Celebrating a Win

Loud cheers suddenly broke out from downstairs.  There were the echoes of more celebrations in the distance.  I wasn’t watching the game, but I thought to myself, “The islands must have scored. They must have won!”

My assumption seemed supported by the continuing cheers. People started playing music. Cars, trucks and motorcycles passed slowly, honking horns and spilling with people, everyone singing and yelling, rejoicing in the island victory! Impromptu parades took to the streets. It was a happy late afternoon/evening on the islands!

It wasn’t until a little while later that I learned that the islands hadn’t actually won the match. It was a tie, 0-0. My first reaction was, “All this for a tie!” But then I was reminded, this was not any tie— this was a tie that meant the islands could compete in a major international tournament for the first time in history! 

Pretty islands

That’s a big deal for a little nation. Growing up in the US, we got used to the privilege our citizenship includes and the accompanying expectation of victory. Look at our coverage of major events like the Olympics— we cover winners! Sure, there is the occasional underdog story on US coverage, but generally we like the winners and we are privileged to have lots of people from our nation that are contenders in various sports. As a kid, I remember not really understanding the stories of people that were so excited to just have qualified for the games. In my mind, I thought, “They are just saying that to be humble… really they want to be a surprise underdog and win it all! Wouldn’t they really be disappointed to have only qualified?”

Likewise I could think, “Surely islanders were really hoping for a decisive victory to secure their qualification?” But I sense no disappointment among islanders. They talk about it as a “win” even if it was a tie. Sure, a win might have been more exciting, but a tie was enough. It reminds me of the big exams each year that allow island students to go to university. Lots of islanders fail them each year, many fail them multiple years in a row. Most islanders that do pass, just barely pass. They pass by the skin of their teeth, having got less than 50% but getting close enough that they can retake sections. From my privileged background, kids would have been ashamed to have passed exams with such a narrow margin, but on the island that doesn’t seem to diminish their celebration. The important thing is that you passed!

Our son makes a friend

Our personal backgrounds in the US expect success, so simple success is not celebrated, it’s expected. People strive for and only truly celebrate GREAT success. On the islands there is the hope of success, but it is not an expectation. If anything failure is more common. This makes any kind of success so much more exciting. So who cares if the islands only tied, who cares how they do in the actual competition— they have succeeded in something where before there was failure. They qualified, that’s success, that's a win and that is worthy of celebration!  

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammate suffering from long COVID had two nights in a row of good sleep after weeks of insomnia. We pray that this is only the beginning of better sleep for her! Please keep praying! Our friend and former teammate on the French Island was able to have some virtual physiotherapy and was given exercises that will restrengthen her body. We are happy to report that she is able to get up and move around a lot more now. COVID vaccines have arrived on the islands! We’re not sure how many islanders will willingly get them (most are very suspicious), but it’s exciting to know that vaccines are finally reaching some poorer nations. The online translation consultations continued well in spite of one of the participating islanders getting sick and not being able to join the final day. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray that this Holy week and the upcoming holiday on Sunday will lead to good conversations and good celebrations among islanders. Please pray for our old teammates who are returning to Africa with their four kids after several years in their home country. Pray for safe travels and a smooth transition. We have a very busy week ahead but it’s also our son’s birthday— pray that we can carve out some good family time and that he would feel loved and appreciated. Now that the COVID surge has passed on the islands, we are trying to organize homestays for our new teammates (a week long stay with an island family). We have some possibilities but pray that the right place and family opens their doors. The month of fasting is quickly approaching. Pray that we would be well prepared, especially as we plan with others how to cover that month in prayer.

The Pull of Community

No one had told me beforehand to be prepared to share, but from experience I knew that going to a gathering one should always be prepared to teach and share something that you yourself are learning. So before going, I considered what I could share and looked up a few things to see how they’ve been translated in the local language.

Group walk to village sights

Once I was settled into the gathering, the request to share soon came. I would be sharing second. As the first woman shared, I couldn’t help but smile. She was sharing on the same theme! Perhaps God was trying to get a message across. The theme was love—love God, love one another.

