Marking the Years

Ready to watch a streamed gathering on Sunday

On the islands we have often noticed that some islanders are totally oblivious to dates. This is partially because the major events of their year aren’t based on our solar calendar. This means they might not know that it is the 29th nor that we are in the month of June, but they may still know how many days it has been since the new moon or what lunar month it is. This lack of (or perhaps different) awareness of time passing extends also to the counting of years.

It is most striking when we ask older islanders for ages— their ages, the ages of their children, the ages of their parents. I don’t know why I even ask sometimes because the ages they give can be so clearly wrong that my guess would have been better.  We’re told a toddler is almost 4 years old, or a boy’s grandma tells us he’s six when he towers over our 7 year old.  They always attempt an answer but often it is clear that someone’s actual age is of very little importance.

Other markers often take precedent over age.  For example, they talk about how far along someone is in school, whether they are married, if they have grandkids. The exact ages aren’t that important.  For islanders, these life stages tell us a great deal more about a person than a number.  Often a number is given to indicate which life stage someone is in.   I remember when I figured out that someone being “100 years old” was more a code for being “really old” than an accurate age description.  It didn’t matter that on their papers the person was listed as 75, they will stand by their estimate—“100 years old!”

Distanced Reconnecting with old friends

Ages tend to be flexible and relative. If a scholarship is only available to people under 30, suddenly our friend is still in his 20’s.  If everyone else in your class is 16, well then you’re 16 again too! If there are discounts for children under 2 years, you can bet you’ll have some 2 year olds who look very big for their age.  Islanders seem to have few qualms about manipulating dates and years to their purposes, but for them it is more about function. Who cares how many years I’ve been alive? I want that scholarship or I don’t want people to know I repeated grades or I’m willing to travel with my kid on my lap.  After all they might not even know the right answer so why is being exact important?

On a similar note, I know better than to ask a group of islanders what year something happened. You can get as many answers as there are islanders to that kind of question. Your only chance being if the islanders in question can agree that it was the same year as the World Cup or something else with a verifiable date.

Generally I would give a good-natured eye roll at the year guessing done by islanders, but being back in the States, I am feeling a little humbled about my own awareness of the years. I may know how old my kids are, but I have my society’s practices of celebrating each birthday and repeating their ages with every introduction to help me remember. But I can’t tell you how many times I have been way off in the past few months when I’ve tried to estimate the number of years that have passed.

“You guys are like newlyweds, right?”    Actually we’ve been married for three years.
“We last saw you four years ago?”     No, it’s been over 10 years!
“He must have started college by now.”   He already finished medical school and started his residency.

Kids trying for distanced play

It turns out our gut feelings about time passed is not much more accurate than our island friends. Given time and concentrated thought, our accuracy improves, but it just goes to show that we can be just as oblivious to time passing as islanders. And maybe this is a sign of how the islands have impacted us, but most of the time it doesn’t seem like the exact number is that important anyways.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our conversation with our new teammate’s elders went well! Thank God for technology! We got to meet with several of Megan’s old school friends and their kids. What a blessing to connect after several years apart (even if it had to be with distancing measures). Tom’s island friend has continued the conversation and even brought someone else to join the dialogue. We keep praying.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Megan’s brother drives up on Wednesday to join our household. Pray for his safe travels and for our transition to a household of 8! Our colleagues and friends on the French Island have been meeting with a group of expats and want to be intentional about the group’s vision and direction. Pray for unity and clarity as they move forward and for some individuals who are resistant to their focus. We have the opportunity to speak this Sunday to a group here in CA- pray that we would speak well and be a light to others. We’re encouraging our teammates on the islands to get to know our new teammates— pray for these beginning relationships on our team that they would have good and strong foundations.  Our teammates are still trying to maintain some distancing measures, but some schools are reopening on July 1st and many islanders only carry face masks to avoid fines, but really use them. Continue to pray for them.

Facing the Unpleasant Truth

Enjoying the CA heat!

How do you do when you face an unpleasant truth?  We’ve been reading the book “Holes” with our older son.  In the book, Stanley, the protagonist, has a number of times when he justifies to himself his less than righteous actions. “I need to let my friend dig my hole for me so that I can have strength later on to teach him to read.” Stanley tells himself.  It seems so innocent and logical.  But later, after a number of bad consequences come from this decision we see Stanley come face to face with the unpleasant truth—he was being lazy.  It’s not easy to hear, and yet we root for Stanley because, he has realized an unpleasant truth and now he can make a change.  He can do what’s better and what’s right.

