Island Plumbing

The two who braved the rain for English Club

The rain was pouring down outside.  I was enjoying sitting on the porch and watching the road turn into a river when the phone rang.  It was our teammate.  She had a flooding problem, only it wasn’t from the rain.  A pipe in her bathroom had broken.  Plumbing emergency!  Grab an umbrella, and head out into the pouring rain.  There are pipes to be fixed.  Plumber Tom to the rescue!

I knew virtually nothing about plumbing before coming to Africa.  I got a few valuable lessons from my friend, Tim, but other than that I had limited experience and limited knowledge.  But thanks to poor quality plumbing fixtures, the islands have helped me develop my plumbing skills a great deal.  I’ve replaced faucets, drains, pipes, showers, and toilet systems.  So when my teammate called, I felt confident I could do something about it.

When I arrived water was gushing out onto the floor of the bathroom.  The fixture had broken off, leaving the end of the fixture still screwed into the pipe (thank you cheap, low-quality products!)  So no easy fix there.  The next step, as anyone would tell you, is to turn off the water.  Easier said than done.  Searching around the house we found the valve that should shut water off to the house.  We could only give it a half turn before it stuck fast, and that was certainly not enough to turn off the water.  So the valve is broken.  Could we turn it off somewhere else down the line?  Possibly.  More looking led us to the cistern.  My teammates have a cistern, city water fills the cistern and then the cistern holds water for the house.  Usually there is a valve near the cistern.  Sure enough, there was a valve there—but it too was broken.

Now what!  A broken pipe, not easily fixed, with water gushing out that can’t be turned off.  What would you do? 

Tom's fix-it job

It is here that I am truly thankful that, not only have I had opportunity to do many plumbing jobs here on the islands, but I’ve also had opportunities to watch island plumbers at work, and island plumbers are wonderful for their ingenuity and creativity.  I’ve seen a plumber do a job with nothing more than an old flip-flop.  So, amazingly, I knew what to do!  “Get me a stick and a plastic bag.”  Well, we couldn’t find a stick, but there was about 8 inches of broom handle lying around.  I quickly got to whittling it down to size and then asked for a hammer.  Putting the plastic bag over the end of the whittled piece of wood created a make-shift plug and with a few taps of the hammer, we had stopped the flow of water!  Problem solved!

The plumber came by a few days later and properly replaced all the broken pieces.  He also informed us that the valve by the cistern was not actually broken, but purposely dismantled to discourage water theft.  (I guess I still have a thing or two to learn, but at least now we know how to turn off the water.)

It’s tempting to make a lesson here and connect this experience to other parts of life.  I’m not sure what that lesson is.  Maybe it’s that life is messy—it keeps pouring out, like the water from that broken pipe that you just can’t turn off.  Or maybe it’s something about finding new ways.  Or maybe it’s about using what’s at hand to find a solution.  Take what you want from it.  I’m just happy we stopped the water before it flooded the whole house.

Megan and new friend

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The first half of Megan’s online workshop was very engaging. The internet connection wasn’t great but she was still able to participate and the kids did great with getting ready themselves ready for bed on their own. We were able to visit and connect with an island family who recently had a new baby and whom we haven’t seen in a long time. The final days of consultation meetings for the translation project went well in spite of some illness and internet issues. 



PRAYERS REQUESTED
Three sisters on the big island (which includes Ma Imani) have been dealing with a demonic presence in one of their houses for quite some time now. Earlier this month various members of the extended families were struck by serious illnesses, several being hospitalized. One of the daughters has been manifesting evil spirits. Our colleagues have been praying with members of this family and the father of the girl manifesting agreed for them to come, but is looking to seek help from local religious leaders too. Pray with us for freedom for this family and this girl and for our colleagues and others that are involved in shining light into this dark situation. Tom has been thinking and praying about how to proceed with the men’s group he studies with— especially as we will be gone for several months this year. He is praying about who to connect them with, pray for clarity and that the men in the group would make a strong connection with one of the island brothers. Still waiting on the island proverb calendars— the print shop continues to have machine problems and continues to not prioritize it. We had a few more bouts of illness in our family this past week— pray for a completely healthy week. Pray that the second week of Megan’s workshop would go well and that the technology would cooperate for her to participate.  Our computer screen is dying, pray that we could find alternatives to hold us for the next couple months.