 At first glance, island community seems so strong.  They have a strong national identity, religious identity, and place identity.  They are isolated and homogenous, so most of the time their culture does not have to interact or clash with other cultures, it goes unchallenged as it is.  The cultural rhythms of weddings, circumcisions, religious holidays, fasting and feasting create deep connections.  This is a strong community.

Yet there is also weakness—at its foundation island community is deeply broken.  Community is built on shared experience and trust, but trust is a serious issue for islanders.  Countless islanders have confided in us their inability to trust anyone! Even their own family.  Women will often say “you can’t trust men—ever!” Men say the same about women and both have good reason.  No one trusts the government, and religious leaders are often called out for their hypocrisy—and of course everyone gossips about everything—even their close friends.

Our daughter at gathering

We all long to be part of community. Sometimes islanders find community within their family or neighborhoods and those bonds are strong.  But others have been hurt and mistreated by those around them and they long for real community.  They may be searching for something better or they may have given up and settled for whatever they can find, jaded and hardened by their experiences.

Our community is supposed to be marked with love. A love that is forgiving and patient. A love that continues through hard times and good, through both tears and rejoicing. A love that sometimes does what is best for a person, not just what they want. A love that accepts people even when they are a mess. A love that should touch all our relationships both within our community and outside.  

At the gathering, we shared and discussed. We prayed. We laughed. We ate. We chatted. As I looked around the gathering, I reflected on this community. Some are part of the community because of ideas and values. Others are only on the outskirts of the community, but had come to this gathering nonetheless. To be honest, some may have been there for the food, but others were there because of relationship. Someone had connected them to this group and so they came. So while I’m not sure what they thought of the ideas we were discussing (whether they were intrigued by them at all), they enjoyed the community.  We hope that they experienced something different.  We hope we were marked by love and that they could see that.

Love is a powerful thing and it draws people in. People want to be part of loving community. But to love well is something that we fail at in our own power. People are messy. Conflict comes. Human patience wears thin. Trust breaks down. No, the kind of enduring love that is supposed to mark our community can’t come from us—we need a greater source.  When a community taps into that source—when it loves like that—it is a testimony of great power.

The return of weddings

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our visitor from last week got her negative COVID test result and was able to leave the islands as planned! We had our first English Club at our house after two months— all of our old faithful attenders came and it was really good to see them and to reconnect. We are feeling much better, thanks for praying for our upset stomachs. The women’s gathering went very well and was encouraging.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for loving community on the islands— the women had a great gathering, we’d love to see the men make steps towards greater community too! The translation project is having another week of online consultation sessions this week—pray for the health of everyone involved, clear communication and strong internet connections. One of our teammates is still suffering from COVID complications (2 months later). Pray for full feeling— for energy, for good night’s sleep, for no more achyness and no shortness of breath. Our friend and former teammate now living on the French island threw out her back, pray for her healing, especially as she is pregnant and has two little ones at home. Many islanders are gearing up to do a bunch of weddings in the coming weeks before the month of fasting begins in April. Pray for our team as we attend weddings that we’d be able to deepen relationships and share truth at them. We have been working on a proposal for higher leadership about how teams are supported— pray for us as we communicate our thoughts and experiences to others.

The Long View

 In our blog and often in our updates, we give you news.  We tell you the latest exciting things that are happening.  And it’s good to know that things are happening, but we don’t often give the long view.

Megan with grandmother/granddaughter

Yet our work—most of our goals—are slow to come about. That’s because we work with people and people are a slow process.  In a movie, character development happens in an instant, we see that moment of change and it feels like flipping on a light.  But the reality is, for every moment of major heart change there is often a long road of development.  We forget that sometimes.  We look to the moment of change and forget what came before.  But what came before is part of the story.

Forty years ago a foreign woman married an islander and came to the islands to live.  She had no family on the islands and her husband did not support her, yet she had many children.  She clung to her faith and her children.  Along came a group of expats who saw this woman’s plight, saw her tenacity and her need. They gave her a job and began to support her.  They lifted her out of poverty and mentored her in the way of truth. They invested in her daughters, meeting regularly with them, loving them and teaching them.  The daughters were strong in character and life. There was hope for great things from them, that as they grew into women that they would be faithful and true.  

