Truth Among Lies: COVID Tales from the Islands

Tom awaiting COVID test

We are in the middle of a major COVID surge on the islands. We went from weeks of no new cases to it seeming like everyone is sick. (Tom tested positive on Friday.) Around the islands, there is so much false information mixed with truths that it feels like we are constantly facing an uphill battle as we try to convince our island friends and neighbors that COVID precautions and testing are needed.

• “This is normal for us. It is the season for fevers. Every year people get sick with fever and some people die. Some years are worse than others. Before they told us that it was malaria, some years they say it is dengue or chikungunya, this year they say coronavirus. It’s the season for fever.” There are a lot of seasonal fevers on the islands, and not everyone with fevers is testing positive for COVID. There probably are other viruses going around right now, after all it’s the season! But that doesn’t mean COVID isn’t here too and that precautions aren’t necessary!

• Our teammate, newly recovered from COVID, greeted some neighbors and told of her restored health. “You didn’t have corona, you’re not dead! In other countries there is coronavirus and everyone dies.” Before it felt like islanders didn’t take COVID seriously enough, so we stressed that people were dying in other countries and that it was serious! Maybe we overplayed it. Now we need to backtrack and let islanders know that just because they aren’t dying doesn’t mean they don’t have COVID and aren’t spreading it to others!

• “There’s not COVID here! It is just normal fevers, like dengue! The government just wants a reason to keep people at home, plus if they say we have COVID then they will get money from other countries. People are sick, but it’s not COVID.” It has been well documented that island government officials regularly skim off the top of any funds that pass through their hands. People list it as one of the main reasons to become a politician!

  

  Our boys playing in quarantine
  

• “My aunt died yesterday. I think it was COVID. No one will say that it was, but they know. They made us wear masks and use hand sanitizer at the funeral. They wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t COVID, they just don’t want to say it was.” Unfortunately COVID on the islands has become politicized and stigmatized. The island president is unpopular on our island. The president says there is COVID here. So, for some, talking about COVID has become synonymous with being a supporter of the island president, so they resist.

• One of our good friends who’s living on the big island sends a voice message, her breathing is a little shallow and she says she is sick. She was in close contact with someone that has tested positive for COVID, but she keeps saying she doesn’t know if it’s COVID, she doesn’t want to get tested. She’s afraid. If she gets tested then they may take her away. She’s living as a single mother. What would happen to her girls? How long would they keep her in some special COVID hospital? She doesn’t feel like she can risk it, so she doesn’t seek medical help. She prays. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were taking everyone who tested positive to another part of the island and quarantining them. There were stories of limited food and water. Now there are too many positive cases. They can’t quarantine everyone, but if she needed oxygen, it is possible that they might take her away and she might not be allowed home for weeks.

  

  Stragglers leaving schools after rumor
  

  
  

• I suddenly see a rush of school kids in the streets. They are yelling. Then there are parents heading towards schools. People are angry. I start to catch snippets. “They are forcing all the kids to get shots.” “The military police are going to make all the students get the COVID vaccine.” Our boys were sent home from school hours early. “Half my class was so scared, they were crying! Others were standing up and yelling at the teacher. I thought they might hit the teacher!,” our son shared.  All schools emptied that morning. Rumors on the islands are dangerous. We’re still not sure how this one came about. One report says they were teaching kids about COVID and that there was a misunderstanding.  Perhaps mention of a hoped for future school-wide vaccination program led to a panic response (island teachers sometimes threaten shots as a form of punishment). As I watched angry parents walking past, I tried to insist that most of Africa doesn’t even have the vaccine yet and it’s only for adults right now! But in the moment, the angry ones weren’t listening.  The rumor shut down schools around our town for the rest of the day.  The next day everyone sheepishly sent their kids back to school.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are very thankful that our new house has been a good fit.  We and the kids seem to be enjoying the new place and our neighbors have been great.  We are thankful that all of our teammates and colleagues who were sick last week with COVID have gotten through it and are recovering nicely and that they have the freedom to leave isolation.  We are happy to see that plans to receive two new members next month continue to move ahead despite the difficulties of the times.  We are thankful that, for whatever reason, talk of political unrest seems to have dissipated recently.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
On Friday, Tom started feeling sick.  We got him tested right away and sure enough, it was COVID.  So this is day 4 of symptoms for him.  We are thankful that his symptoms have been very mild—just a bit of fatigue and low fevers.  Pray that he would continue to have mild symptoms and that he would be symptom free soon. Megan tested negative with the rapid test, but has had some tightness in her chest. The family is isolating, which is hard on the kids.  But we are thankful that everyone else remains healthy and pray for them to continue to be so.  Pray for us to be kind to one another even though we are cooped up in a house together.  Also, one of the children of our colleagues on the big island started showing symptoms just as they were supposed to get out of quarantine.  Pray for a mild case and protection for that family as well.  Continue to pray for islanders—we hear of people  getting sick every day.  May the cases be mild and pass quickly, but may this time of uncertainty also open the doors of their hearts.