What Makes You Healthy

Nanasi & Megan (a few months ago)

I always know I’m in for a lot of listening practice when Nanasi comes to visit. She loves to talk about her problems and share stories, to the point that it is sometimes hard to get a word in. Sometimes when I do get a word in, I feel like she is just smiling and nodding at the things I say rather than really listening. She likes to pretend that we believe the same things, so rather than recognize our differences she will affirm my beliefs (as if they are hers too) even when I know she doesn’t believe them and even if she has just gotten done saying the exact opposite. It is her way of shutting down a conversation or debate that she doesn’t want to have.

This week was a typical exchange. Any conversation with Nanasi usually includes her cataloguing her health complaints. She is overweight (like many older women here) and has lots of back problems. She’ll tell me all about her pain and what actions aggravate it.

Kids & Megan exercise

This time she told me what the solution is… “I need a man,” she told me.
At first I wasn’t sure the connotations of that phrase, but soon she made it clear in both suggestive and explicit terms what she meant. She is twice-divorced but in order to really be healthy she would need to start having “married relations” again.  Apparently it has all sorts of medical benefits—including relieving back pain.  To prove the veracity of this claim she told me a story about a widow who had all sorts of health problems but who resisted getting remarried. She suffered and suffered—refusing to get remarried because men were not worth the trouble.  One day she finally gave in, found herself a man and voila, healthy! All her aches and pains were gone! 

I didn’t really know how to respond to this story.  I can say with certitude that a desire to improve your health is not a strong enough reason for marriage, but  I focused on reminding her that God is bigger than any health problem and a better healer than any man. (Smiling agreement, nodding, “amen, amen, very true”—not listening.)

Later the conversation took a turn. Nanasi looked at me with a scowl and asked, “What’s happening to you? You’re losing weight.” It was obvious that she didn’t approve.
“When you came back from America [in 2017] you were looking fat, but now look at you,” she sighed, so disappointed in my slimming, a deep scowl still in place. 

Nanasi looked at me expectantly waiting for an explanation for my weight loss. I talked about the fact that in the US everyone cooked for us and took us out to eat, so we ate a lot. This she understood, islanders always feed visiting family well. But then I also admitted that I had been exercising more for the past year and that exercising was helping me get strong and healthy. The disapproving scowl returned, “That is why I don’t like exercise!” she said with some real heat and conviction, “It makes you lose weight!”

Rainy season begins- kids play on wet porch

For once Nanasi was willing to disagree with me! Neither of us convinced the other of the competing merits of weight gain versus weight loss, (nor on methods for reducing back pain).  It was a funny coincidence that Tom and I had just been looking at photos from 2017 that day. We were lamenting the weight that we had put on during our months in the US and hoping that we could avoid the customary US weight gain on our visit this coming year.  We’ll see how it goes…it will be hard to say no to ice cream. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The election day passed without incident. We don’t think many people actually voted as no opposition candidates were running.  Our teammate arrived back safely today to Clove Island. We’re excited to have her back. Tom had a good time of study with his men’s group— they hit on something that resonated with the men and challenged them to change their behavior. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
This is the second week of long-distance consulting for the translation project— pray for stamina, for good internet connection, and productive and clear communication. Megan is going to be participating in a highly-recommended online workshop. The workshop will be live-video conferencing with people in Africa, Europe and America— pray that the internet connection from the islands is fast enough for Megan to participate fully. Since it is connecting people from so many countries it will actually be nighttime for us— pray that Megan can stay awake and that our kids will be okay putting themselves to bed (Tom teaches classes most nights). There has been lots of sickness on the islands right now and it has been effecting our family and many of our friends— pray for healing and good health. Pray for our teammate as she transitions back to island life and reconnects with her island friends. Tom is still working on having the proverb calendars printed for the islands— it has been a long and frustrating process with the local printers. Pray they get printed this week and that they would be a blessing.

Debutante Bride

Mother Bride at first hair-cut event

There are different layers of island culture. There are the things that even the common visitor sees and then the things that you only discover after living here. We keep digging deeper into island culture. Added to this is the fact that island culture (like all cultures) is changing. So even after living here for several years, we continue to have new lessons to learn about the islands.