But in time the expats had to leave.  The daughters grew.  They were each married off to island men.  Most of the marriages were failures of abuse, infidelity and abandonment.  The seeds that had been planted were choked and stunted and dying.  It seemed like very little had come of the investment.

Fifteen years later, one of the daughters would become our house helper.  On first impression, she can seem rather timid, but once you break through that initial timidity, you discover that she has a lot of energy. We had the delight of learning language from her and becoming friends and seeing the ember that had almost gone out relight.  The fire returned bit by bit.  She was growing in wisdom and truth and started passing it on to her own young daughter.  Slowly, we began to see change in her life and a desire to meet and grow with others.  But then she left our island.  Circumstances in life caused her to move to the big island, and though our friendship remains, we no longer have the influence from afar that we once had weekly.

Our daughter at event

On the big island things seemed to go on as before—slow, sometimes almost imperceptible growth with glimmers of something more.  Our friend was surely growing, but it was hard to see the results of that growth.  This time it was a British colleague who began to connect with her.  For the past couple years they have been mutually encouraging each other and just recently there have been some exciting developments and fruit—a boldness and courage, an assurance and steadfastness, a maturity and strength that we have not seen before.  Something that had been developing—perhaps waiting for the opportunity to break forth.  She saw a stranger in a dream and then went to the village from her dream and searched that person out.  She learned of an old man in another village who wanted her to come and visit him and share with his family and so she has.  She, a small woman from another island, now has gone, shared, studied and answered questions in two villages on the big island! She is excited by how she is being used and so are we!

These stories are so exciting and encouraging, but getting there was a journey (one that continues!). Seen in the long view, these recent exciting developments had a lot of investment behind them and a lot of slow change leading up to them.  

We don’t really appreciate slow change.  It’s hard to measure, hard to motivate, hard to manage.  It is not exciting.  It happens so gradually that we are tempted to miss it and think, “Hasn’t it always been this way?” or think that nothing is really changing at all.  It’s important to remind ourselves of the reality sometimes, to think back and remember what has come before.  Has it always been like this?  No. It hasn’t. There has been significant change.  

New lego creation!

In speaking of the long view, John Newton said it well, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.” May it be a comfort to those journeys that haven’t reached their exciting parts yet—slow change can still lead to great things.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are very thankful for these stories of boldness and our good friend going and sharing in new villages! The translation team was able to work through ten chapters despite the heat and some technical issues- next week will begin another set of checks! So far it seems that all the new workers on the islands are settling in well. Our daughter was able to do her annual educational testing and she is doing well! We had a good week with our visitor and she made it to the big island!  We have had some good discussions and a few decisions come together for those future considerations we mentioned. Our team has been handing out our proverb calendars which has led to some good interactions.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for more exciting stories of islanders reaching out to others in truth and love— pray for slow and fast change to lead to lasting fruitfulness. Island sisters are hoping to gather and support one of their own who had a baby. Pray for a good gathering (as COVID has greatly limited those) and a new pattern of meeting regularly. Pray that our visitor will get her negative COVID result and that she will have safe travels to another possible work location. Pray for wisdom and clarity for her and our team about whether she should join us here or go elsewhere. We are joining in discussions about what team leading and team support look like in our organization—pray that we would communicate well as we share some of our ideas and that only the good would be heard and implemented. Our family has continued to have some tummy troubles— pray for calmed bellies and healthy appetites. We are planning on restarting our English Club this week. Pray that we would do that well while abiding by masking and curfew rules. It has forced us to change the time that we meet which will be more difficult for us as a family. Pray that reconnecting with these English students would lead to good conversations.

Persuaded By Stories

Our team on a condolence visit

As a team we have been reading a fascinating book together.  It’s called The Culture Map by Erin Meyer.  In it she discusses the many ways one’s culture can impede understanding across different cultures.  The chapter we just read was about persuasion.  How do people persuade others to trust them and come over to their understanding?  Americans like practical application.  Show us how this will effect our day to day and you will have our attention.  But other cultures prefer principles.  Show them the methodology, procedures and build up to your conclusions and they will be listening.  Still other cultures want the big picture.  They want to see how everything is interconnected and how your conclusions effect the whole.  If you can do this, you will be heard. But none of these approaches seemed to fit with the island way of persuading (and unfortunately, the author of Culture Map seems to have little Africa experience).

