The Same Story

Angel Gabriel in 2013

Over the years we have created some family Christmas traditions on the islands. Remember, it is our hot, humid season. So instead of Christmas fudge, we have fudgsicles. Instead of bundling up and playing in the snow, we get in our swimsuits and go to a river to cool off. Every year we do a Christmas party with our English club where we explain about Christmas and try to help them understand the religious versus secular significance. On Christmas Day, we usually do a puzzle, and while people do the puzzle, someone reads The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. We make a variety of snacky creations and eat throughout the day. We video chat with people back home. And at some point we read through the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew, acting it out as we go.

Traditions give us things to look forward to and can be comforting sources of stability when so much around us changes. We like that it is the same every year. That’s the point! The downside of traditions is that sometimes they get old. Sometimes we forget why we do them and they lose the significance that they may have carried at the beginning.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a little book about people rediscovering the Christmas story when the main roles of the pageant are taken over by rough kids who don’t know the story at all. In the end everyone ends up seeing the story (that had become old and familiar) with new eyes.

Mary & Joseph from 2015

Our English Club Party has lots of the same components each year. We sing, we have snacks, we play a few games, and we share the Christmas story.  But we try to mix it up and make each year unique. It can be a challenge. Especially the story…how can we come at it in a new way? We worry about the people who have come every year and hear the story each year— how do we help the story impact them anew?

Our Christmas enactment is not a rehearsed or polished pageant. Costumes and props are grabbed and created with what is on hand. The casting is usually done on the spot. But every year we have fun and we engage with the story in a new way. It helps us to remember details that had been lost to us. It’s the same story, but it is different each year and is always a memorable experience. 

We’re thankful that tucked into our traditions are things that force us to look at the same, old story with fresh eyes each year, because it is an amazing story. It may be old and it may be the same each year, but we pray that it never grow tired or stale in our minds.

A people walking in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned… For to us a child is born, unto to us a son is given….

Shepherds visit in 2018

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammate had her stent removed without issue and was able to return to the islands with our other teammate, they arrived on Clove Island on Christmas morning! (They were able to be sheep/shepherd and wisemen for our enactment!) Our island sister on the small island who was being threatened had an island brother stand up for her and talk to the man who was threatening her. Seeing that she wasn’t alone or unprotected, the man pulled back his threats!  Continue to pray for her reception in her village. Our Christmas party Club went well and we had opportunities to share the significance of the story— we pray that it leads to more good conversations and questions. The house that we want to rent has water! The landlord set-up a cistern and pump, so that there is now a working water situation, meaning we’ll sign a contract and hopefully move in mid-January!

Wisemen in 2020

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our teammates’ house was broken into on Christmas Eve and some money was stolen. Thankfully they didn’t find much and thankfully the landlord has already been working on making their backdoor more secure. Please pray for the thieves and that our teammates would feel secure in their home. We know of two island sisters who had gatherings for their extended families for the holiday where they shared the story and good news. Pray for the seeds planted and for their opportunity to follow-up with their families. We have colleagues that have been trying to get off the islands for months to go to Madagascar (where the wife is from and where they need to go to get a passport for their newborn)— pray for supernatural intervention to open up the way! COVID is making a reappearance on the islands— the smallest island is seeing an increase in cases with a steady rise this week. So far we haven’t heard of any new cases on our island, but we continue to pray for God’s mercy on these islands and its inadequate healthcare in the midst of the global pandemic.

Happy New Year Everyone! May 2021 be full of joy!

Braving Something New

Watching the competition

 “I want to do an English competition. I want to gather all the English centers of the islands and have the students compete and get prizes.”

While this might not seem like a shocking idea, it had never been done on our island. It was something new. A competition at a single center wouldn’t be a big deal, but the idea of coordinating with lots of centers  and doing a big scale event was new and to be honest daunting. In our experience islanders like pomp at their big events and it is often hard to get islanders to agree about event logistics even when only one English center is planning. Combine several English centers together and the headache grows.  Add the competition aspect and there were more logistics to agree on with questions about rules and how to make it fair.

It’s not easy to do something new. It takes a certain amount of courage and bravery. You’re doing something untested, so there are risks of failure. But the reward is that you are breaking new ground and could do something great!

The Competition stage

Islanders don’t generally like to do new things. They are more likely to do what everyone else has done. Someone wants to open a shop— they will probably open one that looks exactly like all the other shops on the islands, carrying all the same products that everyone else sells. A woman wants to make some money— she’ll make the same baked goods that everyone makes and sell them from a tub on the road, just like everyone else.

As you walk around the islands, you see a lot of the same repeated again and again.

This doesn’t mean islanders never adopt new practices, but usually they have to see someone else do it successfully first. Once it is successful and accepted, then you can see lots of people doing the same thing (assuming it doesn’t require too much money to do it). For example, as soon as there is some kind of innovation in wedding favors, we often see the same change in lots of weddings.

Ultimately the natural risks of ‘being the first’ combine with island culture (which pushes conformity and shames public failure), so that not many islanders push the envelope and try new things. But there are exceptions, like our friend, Moja.

To be honest, when Moja first came to us with the English competition idea we were skeptical that it would happen. We knew it would take a lot of work and doubted he’d actually have the stamina to see it come about. But he was tenacious, he came to our house almost everyday for a couple weeks pushing the idea. Tom kept giving him suggestions of what he needed to do to make it happen, insisting that we could be advisers but we wouldn’t do the work for him.

Tom, teammate & Moja give out certificates & prizes

It was a lot of work. He created rules. He organized a gathering of all the English center administrators. He compiled lists and photos of students. He met with the mayor. He got permission and a date to use the big hall downtown.  He worked with Tom on competition categories and questions. He got prizes. He printed certificates. He planned a schedule of events. He organized a large lunch for all the participants at the big hotel. He had the hall decorated and chairs put up. He got a sound system and generator with gas. He made it happen.