How do you do when it comes to facing an unpleasant truth?  The reality is most of us, like Stanley, don’t do very well with it.  We tend to hide, equivocate, defend or deny.  Basically, we do anything we can to reject it.  We don’t like unpleasant truths.  And yet, time and time again, it is only when we come face to face with these things that we have any change; any real growth.  It’s as if the unpleasant truth is a chain that holds us fast.  We cannot move on, we cannot get beyond it, until the chain is removed.  Sometimes it’s more like a thorn, deep in the sole of the foot.  We make such slow progress, and each step is painful.  Each step drives that thorn in further.  If only we could remove the thorn, be healed and walk normally.

In the past few weeks here in the US we have been brought face to face with a most unpleasant truth.  Racial injustice is still a major problem in our country.  Many of us who were inclined to hide, equivocate, deny or defend actions, seem unable to in light of recent events.  We cannot say it’s a problem of the past.  We cannot deny that these things happen.  We cannot even claim ignorance.  We are faced with a most unpleasant truth.  We see the chain that binds our country.  We feel the thorn in the sole.  What will we do?  Will we reject this most unpleasant truth?  Or will this be a moment when we face it and make a change?

This same sort of scenario is playing out with an island friend of mine over social media.  We have had a long, ongoing debate over the truth and trustworthiness of our two faiths.  My friend has many negative things to say about our faith, but he has never read our books.  The truth there is too unpleasant to him.  He refuses to read it.  Rather than examine the evidence, he chooses to hide, deny and reject.  Now our discussion has taken a new tack.  Just last week he asked me if I could give him even one example of something bad the leader of his faith had ever done.  I was faced with a hard question.  Is this the time to introduce my friend to an unpleasant truth?

Normally we avoid talking about some of these unpleasant truths.  If you want to make friends with someone, you don’t start out by telling them their hero is a villain.  The friendship will be dead before it starts.  But true friendship can handle unpleasant truths.  As it says in Proverbs, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted.”  So with much prayer and research to make sure my points were based on sound evidence, I gave my friend a long list of unpleasant truths about his hero.  I can only wait and see what will happen now.  I can’t help but think that in the same way I have presented my friend with a number of unpleasant truths about his hero, we as Americans have been presented, in the forms of videos footage and protests, with a number of unpleasant truths about our country.  We wait to see what will happen now.

Father's Day breakfast

When we talk about our faith on the islands we often talk of the Kingdom of Light.  It is more than a poetic way of talking about it.  Unpleasant truths are always hidden, but nothing can be hidden in the light.  Unpleasant truths are like chains that hold us back and the keyhole is hidden in the darkness.  They are like a thorn in the foot that hobbles our stride, but no one can see the thorn to take it out.  The shame of that chain, or the gruesomeness of that thorn feel like more than we can bear.  But what relief, what joy, what possibility, to be freed from the chain, to have the thorn removed.  We are set free.  If we only had the ability to see, then we would desire these things removed.  We would shout out for help, “Set me free from my chains!  Here is the keyhole.  Remove this thorn!  There it is, right there.”  But for that we need light.  How wonderful that in the Kingdom of Light, the unpleasant truths are exposed, the chains can be unlocked, and the thorns can be removed.  But we always have a choice.  Will we move into the light or hide in the darkness?  This is one of those times for my island friend.  This is one of those times for us as a nation.  Let him, let us, step into the light.  Make us free.  Make us whole. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our computer was returned to us completely fixed at no charge! What an unexpected blessing when we were anticipating a hefty fee! We had a few chances to reconnect with people this week (both on the islands and in CA) and already have a new number of Zoom meetings this week. We continue to be thankful for the technology that makes these connections possible. We thank God for Tom in honor of Father’s Day and for the wonderful father he is.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for our island friend and Tom’s continuing dialogue with him, as well as others on similar journeys. We have the opportunity to talk with the elders of a new teammate this week— pray for good communication as we begin that relationship, that it would lead to more people being invested in the work on the islands and for our new teammate to get the support that she will need. We’ve heard that life for many islanders have started to return to normal. Pray for our colleague that is working on a plan for leadership development as he tries to connect and collaborate with different groups.  As we pray for new teammates we also pray for teammates for two new teams hoping to start on the islands (one with a business focus and hoping for teammates from mainland Africa and the other a medical team on Clove Island).