Often these cultural lessons start with puzzling or confusing experiences, for example… over a year ago I was at an event for a little girl’s first hair-cut. I’ve been to several and generally it is a time for blessing the child and her future (for boys the corresponding ceremony is around circumcision). This event was bigger than I had ever seen before, but the women were gathered and singing in normal, predictable ways. Then all of sudden a bride entered the event. I mean a full-on bride, in her wedding dress and the traditional bride hairdo with all the gold jewelry. Suddenly I was confused. I asked the person next to me, “Who is that?” “That’s the mother of the girl.” Then while everyone insisted that the event was for a little girl, the mother dressed as a bride is the one that had center-stage for most of the evening.

I left that event confused.

Then there was a wedding last month. One of our regulars at English Club invited us to a wedding of someone in her family. A pretty common occurrence. But when I actually went to the wedding event I was surprised to see my friend dressed as a bride!  She wasn’t THE bride. She had entered before the big bridal procession and she sat among the guests, but she was dressed just like the bride and had a mini-procession of her own. It was weird! Imagine going to someone else’s wedding dressed in a bridal gown and carrying a bouquet. Before the official bride’s big entrance, they called up my friend and the emcee presented her with the traditional bridal gift of gold on behalf of her husband. I was confused, was this some kind of double wedding? Her husband wasn’t there and the rest of the wedding proceeded like normal but there she was among the guests as a second-bride.

Megan & Debutante bride (at her cousin's wedding)

Later that week, armed with questions, I went and sat with my neighbors to learn about this phenomenon. What I learned is that a changing or a short-cutting of the cultural rules has begun. Marriage is really important for islanders, we’ve always known that. We’ve also known that there is status in doing the big wedding ceremony. Once you’ve done it, you are bumped up in society. You have more honor, more respect and more priveledges. For women, they kept using the phrase “she’s gone outside (as a bride)”. It struck me as being analogous to the debutante balls of yesteryear where young women fully entered society. An island woman could be quietly married and have several children but until she had “gone out” into society as a bride, she wasn’t fully respected and she hadn’t fully met the cultural expectations for being a full-fledged female member of adult society.

So the traditional way to “go out” is at the climatic event of a big wedding where the bride processes in, dressed in her fancy outfit with all the gold jewelry and the traditional hair style and headdress. These events are big and expensive and public and feature the traditional tari music. 

It is here where the short-cut has developed. People have started debuting as brides in other public events that use tari music. The organizers have to agree, but assuming they are close friends or family, there is the possibility of being a sort of “debutante bride” and checking off that cultural expectation without doing the big wedding yourself!

We’re not sure how it started but the society has accepted it, so it is getting more popular. Since that first hair-cutting ceremony, I have been to 4 more hair cutting events that included debutante brides (most often the mother of the child)! Time will tell if these debutante brides will be second-class citizens compared to the ones that did the full big wedding event, but my neighbors said the important thing is just to do it, to check off the box. Then you can participate fully in all kinds of events in the community and no one can say you’re not worthy of it.

Tom visited village class

As a foreigner I am given a pass to participate in the community without these expectations, but it hasn’t stopped more than one person from asking m when I will be the debutante bride.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Megan’s back has been feeling better and she has been sleeping better.  Our health as a family finally seems to be improving.  We are thankful for good health.  It also helps that it has been a bit cooler this past week.  We are thankful for rain and slightly cooler weather.  We had a good conversation with a potential future teammate.  May that process continue to go well.  Our island brother who was sick with dengue fever is feeling better. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Tom was able to share the story of the 2 Kingdoms with a few people at yet another event for his friend Bako’s wedding.  May it spark questions in their hearts.  Tom has also had some good conversations recently with some of the guys he sees regularly and talks with about the deep truths.  May they choose the Kingdom of Light.  There is an election coming up for mayors, governors and parliament members.  We don’t expect there to be any trouble, but we can use these opportunities to pray for better governance, more transparency and greater justice.  Our teammate gets back from her home assignment a week from today!  Pray for her safe travels and transition back to the islands.

Bako's Wedding

From the small wedding

We go to lots and lots of weddings here.  Weddings are community events and it is an honor to have many people attend.  It is a double honor to have foreign guests at your wedding and despite all our years of life here, we are still considered foreigners and so bestow that double honor when we attend a wedding.  For that reason, we get invited to lots of weddings, and though we rarely know the bride or groom, we are often friends with a brother, sister, mother, cousin or something of the bride or groom, and so to honor our friend, we attend the wedding.  So even though we go to lots of weddings, it is rare that we participate in weddings where we are actually close to the bride or groom. 