Now like many “firsts” it wasn’t all smooth sailing. One of the centers from the other side of the island got the dates mixed up and came hours late. Rain poured on the actual day slowing everything down. The electricity was out and though the generator had gas, it ran out of oil and didn’t work. So the English competition that was supposed to be from 2-5pm, ended up being from 6-9pm! Time will tell whether it was successful enough for people to copy it in the future, but we’re proud of Moja. He went out on a limb and made something new happen!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The training for brothers and sisters included long days, but the reports are that it went well and there are great hopes that it will encourage groups to meet on the different islands in enduring ways that will lead to continuing growth. Our teammate will get her stent removed tomorrow and if all looks good, she and our other teammate will make it back to Clove Island on Christmas day! We have been pleasantly surprised with the guardian of the house we hope to rent. The water issues haven’t been solved but he is working on a solution and has shown great initiative to fix other small problems we pointed out (all without us fronting any money or signing a contract yet, which is unheard of in our experience). 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
We pray that more islanders would dare to do new and different things in their country. On Wednesday night, we will have our annual Christmas party with our English club. Pray that the right people would come and understand the significance of the Christmas story. Pray for island brothers and sisters as they consider what to do to mark the upcoming holiday. Pray for two island sisters on the small island. One is planning on having a gathering on Thursday with all her extended family and plans to share the good news openly with them. Pray for open hearts and the right words. The other sister has been bold and has recently been threatened by a man in her village that they would break into her house and force her out. Pray for peace for her and her village and for honest truths to break down walls and misunderstanding. Pray for our team as we celebrate together, fighting homesickness and battling the heat, to make Friday a fun day. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Losing Elevu

Scene at English Club at our house this past week

 A long time ago in 2014 I wrote a blog about a friend named, Elevu.  This is what I said about him,

“He’s a smart kid.  He comes from a poor family and he’s gotten into the premier school of Clove Island and he’s doing well.  Many of the hopes and dreams of his family rest on him.  But he is also a deep thinker and a poet.  Long before meeting me, he seems to have been on a search for truth.”

That is still how I think of him.  An eager, responsible, young man with big dreams and great potential.  Five years ago, he left to study abroad.  I never saw him again but have thought of him often, and the many conversations we had.  One in particular has stuck with me: the day we discussed the story of Hosea.  We had been speaking about the deep love of God—how God’s love can overcome any sin, any shame—how God does not stop loving us no matter what we have done. It seemed natural to study Hosea together.  I remember how affected Elevu was by this story.  It was like he was really believing in God’s great shame-removing love for the first time.  There were tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, and I remember thinking, You are not far from the Kingdom.  Not long after that he left for his studies.

Yesterday morning, a gossipy neighbor came over telling a story of someone who had died abroad.  All of sudden we realized she was talking about Elevu.  The story could not have been worse.  A disagreement with an ex-girlfriend led to her publicly shaming him on facebook.  The shame was so great, Elevu drank rat poison and died a slow and painful death far away from his family and friends.  

At an event in our neighborhood

I didn’t want to believe it.  Elevu! My friend, with whom I had shared the good news, who had been so close to the kingdom—how could this have happened?  

Elevu had a keen sense of honor and shame.  I remembered him talking about the honor of his family and the importance of his sisters being kept pure and marrying well.  He kept high standards for his sisters and himself.

The vast majority of island men studying abroad find themselves a “girlfriend” or even a “wife” while they are away.  It is well understood that they will not keep this woman or care for her beyond their time there.  This is such a frequent occurrence that it is expected of island men to do this, and no one blinks an eye at this indiscretion (no matter how horrible it is in actual practice).  So it is not surprising that Elevu had fallen into this temptation/expectation.  Yet, at the same time, I know he would have hidden it.  He would have known in his heart that it was not upright.  He knew it was not worthy of an honorable man.  Unlike other men, who would have ignored the hurt and pain they caused and brushed it off as a passing phase of their youth, I think it would have stuck with Elevu.  Partially for what he had done, but possibly more deeply because it meant that it was proof that deep down he was less than an honorable man—something he had always strived to be.  He had seen darkness in his own heart and he was ashamed of it.  Then that deeply-felt shame was exposed to the world and it was too much.  Life had taken some dark turns and compounded against him into tragedy.

We went to visit his family yesterday.  It was a somber scene.  Islanders are taught to be stoic in the face of death.  “This is what God wanted” they say, but it was clear their hearts were breaking for this special boy, this good son, this loving brother.  And what hope do they have except that the capricious and far-away awesome God they follow might possibly be merciful.  Words fail them as much as their worldview.  There is no silver-lining to this for them. Only grief.

Lonely plants at our teammates' empty house

But I hold onto hope.  Elevu and I had studied about the kingdom.  He had heard of a hope greater than shame.  Could it be that in his dying moments Elevu remembered the things we had studied? Is it possible he remembered the story of Hosea and the unfathomable love of God who takes our shame on himself so that we might be free?  It had been many years.  Maybe he had forgotten.  Maybe he was lost in shame, but I know that Elevu, at one time in his life, heard good news.  At least I know he had that.  And I can hope that in his last moments, like a thief on a cross, he could call out and say, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  I hope you have found your peace, Elevu.  You were deeply loved and will be deeply missed.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammates made it safely to mainland Africa. Our teammate went under general anesthesia and had a procedure to break apart the kidney stone and place a stent. It went well and her pain level is greatly decreased. Our other teammate made it safely back to the big island, she arrives on Clove Island tomorrow! Ma Imani went to the village she dreamed about and even met a woman from her dream. She hopes to go back and share more!


