a bounty of networking, interconnection and safety nets?  Or is this lack of ideas a result of poverty and a belief that nothing can change?  Could it be the result of ethnocentrism and isolation?  I don’t know the answer, but it makes me wonder.  Do the islands need a Renaissance?  Could it even happen here?

Sometimes it only takes a spark.  But it will take people with initiative and innovation.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Elewa is back from her travels and is almost done with the treatment for an infection that looks like it was the cause of her pain and troubles. She is already feeling better but will have to wait to see that the pain doesn’t return (which would indicate a different culprit). Ma Imani was able to make it on a plane to travel to Madagascar for medical treatment— it was unclear whether she would have the strength to make it on the plane so we are thankful that she made it. Megan threw out her back this past week and spent a couple days in bed, but is already feeling much better— we are so thankful for a relatively fast recovery (compared to months of pain other times). Our Brazilian doctor friend and former teammate had his exams in mainland France and feels like they went well, also they’ve had news that the hospital on the French island is signing a new contract to have them for another year.



PRAYERS REQUESTED
Continue to pray for Ma Imani that she would find good medical treatment and healing in Madagascar! Pray for Megan’s back—even as we were encouraged that she has been recovering so quickly, it was discouraging that she threw it out in the first place. Pray for wisdom as we consider whether she needs to avoid completely some island-normal activities that bother her back. The two island translators are back from traveling— pray for a good recommencement of their language work. Our country leader and friend is coming for an official visit this week, pray for uneventful travels (the local airlines have been having issues) and a good time connecting with everyone on our island for her. May it be encouraging all around. One of the main guys that Tom studies with has been approached by a teacher of the local faith and asked about his studies with Tom— pray for his interactions with this teacher and that he would come to a clear personal decision of what path he wants to take in the future.  Our older son stayed home from school with a fever for the past two days and our daughter have been having lingering congestion/respiratory problems. Please pray for health.