COVID-era Moving

Packing up the old house

We’ve been involved in a handful of island moves. Packing up a house may be long and painful, but in our experience the moving part is fast. We put the word out to our island friends, especially our student population which is predominantly strong, young men. A bunch of people come to the house, they grab everything and take it to a flatbed truck we’ve hired for a few hours. Neighbors often come and join the work crew. In no time, one house is empty. A short car ride is followed by a fast emptying of truck into the new house…and voila! You’re moved. Many hands make light work! Now the slow job of unpacking can begin…

So when we were planning on moving this month, it wasn’t the actual moving we were dreading, it was the packing and unpacking. But then COVID came back to the islands… Until a couple weeks ago, life on the islands was almost completely normal and our island had gone weeks with no cases. Now we hear coughing all over the place and more positive cases and deaths are reported every day. Suddenly the idea of calling on a bunch of people to help us move didn’t seem wise, safe or responsible.

We were only moving a block away, so a truck didn’t seem necessary. A truck would also be more likely to attract a crowd of helpers. Plus, a truck was for a fast move and we were coming to the conclusion that this move needed to be a slow and steady affair.

So we moved all day on Friday… and on Saturday.

We didn’t advertise what day(s) we were moving. Instead of packing lots of big boxes, we filled baskets with lighter loads so the kids could take them. We used our rolling luggage and had the kids push them down the street. We could move most of the house as a family… but not all. We have a fridge, a stove, and two bunkbeds. Megan has a bad back and shouldn’t ever help with stuff like that. The kids are getting big, but not that big.

Our lone helper!

So Tom had a friend who was able to show up. To minimize mutual exposure, we moved the heavy loads to the porch of the old house and then he and Tom took them to the new house’s porch. He helped for a couple hours on Friday and again on Saturday morning. 

Usually we thank our troop of moving-helpers with a soda and perhaps a small store-bought snack, but this lone helper had taken tons of heavy loads a full block away with intense island heat and humidity. So Tom took him out for lunch—island-style outdoor dining (aka a lady on the side of the road grilling chicken and fish and frying green bananas and breadfruit!).

Two moving days later and we are now settling into our new house! We can’t say we recommend the slow move. It’s long and there was an awkward night where we ate in one house, but showered and slept in the other. But COVID has forced us to be adaptable again, and with God’s provisions we made something work.

At the new house!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are very thankful for God providing two rainless days for our move! We are thankful for our one moving helper— he was great! We are thankful that Megan’s back was protected during all the moving stress. We are thankful that our new house seems to have good water (something we had questioned and worried about before taking it). We are thankful for our kids being good helpers despite us working them hard in the heat and humidity. We are thankful that so far there has been no violent unrest on the islands. We’re thankful that our family has not had any COVID symptoms.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We now have two teammates and two other island colleagues that have tested positive for COVID. We also have several island contacts that are sick with COVID symptoms though unfortunately admitting that it is COVID and getting tested is politically charged on the islands and many islanders are confused about COVID versus other seasonal island illnesses. Our first morning in our new house we saw two funeral processionals pass by in a matter of minutes (which is not normal) with about half the people wearing masks. COVID is here!  Pray for mercy on the islands and for more islanders to take precautions seriously. We pray for a miraculously small number of severe cases and for quick recoveries. The translation work is moving back to online-only meetings, pray that their important work can continue uninterrupted. We would normally go and visit all our new neighbors and open our home to our neighbor kids… pray that we could still get to know and make positive impressions on our new neighbors without being spreaders of COVID!