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for Elevu’s mother especially, she hasn’t been able to sleep or eat since she heard about his death. A training for brothers and sisters is happening right now on our island— hopefully equipping them to reach out to others. It came together very suddenly, but we pray that it would go well and lead to much fruitfulness. Our teammate is waiting to hear how long she has to have the stent in for her kidney stone— she hoped to be back on Clove Island before Christmas, but we’re not sure what the doctor will say. Pray that she would have peace and that both of our teammates could use their time in mainland Africa to be rejuvenated and rested after this time of crisis. Pray for our new prospective house— the water has been turned off for a long time and we said we needed to see water flowing through the pipes before we signed a contract. A week has passed and they haven’t called us to show us that the pipes work and have us sign a contract— it has us worried that they may be hiding a significant water issue. Pray that if this is the right house that we’d be able to find a solution.

Don't Get Sick on Sunday!

It was 1:30am on Sunday morning when we heard the phone ring.  Bleary eyed, we wondered if it was a wrong number, but there was the name and the picture of our teammate.  Something was happening, and it couldn’t be good.

Our boys going back to school

“Hello?” We put the phone on speaker so that both of us could hear.  There was moaning in the background.  
“She’s in terrible pain.  What do you think we should do?”

We have one piece of excellent advice for everyone who comes to serve on the islands that should absolutely be followed:

Don’t get seriously sick or injured.

Unfortunately, we ourselves, and our teammates have trouble following this excellent advice.  We do our best, but sometimes our best is just not good enough.

Getting sick here is complicated.  Medical emergencies are not simple procedures.
Where you might think, “Medical Emergency—Call 911. Call an ambulance. Let’s get to the emergency room.”  We have no 911, no ambulances, and the emergency room—well, we just don’t want to go there if we can help it.  Is there a hospital?  Yes.  Is there an emergency room? Yes.  Would we trust them to carry out basic emergency care in a proper way?  No.  And there is the rub.  What do you do when you don’t trust the medical care close at hand?  You exhaust other avenues first. We are thankful for doctors we can call even at 2am (and they wake up!)  We are thankful for the medical knowledge (having a nurse on the team is wonderful) that is already among us, and we proceed from there.

After consulting our doctor contacts the conclusion was simple:  Get some pain medication and get some tests and scans done.  That’s when the corollary to the first piece of advice came back to us:

If you do get sick or injured, don’t do it on Sunday.

First day of school line-up

Where do you get medicine and scans on Sunday???  Sunday is the island day of rest—and they take it seriously.  Doctors go home to their villages, the hospital virtually shuts down and almost nothing is open.  Thankfully, there is always one pharmacy that is open.  Since we don’t have a car and there are no taxis at 2am, we had to call on another friend to get us to the pharmacy to buy pain medications, but the tests and scans would simply have to wait until the daytime.

At 7am we started trying to reach the doctor.  There are only two doctors on the whole island who can do ultrasounds who also have personal generators (did we mention there is usually no electricity on Sundays).  One was on the other side of the island and the other’s phone wasn’t ringing. Fortunately, we’ve been here long enough to have connections who can get through to a doctor not interested in coming in on his day off.  By 10:30am and with some miraculous provisions, we had the ultrasound.

Thankfully the situation was not life threatening, but our teammate would still have to travel.  The reality is, for anything serious, we have to at least leave Clove Island and probably the islands altogether to receive advanced care.  The good thing is, we have an insurance company that is ready to send a med-evac airplane to get us to a good hospital if necessary. Lest you think this is a Westerner problem, rest assured islanders deal with the exact same issues.  They don’t trust the hospitals here any more than we do.  They have their own form of “med-evac plane”—it’s in the form of a small motor boat to take them to the nearby French island.  The passage is dangerous and expensive, but if you can make it to land, the French medical system will take care of you.  

At ceremony this past weekend

Getting hurt or sick here isn’t easy. So we join with our island friends and neighbors in praying that none of us gets sick or injured. When someone is seriously sick or injured, no one on the island is surprised when that person travels for medical care, but having to travel suddenly isn’t easy. And in case you didn’t know, traveling on a Sunday is even harder. Just another reason why we maintain and still advise, don’t get sick on a Sunday!


PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammate was able to travel to the big island last Monday (not Sunday). We’re thankful for our other teammate who is a nurse and traveled with our sick teammate and has been taking such good care of her. We’re thankful for our leadership on the big island and in mainland Africa for organizing her continuing care. Our boys have restarted local school and while they are still nervous, the first few days have gone well. Please continue to pray for them. We believe we’ve found a new house to rent with the kids’ blessing— we’re just waiting for confirmation that there aren’t water issues at the house and we’ll sign a contract to move mid-January!


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please continue to pray for our hurting teammate. She has a kidney stone that seems to be stuck and is causing her a lot of pain. She’s spent a week on the big island and will travel to mainland Africa tomorrow. Pray for smooth travels tomorrow and that her pain would lessen, and ultimately for full healing! We have two teammates heading to mainland Africa and one teammate coming back to the islands in a week. Pray for our team in this strange time. One of our good friends is coming up on his first wedding anniversary and is already encountering significant marital problems. He is coming to Tom for advice— pray that he would listen to good advice and to the greater truths he needs to accept in order to see real change in his life and marriage. We’re still hoping to see a new island sister connect with another island sister, pray that the connection will happen this week. Ma Imani (who lives on the big island now) had a dream that she went to a village there and shared good news- pray with her as she considers going to this village in response to her dream. Pray for another sister on the small island who was inspired by a dream to share with her extended family— she hoping to have them all over later this month. Pray for more dreams to inspire boldness and sharing from our island brothers and sisters, and us too!

The Sunny Side?

Most people around the world have been pretty down on the year 2020. 2020- the year of COVID, the year that wasn’t, the canceled year,  for many the year of loss, isolation and disappointment. 

Peeling potatoes for Thanksgiving

We’ve shared in our frustrations with this past year, but then comes Thanksgiving! While some may have reasons to complain because their holiday plans were upset this year, in the spirit of Thanksgiving we are called upon to rejoice. 