Hopes for the Future Generation

Our daughter at beginning of school (can you find her?)

We have big hopes for change on the islands. The problems there might be big and very apparent, but we know there is a power for good that is bigger and more powerful. Change is possible! This is a sentiment which islanders are often skeptical of, and it is easy, even for us, to put our hope in some unseen future date and give up on the here and now, to give up on the older generation and look to the next generation to bring about change. We fight against that temptation to give up on the here and now, and remind ourselves to pray for and share with older islanders as well as young. At the same time, we acknowledge that the perspective of younger islanders is different.  They have been exposed to more outside ideas and culture, and don’t hold the same prejudices and baggage. [Not that they don’t have their own prejudices and baggage, but it’s different than the older generations.] 

The temptation to give up on or ignore the old and put our hope in the new can be the same for any sort of change.  As moves for racial justice are spreading across the US and internationally, I have wondered and been hopeful for what life will be like a generation from now.  I have hope that the movements happening now will have made an impact. Kids are watching and learning alongside their parents. They won’t have the same baggage nor the same resistance to change. 

I’ve wondered what our kids make of it all.  Our kids are not typical American kids. They have grown up in Africa. They have grown up as racial minorities. On the islands, they are the only white kids in their school and the only white kids in our neighborhood. On our entire island, we can count the other white kids on one hand.  At the same time, they are not an oppressed minority. They are a minority associated with wealth and higher education. They don’t always enjoy the attention they get as the only white kids, but mostly the attention isn’t meant negatively. Growing up on the islands, our kids’ sense of race is also tied up with culture, language and religion in a complicated jumble. Just as they are the only white kids at school, they are the only English-speakers, the only Christians, the only Americans.  How is this unique childhood influencing their experience of race?

Our youngest with his classmates

At school being different can be overwhelming, because there is so much that separates them from the other kids (language, culture and religion). Those things create such a barrier that race doesn’t seem that important. Their whiteness means that kids want to touch their hair or poke at their skin sometimes (island kids don’t understand freckles or sunburns).  But language and culture are the bigger barriers. I have seen how comfortable our kids have been when we’ve gone to places where the kids have believing parents or when we’ve gone to mainland Africa where kids speak English. In those situations, it hasn’t seemed to matter whether the kids were African, Asian, American or European— there was enough in common to make interactions seem easy. 

Sometimes we’ve had to correct islanders who assume all white people are one religion or have the same culture, and we’ve had to correct our kids sometimes too. I remember when our youngest was very little and we realized that he thought we knew all white people. We lived on an island where the only white people we saw were our teammates. On the rare occasion when we encountered a white person outside our team we usually could at least tell him something about them— that they worked for an NGO or the UN or something. So when we went to a big city in mainland Africa and he started asking me, “Who’s that?” whenever he saw a white person, it was with the full expectation that I knew them and could tell him who they were.  I had to explain that there were lots of white people in the world and we didn’t know them all, and also they weren’t all our friends or even necessarily friendly people. (We had gone through a similarly clarifying conversation on the islands about English-speakers, after our son bear-hugged a random black guy who came to our front door speaking English. He assumed anyone who spoke English was our friend!) 

Ultimately we are thankful that our kids are growing up in Africa, that they have learned to make friends with kids of a different race and culture. We are also thankful that we are in the US right now and that our kids can witness some of the struggle and dialogue about racial justice. We know they will have baggage and that even as they see the prejudices of others that they may develop some of their own, but we have hope. At the same time, we aren’t giving up on seeing change and justice in our generation. May we all continue to learn to cross barriers and be challenged by what is happening now and speaking words for truth and justice throughout our lives.

Picnic lunch in CA

PRAYERS ANSWERED

We are adjusting well to California and excited to start connecting this week with our California friends and contacts.  We are also really thankful to see that Megan’s dad’s knee is feeling so much better.  There was a meeting for reconciliation among the brothers and sisters on Clove island that went well.  A follow up meeting also went on and we’re still waiting to hear how it went, but we’re thankful that these meetings are happening and that people are seeking reconciliation and healing.