Whisperings

 There is a new dynamic on the islands that we haven’t quite seen before. There are whisperings...

For now, life continues normally.

Whispering secrets or gossip isn’t new. Islanders don’t always want other people to hear what they are saying. But now there are widespread whisperings. Friends take us away from the street and whisper news and warnings.

The content of the whisperings isn’t new. They tell us about unrest on the islands and that people aren’t going to stand for it. They talk about how the current president must go. A couple months ago these same sentiments were shared loudly at our house and in shops, but now people talk in whispers.

Why whispers? If these sentiments are widespread and the everyone knows that unrest is inevitable, why the secrecy? Partially it is because they think major unrest is close. January 2021 has always been earmarked as a month of trouble. This is the month where there were supposed to be presidential elections that would have ended with the current island president stepping down. But under a dubious vote in 2018, the constitution was changed to allow the current president to stay in power. So there is no campaigning, no elections, no new president.  

Rains help break up the heat!

In 2018 (after the changing of the constitution), we woke up one morning to a day of protest that led to a week of us closed up in our house listening to occasional gunfire and explosives. The “rebels” didn’t win that fight. They fled but with a promise that come 2021 there’d be more trouble.

Well it’s 2021…and friends whisper to us to make sure we have lots of food at home. They tell us to not send our kids to school first thing in the morning until we know that the situation is safe. They warn us that the next morning things could start.

There have been many false alarms, but we appreciate them warning us anyways. We are thankful that there are islanders who care about us and want us to stay safe. Better a false alarm than an unpleasant surprise. 

Birthday hike to falls!

No major unrest has happened, but there have been movement of soldiers and the arrests and imprisonment of journalists and political opponents. There is the fear that if you are caught talking too loudly that you could be taken in next and questioned about how you got your information. So islanders are careful to whom they talk and they whisper.

We’re not sure how this story will end on the islands. Sometimes in the past there has been a lot of talk and no action. But that week of listening to gunfire in 2018 has taught us that open conflict is possible here too.

So we stay alert and we pray for peace and for good and just governance!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The women’s gathering went well and plans were made for February to meet again as a large group while smaller groups meet more often. We found a house for our new teammates coming in February! We are already in the process of creating a contract with the landlord! Our new house seems ready for us to move in too! We’re thankful for a fun time celebrating Megan’s birthday this past week!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray with us for peace and justice on the islands and around the world! Please continue to pray for all the islands as COVID returns but especially the smallest island which continues to be cut off from the other islands and where COVID seems widespread now. We continue to hear reports of new cases and deaths. May our colleagues and island brothers and sisters there be a light in this dark and difficult time. One of our teammates has a low-grade fever and is self-isolating— pray that she can get a COVID test and that it will be negative so she can rejoin life.  Please pray for our move on Friday/Saturday— that it would go smoothly, that our kids would do well in the transition and that Megan’s back wouldn’t be aggravated. Pray that we would make good first impressions with our new neighbors and form good patterns of living among them.

My Friend the Pharisee

 He didn’t mean to send the message to me.  He accidentally included me on his New Years distribution list. But I’m glad he did.  It was an insight into where his heart is:

English Club- Fakhadi is a regular

“Bad News!” it said, “We are duped year after year!  Unfortunately, we see so many of them joining with the infidels celebrating the New Year.  They go out practically nude, in the middle of the night, to the parties, mixing illicitly with loud music.  They have no shame. They fornicate.  They are like beasts—worse than beasts.”  