So on Friday morning as we prepared a Thanksgiving meal (we’re sure it was still Thursday somewhere!), we set our screen saver to all pictures from 2020 and remembered together the sunny side of this year. 

Chicken (not turkey) ready to be prepped

We really had a pretty amazing year, especially considering the circumstances. People ask how our time in the US was and we usually say “strange”. Strange because it wasn’t what we had expected or even hoped for when we planned our time in the US. Strange because COVID restrictions and stay-at-home orders made for weird and new dynamics.  But we look at the photos and can’t help but be overwhelmed by all the cool experiences we were still able to have, the family we were still able to see and the travels we still managed to do safely in the midst of a pandemic. Now the photos never show us what we had hoped to do instead, or the people we didn’t get to see, it only shows us what happened and everyone we did see. Just the shift of focus to what we actually accomplished and skipping the disappointments, made it so easy to rejoice over 2020.  It was a cool year. 

It was a year where

- we welcomed a new teammate

- we watched our kids grow and mature

- we got to travel to the US for over six months

- we got to spend significant time with all our immediate family

- we got to take a road-trip across the US

- we got to go to some national parks

- we got to see some extended family

- we got to eat some new foods

- we ate good ice cream on multiple occasions

- we went on lots of outings, picnics and bike rides as a family

- we saw new islanders make life changing decisions

- we saw old island friends step into new leadership, encouraging and mentoring others

- we had fun adventures on all our kids’ birthdays

- we had close encounters with lots of animals (domestic and wild)

- we saw a lot of friends that we haven’t seen in years

Our Thanksgiving feast

We read that list and it looks like a good year! Sure, it doesn’t talk about the masks and distancing, all the interactions limited to Zoom calls, or any other frustrations, but that’s not the point. The point is remembering the good and being thankful. Something we definitely find ourselves needing to be reminded of and something that is good for our soul. So let us rejoice, let us look back on this year with Thanksgiving. 2020- a year of lots of fun and blessings! 

PRAYERS ANSWERED

We are thankful for 2020. We are thankful for a good Thanksgiving with our teammates enjoying each other and yummy food, and for the chance to video chat with family back in the US. We rejoice in Tom’s opportunity to share extensively with a new islander who showed up at our house asking deep questions. This young man also returned to go with Tom to study with the group of men that Tom studies with and the newcomer seemed to connect well with the group and empowered the ones that Tom has studied with to take the roles of sharer and teacher. Our colleagues were able to make it back to the islands with their newborn! We haven’t heard any updates from our island sister on the small island who was facing opposition, but we’re assuming no news is good news at this point.

PRAYERS REQUESTED

Please pray for our teammate. In the wee hours of Sunday she was awoken by excruciating pain in her torso. We eventually were able to discover that she has a kidney stone. She (accompanied by our other teammate, who is a nurse) went to the big island this afternoon (Monday). Please pray that she can get follow-up care soon on the big island and have a better understanding of the situation and whether she will need to travel to mainland Africa for treatment. Pray for a decrease in her pain which right now is only controlled with IV pain meds. Pray for our sons as they restart local school this week. Local school is a source of some anxiety for both of them, though they do enjoy having friends there. Pray that our younger son in particular will remember French quickly and that both of them would not be anxious but would actually enjoy school. 

For fun here are our kids entries into our Thanksgiving Book (the book where we write everything we are thankful for each year that we started before we had kids).

Our daughter wrote she is “thankful for the lemon meringue pie on my birthday, family, parks, playground, dressing [my baby girl cousin] and [my doll], playing boats and cars with [my little boy cousin], having my hair done by [my aunt], learning piano with Grandma, playing word games with Gram, good food, legos, ‘scare in the night’ and good books. Thank God!”

Our older son said he is “thankful for being able to see family even though there was COVID, taking that really cool road-trip, for the Radical Road-trip games, I especially liked the Grand Canyon and I’m thankful I thought to make a dino field guide and Notebook of Doom. I’m thankful that I am who I am.” 

Our younger son said he is “thankful for all the nice time with family, seeing them longer than we were supposed to, for the dino hunt for my birthday, playing on the slide at Grandma & Grandpa’s, on the swing chair in California, and with [my little boy cousin} and [my baby girl cousin]—she’s so adorable, and for my Voltron.”

Reproducibility

Arriving at one of the exam locations

The taxi bus rattled along, slamming over pot holes that sent us bouncing and knocking like beans in a jar.  It was 8 o’clock in the morning.  We were half way to our destination and we were already late.  We had left at 6:30, but the taxi bus didn’t get going until after 7 but to be fair, they don’t really follow any kind of time table.  They take as long as they take. So as they stopped, taking their time loading a carpenter and his 5 boards of plywood on the roof, there was no use complaining.  I sent a note off to the people at our destination letting them know of our progress.  They didn’t seem upset in the slightest.  We would get there when we got there.

In our line of work, we talk a lot about the importance of reproducibility—that whatever we do needs to be reproducible, so that it can expand, be copied and grow beyond the scope of the original work.  We have been hard pressed to see this work out better than it has with English teaching, and we have learned many lessons from this successful program.  

As we bumped along in the taxi bus, I thought about the place we were going to visit. Two years ago, a teacher whom we had trained and who had been living in the capital returned to his village on the far side of the island.  He started a small English program with the help of some friends and took a number of students up through our three levels of curriculum until their English was proficient.  A year after starting his program, he contacted us about doing a teacher training.  So last year, he organized a bus to bring ten “teachers-in-training” up to the capital twice a week for the teacher training program we were running.  We had a great time getting to know these smart students and teaching them how to teach English.  But at the end of the month we said goodbye and they went off to the other side of the island, with the hope of expanding the program.