Here is one of the joys of working with a team...As we discussed and gave examples we came to a surprising conclusion.  Islanders are persuaded by stories.  When islanders want to make a point or convince you of something, nine times out of ten they back it up with a story!  What an intriguing discovery! As we thought and talked about it, we realized just how often a point of view was validated with a story.  Often times the stories are short and anecdotal, but these stories are what persuade.  This can be both wonderful and infuriating.  

Wonderful in that it means people listen to your stories and take them to heart.  When we tell our own stories of the things God has done in our lives, or stories of justice, sacrifice and love, whether in the stories of the Civil Rights Movement in America or from God’s book—people listen.  

Tom & friend's baby

Infuriating in that, they also listen to stories from all places and accept them as equally valid.  For example:  “You shouldn’t lie because I saw on Facebook that a man lied to his mother and then God turned him into a snake and they killed the snake but when he was dead he turned back into a man.  So there you go.”  You see, if all stories are equally valid, then it is hard to discover what is true.  Every teammate could relate an experience when an islander’s story had left us speechless and confused with (what seemed to us to be ) either ridiculous conclusions or either dubious sources.

We are not ignorant to the power of stories, but it is new discovery to appreciate their persuasive power and to ask the questions, “How do we separate the good stories from the bad?”  “How do we separate true from false?”  We’re not sure yet.  But we suspect that the best way to answer a bad story is with a better story.  It seems like a story from our own life outweighs a story from the internet.  But does a story from God’s word outweigh one from their tradition?  Or is it less about authority and more about allowing two stories to stand and “do battle.”  Will the story that rings true eventually win out?  

At any case, it seems we need to be more ready with our stories.  We need to be ready with stories that carry truth and can answer or contradict the false stories.  Sometimes it’s hard to think of something in the moment.  Sometimes their stories seem so bizarre or illogical that we are just flabbergasted, but these are teachable moments and it again is a reason we love having a team.  In the aftermath of those moments we can come together and debrief it.  We can think of better answers, better stories, better ways to break through, and we know that, more likely than not, we will get another chance and the next time we will be ready.

You know one time, I had a friend who told me a story with a terrible lie.  It jumped down from his mouth and started biting my leg.  But then I told him a story with a good truth.  It contradicted his story, so it jumped down out of my mouth and started fighting with the bad story.  Finally the good story swallowed up the bad story.  Then it smiled at us and turned into a bright light that shone all around us.  “That’s a good story,” my friend said.  “Yes,” I agreed.

Megan with sleeping baby

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful that orientations on our island and the big island went so well and all the new people are settling into their new lives, learning language and culture.  The boys finally started back at school on Wednesday and the transition back has been pretty uneventful.  Our younger son had a tummy bug on Friday that brought him home from school but he seems to be doing okay now.  The visitor made it safely here despite the afternoon flight being cancelled.  She has been jumping into life here and making the most of lots of opportunities to go out with teammates.  We are thankful for the Lord’s guidance to check appointment schedules so that we could register for both new passports and online educational testing for our daughter just in time.  Both of these things would probably have been missed if another day had gone by (we did not think in either case that we were being last minute about things)—so we are thankful for God bringing it to mind in good time.  We’re thankful that we’ve been able to find some good language helpers for our new team members and their language learning is progressing well.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please remember all of the new people on our islands as they will all struggle with language and learning the ropes for the next several months.  It’s never easy and takes a lot of perseverance.  May the Lord give them much strength and patience, and may their leaders lead them well (including us!).  For some reason, all at once this week, a number of future decisions have come before us that need to be thought through and thoughtfully responded to. We need wisdom to know which need decisions now and which can be ongoing conversations.  Pray for good counsel and reflection.  Pray for our visitor and us as we discern God’s will whether she is meant to join our team or to serve somewhere else.  May her time here help to make it clear to her and us and may we be of one mind.  Pray for the translation team as they have a second week of online consultations— for good internet connections, good health and energy in hot weather.

Adapting Traditions

 Someone had died. Island tradition dictates everything that happens next. The washing, the wrapping, the prayers, the gathering of mourners, etc, all the way through the burial. But there’s a problem— the government COVID restrictions make parts of these traditions impossible.