“We have been made to believe that the week begins on Monday which is completely false.  We are being tricked.  The week begins on Saturday....How will you be blessed if you disobey the first day?…"

“Don’t accept the concept of a New Year’s resolution...If you haven’t changed today or tomorrow, how will you change next year?  What’s so special about the next year?  Do not be duped by Satan.  Don’t let a new year be the cause of your change.”

I wish you could know Fakhadi like I know him.  He’s tall for an islander and proud of his lighter skin and longer Arab-like features—a wide smile, long face, strong chin, large nose.   He is a young man in his mid-twenties.  Bright, polite and friendly, he is both ready to learn and ready to teach.  He is also fiercely proud, convinced in his faith and his own righteousness, eager to tell others the errors of their ways. And he is my friend.

I often don’t know what to do with him.  Sometimes I want to shake him for the ridiculous arguments that he makes.  Other times I wonder at his blindness.  I wish I could get him to read  the Word, but he refuses.  He will tell me it is corrupted and full of errors and will not listen to the logical arguments I make to refute these lies.  He tells me he doesn’t need to read anything else because his book contains all truth including all science, biology, astronomy, geology, etc,  based on a handful of obscure verses—an argument so baseless it stumps me every time.  

New Years Eve fun & games in our team

Fakhadi is the closest I’ve come to knowing a real live Pharisee.  Now, we all resemble Pharisees at times.  We all have a tendency to fool ourselves, to look to the letter of the law rather than the heart of the law, to think ourselves righteous and better than others, to act religiously superior.  We all do this to a certain extent, but Fakhadi embraces the role.  He really does think he is religiously superior to those around him—and flaunts it.  He holds to the letter of the law and is often blind to its sense.  He is so convinced of his rightness, he cannot see his own pride which is obvious to everyone around him.  Though I remember, we hardly ever see the log in our own eye, do we?

And yet we meet and talk.  He is a great language helper, so he helps me with my language study.  He likes to talk about religion, but he is also careful with me.  He does not wish to offend me, so he keeps his complete thoughts to himself (as I do with him) when we talk in person. Yet, over messages and email, we seem to have more freedom to speak our mind.  I see him as a young man trying to do what is right with the knowledge and strength that he has.  For now, he gets by, but I know one day, his own strength will fail him.  I wonder what he thinks of my life.  Is my witness a challenge to him?  I imagine I’m a bit of a mystery, but it’s hard to be sure.  He generally wants to meet with me.  He is genuinely disappointed when my schedule keeps me away or I cut our time short.  He values my friendship and I his.  Sometimes I think he likes me because he sees me as a challenge to be won over to his way of thinking.  (I probably like him, to some extent, for the same reason.) But our friendship is real.  I wish I could get him to read the accounts of the Pharisees, but so far he has refused.  Then again, I’m not sure it would do any good.  He might miss the forest for the trees.  But there’s still a chance.  There was a Paul and a Nicodemus among the Pharisees.  Maybe, one day, there will be a Fakhadi too.  

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammates have a new steel door in place of the old flimsy one.  Hopefully we won’t have any more problems with break-ins.  Our colleagues were finally able to travel to Madagascar with their newborn after months and months of waiting!  Family and friends were waiting for them and now they can finally get a passport for their baby boy and renew their own passports.  It rained today, which helped cool off some of the sweltering heat!  Our boys continue to adjust well to local school. Thanks for praying!  


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that Fakhadi would show a new openness and agree to read our book.  Pray for others like him who have never heard of another way of life.  There is going to be a women’s gathering on Wednesday- pray that our time of study together would be encouraging and uniting. We are getting ready to move to our new house mid-month, pray for our preparations.  We are getting ready to receive new team members in early February.  Pray that we find a good house for them.  The small island has been put on lockdown and cut off from the other islands. We hear of more positive cases and even some deaths every day.  Pray for the our friends and colleagues on the small island— life is hard for them right now and they anticipate lots of shortages of supplies before too long. We have heard of a few new cases here on our island too now.  Pray that the lockdown would be effective in containing the virus and that we would not see a new wave hit the islands.