In the van between locations

Finally the bus pulled up to our destination, an hour later than we meant to arrive. We were greeted by a host of proud teachers all with smiling faces, excited to see us.  As I looked around at all the familiar faces, I realized that though we had never visited before, we had trained nearly every teacher in the program.  They were so excited to see us there and to show off all they their hard work.

We had not really been in touch with them for nearly 8 months.  We had done nothing else to help this program achieve it’s goals beyond some training. Anything they had achieved was done by them, without our help.

We had three English centers to visit.   The original program having expanded from one village to three.  In each location we were greeted by close to 40 students, all of whom had been studying at various levels.  We were there to help administer exams.  If the teachers have or have not taken to heart and put into practice what they learned in the teacher training, the exams will reveal it.

“How did that last student do?”, a young teacher asked me, trying to hide a grin, with eyes sparkling.  

“She was excellent.  The best student I’ve had today, though they’ve mostly all done well.”  I told her truthfully.

“That’s great.  She is my sister!”  She told me, with obvious pride.  “My two sisters, my uncle, and my cousins are all studying English here.”  It seemed the whole family had caught the English bug.

Despite the two hour bus ride, we had a wonderful time visiting this program.  And as we bumped our way home, I thought about why this program managed to be so successful.  True, there is the great desire to learn English, and our easy-to-use and easy-to-reproduce curriculum that we give away freely.  All that is needed is a classroom and some sort of blackboard. But what else helped a program like this flourish?  Good training was important.  They knew what they had to do, how to do it, and had some valuable practice.  But there’s more to it than that.  We didn’t do it for them.  We left all administration in their hands.  They took responsibility from the beginning.  They collaborated and formed a team of teachers.  We’ve seen it time and again— one teacher on their own is never successful, but by raising up other teachers a program can survive and thrive.  

Relaxing after exams

When we go to monitor and encourage, as we had done this day, it is so encouraging to see our model so successfully reproducing itself.   There’s no way any of us would be taking that long, bumpy road on a regular basis to teach people in those villages. But we didn’t have to- we reproduced ourselves and sent them out to expand the work.

As we look forward to a new team of workers starting on the other side of the island in 2021, we hope that we can again provide the training and equip others to carry on the work in a place too remote for us to reach, but this time it will be a purpose greater than just English teaching.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
 The trip to the other side of the island was a great success and has deepened our acquaintances with many people there that we did not have before.  May it lead to fruit.  We continue to be thankful that COVID doesn't seem to be a huge issue here at the moment. There is no mask-wearing and little testing, but we aren't hearing about people being sick and there aren't suspicious cases at the hospital.  The former worker’s visit went very well and was an encouragement to many.  We were finally given a date for the start of school—next Monday (the 30th)! Islanders are having dreams that are inspiring them to share more openly with their families. Pray that their boldness would lead to changed lives!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
One island sister on the small island had a kids program at her house with singing and teaching. Her village has gotten upset and she is worried about the repercussions, of being questioned or even being arrested. Pray that she would have peace and wisdom and that she would see her needs being provided for no matter what happens. A young sister from our island now finds herself on the big island, pray that she could get connected with other sisters there and grow during this time. Our colleagues who work on the small island are trying to make it back to the islands with their newborn, but flights keep getting changed. Pray that they can make it safely this week. Island school will start next week. Please pray for our boys, especially our youngest. When we left in March, local school was becoming more stressful for him and he has forgotten a lot of French since then. Pray that school would not make him anxious and that he would have a good and patient teacher this year.

Making Decisions

We’re not very decisive people.

Side of the island where health team will start

We have more than one mildly-embarrassing story of us hemming and hawing about a minor decision. Walking through a foreign city, passing restaurants but not being able to decide where to eat until time and hunger forces us to eat at a place neither of us is very excited about. Or spending so much of an evening deciding whether to play a game or watch a movie, that we end up just going to bed having done neither because it has gotten so late. It’s not a trait of which we are proud and in our role as leaders we’ve had to get better at making clear decisions, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still waste time with indecisiveness every now and then.

Obviously not all decisions are weighted equally. It is one thing when we are talking about what movie to watch or what restaurant to order dinner from, it’s another thing if we are talking about big decisions with lasting effects on our lives.

We have several big decisions hanging before us. First, we have to move! Our landlords let us know that they need us out by March. Deciding where to move is a big decision that will impact us greatly! We also have perspective team mates who are interested in joining us on the island. Welcoming the right or wrong people could shape the health and effectiveness of our team for months and years to come. Then there is a proposal brought by some island brothers and sisters for us to do some targeted training to help raise up new leaders and help the work to multiply. The right decisions here could lead to lasting results!

But big decisions aren’t made in isolation. We often have to go through the decision-making process together. We have to navigate different styles of decision-making. Quick, slow, internal, external, intuitive, analytical. People tackle decisions differently and our different styles can lead to conflict, making us groan at the prospect of making decisions in a way that will please everyone involved.

Son playing in empty lot near our current house

But then, where does our faith come into all of this? Who are we actually trying to please? If we believe that God has a plan and has the ability to lead and guide us— how does that play out in group decision-making?

It’s with that question that all the anxiety about decision-making starts to disappear. It’s not on us to make the right decision or risk making the wrong one. We can pray, faithfully pursue different options and watch for His hand providing confirmations, opening doors, bringing peace and/or warning us away. We just need to take the time to listen and watch with open eyes and soft hearts.   

We’ve been reading a challenging book with our team. The author makes an incredible statement, as he talks about focusing on his moment-by-moment concentration on God.  “This concentration upon God is strenuous, but everything else has ceased to be so.  I think more clearly, forget less frequently.  Things which I did with strain before, I now do easily and with no effort whatever.  I worry about nothing, and lose no sleep.”  What a statement.  What a claim.  It puts all these decisions into a new light. He continues “Nothing can go wrong except one thing.  That is that God may slip from my mind if I do not keep on my guard.  If He is there, the universe is with me.  My task is simple and clear.”  

This year's first lychees!