Men praying in the street

I heard the debate going on. What should they do? The gendarme wasn’t going to open up the house of prayer for them. They couldn’t do things the normal way, the traditional way. They would have to adapt.

Originally I think they planned on just skipping a step, they started to take the body out of the house in the traditional draped stretcher, but then someone objected and they awkwardly backtracked the body back inside. Someone had a new plan of how to proceed. They asked all the women to clear the street in front of the house. They laid out some mats. They couldn’t pray with the body at the house of prayer, but they placed the body on the mats in front of the house and lined up men to pray in the street. They adapted.

I find adapting to changing circumstances to be a fulfilling challenge. Islanders wouldn’t agree. Islanders don’t like to adapt their religious traditions, because they don’t know if adaptations will be accepted. Even sanctioned adaptations are often avoided by islanders because they are just not as good. For example, if you are sick or pregnant or traveling, you technically don’t have to fast on fasting days. If you can’t pray in an official house of prayer, you can pray at home. But in all these situations, while it is okay that you aren’t doing things the traditional way, you are still missing out. You may not be punished, but you are also not receiving all the blessings and rewards that you would be getting otherwise. So for islanders there is always that sense of loss with adaptation.

Women moved to the sidelines

We enter island culture as foreigners with different beliefs and different backgrounds. We attempt to enter into island community as participating members, cherishing island culture while still disagreeing with aspects of it. We question. We embrace some aspects of the culture readily, others we are careful to distance ourselves from. Sometimes traditions are a mixture of things that we see as beautiful with things that we disagree with, so we question, can these things be adapted?

When I consider why I value adaptation and islanders don’t, I realize it is because I don’t put as much value in the outward performance of traditions, I value the meaning behind them. I am confident that if the meaning and heart behind a tradition is maintained that it will be completely acceptable. But islanders don’t have this confidence. They worry that if the outward performance is changed then the traditions might lose its power and value. These religious traditions are meant to please the unseen, the unknowable— how can they know if any changes will still be pleasing? What’s the point if they can’t be sure that their offerings are acceptable?

It is always a challenge when we try to explain our ability and willingness to adapt to islanders. We are exploding their boxes. They expect us to have a stringent list of instructions for the proper performance of our own traditions. When we carelessly say that “it depends” or “it can be done in different ways” or “it doesn’t really matter exactly how you do it”, they don’t understand. “Of course it matters!” the island culture calls out, “It’s all that matters!” 

Coffin on truck heading for burial

Having us enter island culture and community, having us question and adapt, is challenging to islanders. We’re glad it is. We don’t pretend that our own culture gets it right and we don’t pretend that we always strike the right balance or understand enough to know how to adapt island traditions well or successfully, but there are some islanders that understand and are doing it themselves. There are those that see the beautiful in island culture and are attempting to extract it from anything ugly. There are those that want it to be more about the meaning and the heart than about the outward forms. They have insight that we’ll never have and we pray that they will find the balance that is truly pleasing and acceptable.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
New workers arrived on the big island this past weekend amid COVID restrictions! We thank God for their safe arrival. Our long time friend and colleague from the big island left the islands for the foreseeable future this past week. We are very thankful for her years of service and friendship and for whatever she is being called to next. We had our first official team day as a new, bigger team. It went well and we are excited about what God has in store for this team! An island brother who was having trouble with some neighbors and was taken to court, was able to get a favorable hearing from a judge and maintains a heart that wants reconciliation and friendship with his neighbors.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for the new workers freshly arrived on the big island (including a family with five kids and Africans from other nations). Pray for their orientation and adjustment to island culture and to the challenges of language learning. Pray for protection from illness and discouragement. We were all set to have schools reopen this morning, but at the last moment it was decided that schools will not open until Wednesday! Pray for clearer communication from the government and for all the kids as they adjust back to school (including our boys!). Pray that our new teammates will find good language helpers as they meet different possible helpers this week— may they be guided to the right people! We have a visitor scheduled to come and do a vision trip on our island this week. Pray with us that the afternoon flight to our island is not canceled on Wednesday so she can make the same day connection! Pray that we would know clearly if she should join the work here and for protection from COVID during her stay!