So it was special to be a part of our good friend Bako’s wedding.  We’ve known Bako for years.  He is an English teacher and faithful English Club member and a faithful friend, and he was getting married.  So how was it different, being part of Bako’s wedding?  It was different in three ways: ceremonies, responsibilities, and mentoring.

Being close to the family means participating in some ceremonies that I’ve never joined before—like the “little wedding”.  Island wedding ceremonies, as I have known them, are varied, big and community oriented, but this time I was invited to the “little (or secret) wedding”, which consists of only the family and closest friends, coming together to pray and acknowledge the couple as officially married.  After the prayer different individuals are asked to say few words.  Of course, I (Tom), was asked to speak.  So I talked about what marriage is all about:  Marriage is a lot of work,” I said.  “But it is a great blessing.  You must work hard to listen to one another, love one another, sacrifice for one another.  You must work hard at this, but if you do these things, you will find great blessing.” What a privilege that going to this little wedding afforded. It made it possible to express a different view of marriage to a group of people who were actually listening.

After the big men's event

Being close to the groom also meant responsibilities on my part.  I had to have a gift to give him at the big, public ceremony, as well as a small speech prepared, but it also meant giving money toward the wedding itself.  Weddings cost a lot, and so everyone is expected to participate.  Just imagine if it worked this way in the West.  Imagine if it was not just the financial burden for the parents of the bride or groom, but that all the friends and family at the wedding had given to and supported the new couple in the wedding preparation.  It sounds completely strange, and yet, there is something beautiful about it as well.

The third, and best part of being part of Bako’s wedding is the opportunities that have arisen for teaching, mentoring and prayer.  As the stresses of planning a wedding approached, I was getting the inside scoop: the problems of money, the problems with in-laws, the stresses of finding the things needed for a wedding.  And time and again I was able to speak into those situations—sometimes with reminders that a wedding is for a few days, a marriage is for a lifetime.  Sometimes it was prayer, (something I rarely get to do with Bako), but the stress of the wedding made him very open to prayers for health and peace.  Sometimes it was by accident: When Bako came to me to ask for some monetary help for the wedding, I told him what I tell everyone who asks me for money.  (Bako has never asked me for money before.)  I told him I would talk to Megan and let him know, but that I always discuss matters of money with Megan.  Later, when the money had been given, Bako told me, he had never seen or heard of anyone doing anything like that.  That man and wife would share their finances—it struck him as incredible.  And it gave me the opportunity to tell him about the way God meant a man and woman to leave their father and mother and become one—and that includes decisions about money. 

I wish I could say everything about the wedding was so positive, but Bako still walks in darkness.  We’ve known him a long time and he values us greatly, but there is still a disconnect. On the very morning of the wedding, Bako texted me to tell me he was going to the witch doctor.  Some of his in-laws had placed a curse on him and his bride, and he felt he had to go to the witch doctor.  I texted back that Jesus would protect him, not witch doctors, but I was not heeded.  So his wedding day began with a visit to the witch doctor.  What a way to start a marriage! We pray that it isn’t indicative of how it will progress!

At big women's event

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We made it back safely to Clove Island after a nice visit to the French Island. We celebrated Megan’s birthday.  It was the first time in a long time that we weren’t traveling on her birthday and were able to have a proper celebration.  Megan’s back is feeling better.  The kid’s ended up missing a lot less school then we thought from our trip.  The school ended up taking more of a holiday than they originally said they would!  Water and electricity have been good recently.  We are thankful for these things (especially fans in hot weather.) 



PRAYERS REQUESTED
We continue to pray for Bako and his new bride. He let us know that he is bringing her to our house tonight for their first official visit as a married couple. Pray that we can continue to speak into his life and get to know his wife.  We have had a month full of lots of health problems in our family. We seem to be doing better now, but we are also wary that the reprieve will be brief. Pray for a restoration of health all around. Pray for us as we evaluate application materials and make initial contact with someone interested in our team— pray for good discernment and clarity. An island brother is very sick, pray for healing for him and for his wife and young kids.