Doesn’t that sound wonderful?  Rather than focusing and obsessing on the decision itself, we focus on God and find that we can face decisions with confidence and peace.  We have seen him do it before, but it is easy for us to forget and grow anxious when a new set of decisions comes our way. May we grow as listeners! May whatever is holding us back from that kind of communion disappear and the answers to all our looming decisions be brought into the light.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We have already seen one house that is a good possibility.  We will keep looking, but it’s nice to know we have options.  Our good island friends had their baby and mother and baby are both healthy.  We are rejoicing at the news of another new sister from the next town over.  This is again the result of islanders bringing other islanders into the family—very exciting.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are getting back into English teaching this week.  Classes starting up, getting the English Club going, and lots of exams and ceremonies in the coming weeks.  Pray for us as we get used to the busyness again. We are excited to start planning some training sessions with our island brothers and sisters.  Pray for the recent new brothers and sisters who are in need of mentoring, learning and growth.  Tom was able to meet up and have a very direct and thoughtful conversation about the kingdom of Light with his old study friends.  It is not clear if they will start studying together yet, but it was a very good conversation.  A former worker is visiting the islands this week.  Pray that his visit would be a great encouragement and spread much light.  Please keep praying for our boys getting ready for local school especially our youngest.  We still don’t know when the school year will start! Our youngest’s French is still very rusty, but we’re making some slow headway. 

There is Joy on the Way

Men watch taxi bus pass

It really shouldn’t have been a very pleasant trip. Taxi bus rides are usually mildly uncomfortable anyways and this time I was in the far back row where the seat back sits at an uncomfortable angle and where the air flow is the most restricted. This taxi bus in particular was packed with people. Plus, I was wearing formal island clothing (which means 3 layers in hot, humid weather), and on top of everything the road was bad, so it was bumpy, slow-going.

It shouldn’t have been a pleasant trip, but it was amazing! I think I had a big smile on my face for most of it.

Instead of a group of strangers, I knew almost everyone on the bus. It was a chartered bus, but we had all been together paying our respects to our mutual island friend and brother who lost his mother a little while ago. We had just come off a wonderful time of sharing and praying together in his mother’s home. Our teammates were there, along with islanders from all three islands. We had heard testimonies and prayer requests and teaching from all three islands, and were leaving the village feeling encouraged by the sense of community. We expected to be separated into various taxis and buses as they came along, when an almost completely empty taxi bus pulled up. So we all piled in!

I’m not sure who started it but soon the bus was filled with singing. It was joyful and life-giving. My good island friend was a few rows ahead of me with her hands alternating between enthusiastic clapping and being raised in the air. Some islanders from different islands were catching on to the lyrics and joining in as the choruses were repeated multiple times. No sooner had one song ended than another began.

Megan & our visiting leader

I wondered what people thought as we passed through several villages on the way back to the capitol. It’s not normal for taxi buses to be filled with singing, unless maybe it’s a radio blaring. Not to mention the lyrics and content of these songs. Given the country we are in, these are songs you might expect to only be sung in the relative privacy of individual homes. But I detected no fear or trepidation, at least not in the island women who were leading the charge. They knew the songs the best and were energized from being together. A few of the men smiled, but a few were quiet—maybe because they didn’t know the group or songs as well or maybe because they were nervous by the boldness and audacity of singing such things in a public taxi with an unknown taxi driver and passenger in tow.

The women handled the “unknown” part in similarly bold fashion. They went around and introduced every single person in the bus, including in most instances their full names and where they lived. They asked the one unknown passenger to introduce himself and asked him to request a song so that we could sing it again. We quickly obliged him in another rendition of “There is Joy on the Way of Our Father” with loud exuberance. Then the women asked one of the men in the bus to say a prayer of blessing over the unknown passenger before he left the bus.

I couldn’t help wondering what the passenger and driver were thinking. Were they shocked? Were they intrigued? Would they tell others about this experience? When the taxi bus pulled over to pick us up, I don’t think the driver and passenger knew what they were getting themselves into. We were all dressed in classic island style, but this was not your typical group of islanders catching a taxi bus. We could have sat quietly and kept to ourselves, but I couldn’t have been happier with the freedom and boldness on display. There is joy on the way of our Father!

Tom & kids back in island karate

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are very thankful for this bus trip and the gathering that preceded it— it was an encouraging glimpse of island community. We have welcomed our islands-wide leader as well as a potential teammate to our island. We are enjoying their visits very much so far. Things are coming together for us to reopen our English library and restart our English club. Our teammate currently in the US has her tickets to rejoin us in December!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
A former worker was planning on visiting the islands, only to have someone in his household get COVID, meaning he’ll have to delay his trip by at least 2 weeks. Pray for all the logistics of having to change all his tickets and plans. Our potential teammate will be here for another week— pray for clear discernment about where she should serve in the future. Continue to pray for a good new house for us and in the meantime for a new front door for our current house! Pray for our boys as we try to prepare them for their return to island school at the end of the month— their French is rusty! Our good island friend’s wife started going into premature labor last night. She has been given medicine and put on bed rest. Pray for her and the baby and ultimately for a safe delivery of a heathy baby (this is their first) and also pray for our team that we would be able to show love to them at this time.

Study in America

Another hopeful group of English students

A text message came to us while we were still in the US:  

“Teacher, I passed the BAC with mention!”

We were super excited.  Himu is one of our favorites.  (We know, teachers aren’t supposed to have favorites, but what can you do.)  We’ve known Himu for years.  We’ve seen him grow up.  He was a kid when he first started studying English and we’ve seen him shoot up both in height, maturity and English.  We’ve had a role to play with his family.  When it seemed like Himu was getting involved with the wrong crowd, Himu’s father asked Tom to talk to him.  Himu has been a regular at our English club, and someone we’ve enjoyed immensely.  For him to pass the BAC—the big exam that allows islanders go on to university—and to pass “with mention” — the island way to say “with honors”—is a big deal.  It means doors opening for Himu.  It means opportunities to study—most likely abroad.  It means great possibilities for his future, and we were excited for him.  So we weren’t surprised to hear from him a short time later.

