With My Song I Praise Him

Our youngest son has been growing in his reading abilities quite a bit this past year.  One of the milestones we’ve seen is for him to be able to read God’s book for himself.  It was in this way he discovered a verse that he absolutely loves.

A jump for joy!

“The LORD gives me strength.  He is like a shield that keeps me safe.  My heart trusts in him, and he helps me.  My heart jumps for joy.  With my song I praise him.”

Whenever he gets to the line about jumping for joy, he jumps up in the air with a big smile on his face.  One of the great things about kids is how much joy they have—and they’re not afraid to show it.  As we get older, we seem to keep the jumping to a minimum, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have joy, and often we show it through singing.  

Islanders love song.  Wedding events are full of singing.  They listen to a wide variety of music and create a good bit of music themselves.  But hardly any of it is praise music.  In the strictest and most orthodox orders of their faith, music is not considered holy and worthy of being directed upward, and that seems to trickle down to the islanders’ thinking to some extent.  Yet, even at their religious ceremonies, they still sing.  They do not consider it “singing” but outsiders would consider the chanting and simple repeated prayer choruses as song.  And just like all over the world, music helps express emotion and lets our soul sing.  I have seen people chant with heavy hearts at a funeral, and reach ecstatic states of joy at weddings.  Music lets our souls speak in ways that words simply can’t contain.

Singing at a men's event

What joy, then, to see songs of praise being created.  Songs that sing of the joy of forgiveness and new life, a good father and help in troubles.  Song creation is of great importance.  It is something that every community needs.  It is a sign of growing maturity and health.  It is a way of reaching out and reaching in.  It is a way of binding a family together and drawing them into the act of worship.  In short, music is a powerful gift, and it is being given on Clove Island.  In the past few weeks two new praise songs have been written.  They are beautiful and catchy and we find ourselves humming them throughout the day.  But more than that, is the blessing they will be to others.  As they are sung and loved, they will uplift and encourage those needing hope.  They will bind together the body with greater love.  They will invite others to join in the praise, and they will give many people great joy.

Singing at a women's event

We English speakers can easily take music for granted.  We want a new worship song—there are thousands to be discovered at the touch of a button.  But here we get to participate in firsts.  When we sing an old hymn like “Be Thou My Vision,” do you realize you are singing an Irish hymn written in the 6th century?  Still we sing it and love it over a thousand years later.  Here we are witnessing songs being created and sung in the island tongue for the first time.  Some may pass and be forgotten, but others may last and become the old hymns of tomorrow—blessing the islands for years and years to come. May it be so!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our colleagues on the big island had a big meal with island brothers and sisters— 17 came! It was an encouraging night. Ma Imani returned to the two villages that she has shared at before. The plan was for her to spend a night in each village and study more with the people there. We haven’t heard how it went yet, but we are thankful for her faithfulness!  The recording of music is going well (despite one session where a faulty mic left a buzz on the recordings). We haven’t heard specifics from our contacts in Chad, but we are thankful that fighting didn’t extend down into the capital, although there is still need for prayer for the future of that country and what the coming months will bring.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
A friend of a teammate has had several vivid dreams which she shared with our teammate last week. Our teammate was then able to show her verses from the Book that corresponded to some of the things she saw in her dreams— she was deeply impacted by the similarities and was going to think and ask others about it. Pray that this would be an opening for truth and change in her life. Tom has been going most afternoons to study with some longtime friends who have been searching for a long time but scared to make any decisions. Pray for a breakthrough. In less than a month we are supposed to welcome a short-termer for 2 months, pray that all the logistics of his travel and stay would work out smoothly and that his presence would be a blessing and encouragement to our team.

Whatever You Want

Every week we do homeschool with our children.  One of the subjects is creative writing.  It’s funny how some days this subject can be fun and easy and other days it can be what bogs us down and devolves into whining and rolling around on the floor.  Thankfully, we’ve started to recognize the activities that causes the most trouble.  “Write whatever you want.”  “You choose the subject.”  “You can make it any way you choose.”  Whenever we hit phrases like this, we see our boys crumble under the pressure.  Too much freedom!  If they had just given them more to go on, limited the possibilities, our boys would be fine, but the wide-open spaces of “do whatever you want” cripple them with choice.

Son works on writing

We’ve noticed the same thing among our island brothers and sisters.  There is a great desire to share with them the concept of the freedom we have.  They come from a background in which everything is prescribed.  Isn’t it wonderful that, in reality, with a pure heart, there are so many ways to do things.  There is not one way to sing, but lots of ways.  There is not one way to pray, but lots of ways.  There is not one way to fast, but lots of ways.  There is not one way to celebrate holidays, but lots of ways.  What freedom we have—to discover ways to live, pray, celebrate that are both honoring to God and uniquely beautiful to our culture!  Isn’t it beautiful how we can have unity in diversity?  Isn’t it powerful the way we can worship in any language?  Some can stand and some can kneel.  Some will clap and some will dance.  Some will play drums and others will use only their voices, but all are permitted when done with a pure heart.  Oh what joy and freedom we have!

But sometimes, this joy and freedom can be like the open writing assignment we give our children.  Too much freedom can be crippling.  The person crippled by choice is crying out, “Which way should I go?  I don’t know.  I need help.  Who will help me?”  It’s not that they don’t want to choose, but they need help, advice and encouragement.  They need direction.  They need someone to help them get going.

When we first came to the islands we were hesitant to help people get going.  We didn’t want our culture and background to be too much of an influence.  If we told them how to start, wouldn’t we conform them to our ways?  Wouldn’t they lose sight of their own culture and values and take on ours whether right or wrong?  In our fear of passing on the wrong things, we ran the danger of not passing on anything except a crippling freedom of choice.