PRAYERS REQUESTED

There was a meeting about leadership development on the islands this morning. Pray for good wisdom about how to support and equip emerging leaders well and how to partner with other groups that have similar or overlapping visions. We are still praying for more teammates to join us— pray for those preparing to come in these uncertain times and for those that we don’t know about yet that are supposed to come. Our son’s test results weren’t conclusive but the doctor told us to go ahead and treat him. Pray that when we redo his bloodwork later that everything will be normal.  Our computer screen is malfunctioning and we just took it in for repairs and waiting to see how much it will cost. Pray that it could be fixed quickly and that we could do everything we need to do on our tablet (this post took longer than normal to do!). Continue to pray for the islands, for justice, for community in the midst of COVID and for truth to spread!

Going Viral

Image from our Eid greeting

Every year when the big island holiday called Eid comes around we make sure to wish all our friends a great Eid.  Some we visit in person, but mostly we send out text messages- hundreds of them.  It’s a small but important thing to do.  In Island culture there is a great value put in maintaining relationships.  Maintaining a relationship does not cost much.  It simply means making contact on a regular basis to keep the relationship going.  You do not need to be good friends with the person to do this.  You don’t even have to have anything to talk about.  The important thing is maintaining a connection.  Over the years we’ve gotten used to visits to our home that last five minutes, text messages that just say “Hi”, phone conversations that consist of, “Hi...How are you?...Okay, Bye.” And even people calling and hanging up, just so we can see that we received a call from so and so.  All of these, to a lesser or greater degree, are examples of relationship maintenance. 

There is some nuance to relationship maintenance.  The fact of the matter is there is a lot of hierarchy in relationships.  Everyone instinctively knows their level compared with everyone else, which is important since there is an unspoken expectation of respect that is to be given to someone of a higher level.  In relationship maintenance, it is the job of the lower leveled person to keep the relationship fresh.  Thus, there is no expectation for a higher leveled person to do any relationship maintenance. 

We, as foreigners and teachers, are placed on a pretty high level in this hierarchy.  (Often we don’t feel like we deserve to be put on this level and do not strive for it, but at the same time can’t do much to change it). So, at Eid, when we send out our “Happy Eid” messages, we are both doing relationship maintenance and surprising people with our willingness to take on the “job” of the lower leveled person by initiating the contact. And every year, the response we get is one of overwhelming gratitude.  What a wonderfully simple way to make a lot of people feel a little bit special and bless them!

Recital with distanced guests outside

But this year we were not in the islands for Eid.  And because of strange telecommunication rules, we were unable to send text messages to our island friends.  We were limited to WhatsApp and Messenger (to which lots of islanders don’t have access).  We sent out many messages via those services, but our contact list is small compared to our phone contacts.  So we decided, since we weren’t there in person and couldn’t do visits and since we couldn’t everyone either, why not post something on our Facebook page.  So the whole family dressed up in our traditional Island clothes and made a ten second video selfie.  In it we said in the island language, “Happy Eid. May the Almighty God bless all our Island friends.  We will see you again soon, God willing.”  That was the whole message.  And we posted it on Facebook.

Apparently, people liked it.  The post went viral (among Islanders).  Over the next few days we watched the number of likes, shares and views skyrocket.  We got over a hundred friend requests. We had people we’ve never met trying to make contact with us, as well as people we haven’t seen in ten years asking to reconnect!  All from a little Eid post. 

Our island friends are used to us, but most islanders aren’t used to foreigners speaking their language.  Other colleagues have made videos of them speaking the local language and seen a similar spike in popularity.  We don’t know if anything will come of the post.  Probably nothing.  But it is a reminder, that our reach might be bigger than we realize.  That every time we immerse ourselves in island language and culture, we may be having a bigger impact than we suspect.

Celebrating end of school year

It makes me think of mustard seeds and mustard trees.  Sometimes the things we do seem so small and insignificant.  Yet, we have no idea what such things, done in love and faith, might do in the hands of a mighty God.  It feels like right now in America, it might be the same way. Amidst coronavirus and protests, our little acts of kindness, prayers, words of encouragement, speaking truth, may seem small and may go unnoticed.  But at the same time, they may have a greater impact than we realize. May it be so!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We made it safely to CA! Thankfully our planes were not packed and none of our fellow passengers seemed sick in any way! We are thankful that so many of the protests across the country have been peaceful this past weekend and that a movement for justice seems to be gaining traction. Ma Imani called me and her daughter’s nose bleeds have stopped and people have come to pray for her. The first Zoom-based translation testing was successful and they assume it will only get easier as people get used to the new technology.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
News from a few islander friends is that many people are still under arrest on Clove Island for political reasons. We continue to pray for justice, truth and fair governance on the islands and around the world. We continue to pray for the world in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Pray for us as we find new patterns and routines for our time in CA. Pray for Megan’s dad who has injured his knee— he just got back from the ER and thankfully it isn’t as serious as we feared it might be. Our youngest’s bloodwork indicates he might have parasites. We should hear for sure this week and hopefully get him treated. Pray for healing. 