“Teacher, I’m traveling to France for University.”

We rejoiced with him and wished him many blessings, noting, with a bit of sadness, that we might not see him again for many years.  Then when we arrived back in the Islands I got a phone call.  

“Teacher, it’s me, Himu.  I’m at the French Embassy and they won’t give me the visa.  Only people with connections can get the visa.  Can you help me?”

No distancing here!

We talked about it for a little while.  I still don’t really understand why he was having trouble getting the visa.  He had been accepted to a university, given a scholarship to study in France.  Why should it be difficult to get the visa?  I suspect that COVID has something to do with it, but I can’t be sure.  It could also be a matter of corruption.  Whether the former or the latter, his question was a valid one—Could I help?  In the islands, many things happen because of relationships, not because of merit or fairness. We are people with connections, and Himu reached out to me for help.  Unfortunately, our connections are not French connections.  We asked around, but we just don’t know anybody with connections to the French Embassy.  A few days later I got another message from Himu:

“Hello Teacher, I need to ask you a small important question.  As I did not get the French Visa, can I get a scholarship to go to the Untied States?  I got my BAC with mention!!!  If yes, how do I do it??  Thanks.”

What can we say to our student and friend?  How realistic is it for him to study in America?  He is a young man, from a relatively poor family, from a poor African country.  Even the process of applying is expensive.  But he is smart, maybe he could make it work.  So I wrote to him:

“Himu, there is no easy answer to your question.  To go to a university in America you must first pass the TOEFL exam.  Then you must apply to a university and for a scholarship.  All of these processes cost money.  Finally you must be accepted both by a university and for a scholarship and find the money to travel to America.  So it is possible, but it is not easy.”

Over the years, we‘ve had a great many students ask us these same questions.  Most of the time these discussions do not go anywhere.  The students don’t really think they could go to America.  It is an unrealistic dream, an unsurmountable mountain—they don’t really plan to climb the mountain, they just want to know how high it goes.  But could Himu be the rare one ready and able to climb the mountain?  We admit to be sadly skeptical, but we will have to wait and see. 

Our son's lego armada

PRAYERS ANSWERED
 Our island brother’s mother passed away this week.  We were able to go to the funeral and share with him our condolences.  Another group of brothers and sisters will go to visit this week.  We are thankful for the community that exists and that our brother does not need to face difficulties alone.  The potential teammate has bought her tickets and should arrive at the end of this week.  We continue to see people and reconnect with many of our acquaintances.  We are blessed to be loved and appreciated by so many here. We are also so excited to learn just today of two new island women becoming sisters!


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Many of our requests are the same as last week.  As the potential teammate and our island leader will be traveling to visit us this week, we are hopeful that their travels will go smoothly.  We continue to figure out our new routines and are getting ready to start our English club & English library again.  Our front door is being repaired which means people can only come to visit us via our backdoor.  It would be better and more convenient if the front door were fixed, but the landlord is waiting for a specially made door. Please pray that this could happen soon.  We also still need to find a new place to live.  Pray that word would get out that we are looking and that we would find a new home without trouble.    

Coronabusiness?

Island-made masks!

“There’s no coronavirus here! No coronavirus!” Our friend emphatically proclaimed this again and again. He had rejected our attempts to greet him by bumping elbows or fists (the customary handshake alternative in the age of COVID). Instead he forcibly took our hands and rubbed his palms repeatedly against ours, laughing good-naturedly and repeating, “No, no, no. There’s no coronavirus here!”

While no other islander has forced physical contact on us quite like that, we have been repeatedly assured that there is no coronavirus here on the islands. Some acknowledge that it was here but that it isn’t here anymore. (And there is some truth in that. For a week or two, there have no longer been anyone with COVID symptoms in the hospital on our island.)

Others talk about how bad coronavirus was outside the islands but that here all they had was a strange dengue season. Dengue fever comes in outbreaks every couple of years on the islands and this year the dengue was particularly hard and for many came with a cough (!), which islanders admit is not a symptom they usually have with dengue. (In reality COVID hit on the heels of a dengue outbreak, so there was legitimate confusion initially about what was dengue and what was COVID.)

Others truly believe that there never was any coronavirus on the islands, they say that the only thing they’ve had on the islands is “coronabusiness”! Over and over, we’ve had islanders complain about coronabusiness— or the exploitation of the global pandemic for money. They say that the government tries to maintain the idea that there is COVID on the islands so that they will continue to receive foreign aid to fight it. They claim that the island government continues to have measures like masks and limited gatherings on the books just to get more money.

Island beaches were closed for awhile for COVID

“Coronabusiness” is also seen in the fact that masks and PPE that were donated by foreign countries are now being sold in the market to line island pockets. It’s in a bunch of people being arrested for not wearing masks only to be driven to a building site and forced to work as free labor for the day. Coronabusiness is also the fact that large gatherings are not allowed (ostensibly to prevent the spread of disease), but you can go to town hall and pay a “fee” in order to have your large gathering with the promise that the police will not come and break it up.

Those who complain about coronabusiness are also quick to blame the coronavirus measures as really the manipulations of the current president to stay in power. The breaking up of gatherings with police raids, tear gas and arrests. The curfews. The fines. The travel restrictions. In all these things they see a president who is just trying to keep the people down who don’t want him in power. On the islands, we’re entering a contentious year politically and coronavirus/coronabusiness has only stoked the discontented murmurings that were already there that the government is not working for the good of the people.  

People back home are curious about how coronavirus has impacted the islands. We don’t claim to know the whole truth. We do know that COVID has not hit the islands as hard as we feared. Maybe it’s because it’s a young population. Maybe it’s because it is so densely populated that they reached herd immunity really fast. Or maybe it’s because the islands is an outdoor culture where most gathering and socializing happens outside where breezes dissipate disease. Whatever the reasons, we see it as a clear answer to our fervent prayers.

Tom- the birthday boy!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We got our bags! They finally arrived on Clove Island on Wednesday and we were able to claim them on Thursday morning. We’re very grateful to a few friends that work in shipping who went out of their way to get them to us! We were able to have 1-on-1 meetings with each of our teammates and a potential teammate this past week, as well as colleagues and island friends and associates. It was good to reconnect and to see a plan for the coming months take shape. Tom celebrated a birthday— we thank God for him, for the good husband, father, team leader and friend that he is.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
The mother of an island brother and friend is gravely ill. She is in a coma. We assume that she is dying but don’t know all the details. Please pray for our friend and his family, that he could be a light to all of them and they would know peace at this difficult time. The potential team member is trying to arrange a site visit in November— pray for all the logistics as traveling is more difficult these days. Pray for clarity and confirmation as she considers joining us in the new year. We’ve decided that we’ll stay in our current house through Christmas at least, while at the same time casually start looking for a new place. Pray that God would direct us to the right place and that our kids could even be excited about the move. Pray for our teammate who is currently in the States as she considers her future steps and timeline, including rejoining us on the islands in the near future and beyond. Pray for us as we look at what our new schedule and routines will be now that we are back, that we’d make good decisions and commit to the right things.

Home Sweet Home?

On tarmac on big island

We clamor down the steps from the airplane, leaving it’s air-conditioned interior, to step out onto the hot runway tarmac.  The humidity welcomes us, surrounding and enveloping us in a thick, moist hug.  Our oldest daughter turns with a look of mellow contentment and comments, “This feels so good.  I just love this climate.”

As we walk nearly the length of the runway (there are no buses to pick us up), the airplane engines’ deafening roar making it hard to hear but our youngest son is skipping along, dragging his carry-on bag and saying, “This is awesome!  This is awesome!  This is awesome!”
We trundle down the road in the back of an island taxi, dodging potholes, windows down to allow in some airflow from the tropical humidity.  Our middle child is thoughtful.  He looks out the window and remarks, “It’s like America is this land of excitement, but the Islands feel like home.”

A lot of people were asking our kids as we got ready to leave, “Are you excited to go back to the islands?  What are you looking forward to?”  By and large, each of them didn’t rise to this question.  The younger ones would shrug their shoulders and refuse to answer.  The oldest one, knowing enough to know that people expect a response, usually replied about missing the food, but it sounded more like a “satisfactory answer” than a heart-felt response.

We can relate.  The way we feel about a place is complicated.  I think everyone can relate to it to some extent.  When you get back from a vacation, have you ever felt that same melancholy?  That feeling of, “This boring, old place.”  But when you put your bags down and settle into your favorite chair, you can’t help feel some relief, too.  You’re “home”.  After ten years on the islands we know those feelings too.  Only, we feel them both ways or with more confusion.  What is America for us?  For our kids?  Is it home?  Is it vacation?  Is it something different all together?  Based on the amount of time spent in one place the islands are certainly home, but our trips to the US, though infrequent are long—six months.  Plus there are all the natural connections with America- family, heritage, culture.  Despite our and our children’s friendships with islanders, despite our knowledge of language and culture, we can usually still navigate our way through most of America with greater ease than on the Islands.  On the other hand, we have lived lives that look so different for so long, we don’t always “get it” in America either.  So what is home?  Where is home? 

There are probably a million blog posts, articles, and books on this very subject. We may just be adding one more, but there is a reason for so much attention to this subject.  It can be difficult to experience. There’s a tension—like we are constantly pulled in two directions.  It is hard enough to know this tension as an adult but, it is harder still to see it in our children.  Everyday we make choices that effect our children. We decided to first live in Africa before we had any children, but we knew it was a decision that would shape the futures of whatever children we had. 

 

Greeted at the airport on Clove Island

We do not regret it.  There is always tension in life.  We cannot protect our children from everything.  Home may be a hard place to pinpoint, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  We can be at home in America or at home on the islands.  We are drawn to and from both our homes.  As our children grow up and make their own ways in the world, they may find yet new locations to call home.  We hope the tensions they feel now will make such future tension a little easier to handle.  We can’t be sure, but we hope so.  

The longer we live on the islands, the longer we feel our own impermanence—like we are travelers and we will always be travelers.  And yet, we still have places where, when we arrive, we find ourselves saying to ourselves, “This feels so good.  I love it here.  This is awesome.  This feels like home.”  

Back to their rain-time fun at home on Clove

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We made it all the way back to Clove Island! A colleague waited at the hospital in mainland Africa for 2+ hours for our COVID results, but we had them all for our flight to the islands! We are thankful for our old teammates and friends (including Ma Imani) on the big island that we got to see on our way through. We’re thankful for a uneventful flight to Clove Island. We’re thankful for all the island friends and neighbors we’ve been able to reconnect in the past few days. We’re thankful that we’ve adjusted back to the time zone and sleeping well again.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Most of our luggage is supposed to come to Clove Island by boat, but apparently we chose a boat captain that didn’t have his act together, so we don’t have our bags yet. A friend is intervening on our behalf to get the bags on a different boat and we hope to have them on Wednesday! This week is about reconnecting— we have meetings scheduled to sit individually with all our teammates and a potential teammate. Pray that we’d have good times learning where everyone is at and have a clear sense of how we should move forward in the coming months as a team. Pray for us and our kids as we reconnect with islanders and that we would have opportunities to share truth and light this week. As we move back into our house, we’ve been given the news that we’ll have to move out by the spring so they can use the house for a wedding— pray for us as consider whether to look for a new house right away or stay in this house for as long as we can.