Seeking Justice

Learn to do right, seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Isaiah 1:17

On a hike in MA this week

We are to seek justice. We are not told just once, but again and again as individuals and as a society. We are called upon to walk justly ourselves and seek justice for others.

I have often wondered about our role in justice on the islands. We want to see not only individual islanders but the whole society transformed by truth and justice and we pray for that so much.

In the past few weeks I have noted more articles talking about the political undercurrents on the islands. As many of you know there have been some contested island elections in the past few years, with obvious corruption. One of the elections changed the constitution to allow the current president to stay in power longer and got rid of a rotation of power that has arguably been the source of stability for a nation whose past is riddled with coups. Political opponents have been imprisoned without trials. One main opponent (a former president) has been under house arrest for over two years without trial. Many islanders don’t trust their government. Some are apathetic and don’t see a way toward change. Others are upset but are also afraid to vocally oppose the standing government for fear of what could happen to them. Distrust and fear replace justice and peace.

Islanders often don’t trust the courts to provide justice for crimes either. If the defendant is rich and the victim is poor then no one is surprised if the offender doesn’t go to prison or only goes for a few days before being quietly released. That’s the privilege of the rich on the islands.

On the islands there is a case right now of two young girls who were violated and then killed. Will there be justice for them? We hear about more and more arrests of people speaking out about the current island president and being put in prison without charges. Will this kind of corruption and abuse of power end?

When islanders get really upset about a particular injustice, there is often mob violence. If the government is the target then there will be clashes with soldiers, until eventually people scatter for fear of getting injured or arrested. In the case of a crime, the criminal will be on the receiving end of mob justice until they are severely beaten, if not killed and mutilated. We try to be steady voices for both justice and for non-violence among our island friends, but we know on the islands that this kind of violent reaction is always under the surface, always a possibility. 

It’s always a possibility because things aren’t right.  There isn’t justice.  Our hearts call out for justice but when it doesn’t exist and when we are confronted with multiple examples of what is wrong and unjust being flaunted, we can either become apathetic, fearful or respond.  But how to respond? One way to bring powerful, needed change is through violence.  But we pray for justice to come peacefully.

One of many finds on the trail

This week we’ve been watching America erupt into violence.  As protests and riots grip America, we pray and cry out with the protesters for justice both here, on the islands, and everywhere.  At the same time, we pray and plead for the needed changes to happen non-violently.

May we all learn to do right, understand what it looks like to seek justice and at all times defend the oppressed in our midst. I know I fail in this so often, may we all do better.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our little holiday greeting has topped 63K views and over 1K shares— may this brief popularity among islanders lead to warm reception for our work on the islands. Our teammate who is serving as interim-team leader in our absence just turned 30! We praise God for her life and are so thankful to have been able to call her friend and teammate for the last 7 years! Some friends blessed us with some time at their lake house this week— it was a wonderful chance to get away for a short while and to give the kids some new experiences.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
We continue to pray for the need for justice and peace. One of our island sisters, who we call Dunga, lost her father this past week to COVID. He had pre-existing conditions and died on the French Island. Pray for Dunga and her family as they grieve, especially as distancing means they can’t do the traditional funeral observances. Pray that her island brothers and sisters would come around her and be a comfort. Several of our colleagues on the islands were supposed to be returning to their home countries this spring/summer and one family that was supposed to have already come back. This includes two couples that are expecting babies. One couple only has a few weeks before she will be too far along to fly, so the likelihood that she will have to give birth on the islands is increasing. Pray for all our colleagues, that they would have peace, patience and wisdom about how to move forward when their original plans have been disrupted. Pray for the work on the islands that continues in spite of restrictions. They are trying to test translation drafts over the phone/zoom, pray that it would go well and that people could find new ways to thrive at this time. We travel to CA on Saturday- pray for smooth travels, for a not overly packed plane and for the kids as they will have to stay masked for the whole flight!