Going for our COVID vaccine

Thankfully, we can learn.  In homeschool we’ve learned to narrow the options.  It’s amazing the difference between saying, “do whatever you want” and “choose between these three choices.”  The funny thing is sometimes they choose a fourth choice, and that’s fine.  The important thing is freeing them to embrace the writing assignment.  Another thing we do is give them more time to think.  It’s amazing the difference it makes to say, “Tomorrow, you  are going to write about such and such.  Today, I want you to think about what you could write about tomorrow.”  Somehow this time delay frees them from the crippling power of too many choices having to be made now.  With a little time and a little direction, they often take the assignment and create something wonderful.  Sometimes the end result is quite different from what was assigned, but it’s okay because they have achieved the goal—write something!  Write from the heart.

We’ve found these principles to work with our island brothers and sisters too.  For a few years now, we’ve learned and used a simple model that gives people an uncomplicated but effective way to study the Book.  For a long time islanders did whatever seemed best to them.  Some have found their way forward, but many others have been crippled by the problem of  “Do whatever you want”, stopping them from studying well or with others. So we starting using the model as a team, and exposed others to it, but all the while desiring to see our island brothers and sisters start to use it regularly.  

Tom getting his vaccine

The model we use is flexible and simple.  It gives direction and form but not much more.  There is room for innovation and cultural adaptation.  We are excited, because recently we’ve seen more islanders becoming excited about using the model, learning how to do it and teaching others.  We hope they will take it and run with it.  Because the point is not the model, but to get them running, engaging, reading, and growing.  Maybe the end result will look different—great.  If the essential focus is still there, let them make it their own!  But what most excites us is to see them moving forward—no longer crippled by the “Whatever you want to do”scenario—but moving forward in spirit and truth.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We got our first dose of COVID vaccine! We should also be able to go back in a month to get our second dose! We are thankful that vaccines have made it to the islands! Our two new teammates made it through their homestays and look forward in the future to going back for visits to build on the relationships they began. There hasn’t been any more demonstrations or major acts of unrest— most seem to anticipate that it will stay quiet for the month of fasting. We have been very blessed by the response we have gotten of people wanting to pray for the islands and islanders daily during the month of fasting! (Let us know if you want to participate, it’s not too late.) Our teammate was part of a meeting with island brothers and sisters to introduce a group of studies using newly translated passages and grouped in a way to give a solid foundation in the Book. It went well and follow-up meetings are planned.  

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We pray that the brothers and sisters that attended the meeting would be using the group of studies with their family and friends in their homes/villages. May studying and growing together become a regular occurrence! The month of fasting has begun! Pray for opportunities to share openly— that joy, love and peace would flow from us to others this month.

Requests from our old stomping grounds: Our old teammates and friends in Chad wrote to say that rebels are close to the capital (where they live) and they can expect fighting/warfare there soon. Pray for mercy on Chad, for peace and the preservation of life, and for our friends as leaders who will need to make decisions for their family and others at this critical time— may the peace that passes understanding be upon them all. The school where we learned French is in economic crisis (since France hasn’t been giving student visas during COVID). They are one of only two schools in France specifically training workers for the French-speaking world. They hope to have students returning this fall, but until then, they need funds so they won’t lose their property and staff. Pray that they would see the miraculous provision for their needs (we have some prospective teammates that hope to study there next year!).

Not As Advertised

We don’t trust signs. Not that we don’t trust them at all. We know that whoever made the sign at one time at least hoped it would be true. Whether it ever became a reality or still is a reality, who can know?

Sign next to our house, never seen these things there

For example, we see a sign in a neighborhood saying that there is a doctor’s office that does ultrasounds right there. But on asking, the doctor had been there once but had moved off the islands long ago, he had hoped to get an imaging machine but it never happened.

There are a number of shops that have elaborate signs which show pictures or list all kinds of unique wares, but inevitably we go in to find the normal stuff that most shops sell. The sign is hopeful of things they could perhaps have, but it doesn’t represent present reality.

It isn’t just signs. Anything that was printed, we take as more hopeful than real. We go to a restaurant and see the nicely printed menu and we know that someone made an investment in creating these menus— they had no idea what would be available on the island this month. That’s why we aren’t surprised when what we get doesn’t match the description in the menu and we’ve learned to ask about what they actually have before starting to make our choices.

Restaurant menu with unavailable specialities

Sometimes government-written proclamations have to be taken lightly too. “The president says that the COVID vaccines will begin on Saturday on all three islands.” The article with the announcement even listed which hospitals to go to, but when we asked people at the actual hospital, they hadn’t received any vaccines and didn’t know anything about it yet.

This puts a damper on our willingness to believe signage or anything advertised in print. We value personal experience and eyewitness accounts instead of what is written or advertised. One of our new teammates excitedly told us about a sign for a restaurant and we immediately questioned with skepticism. “Did you see them cooking? Do you know someone who has eaten there? It could be an old sign or maybe someone just hopes to have a restaurant there at some point.”

But then, even personal experiences can fail us. This week we tried to go on a date (our first in a long time) and decided to go to an Indian restaurant that our teammates had successfully eaten at. Their hours are prominently displayed and all the dishes they specialize in are not only written in the menu but painted on the walls. Tom had even stopped by earlier to make sure they were really going to be open. But after all that, we knew we were in trouble when the person taking our order looked at us blankly when we asked what curries they had and if they had tandoori chicken. She was obviously unfamiliar with these dishes. Our best guess is that we were there on a Thursday and the chef that actually cooks Indian food wasn’t there that day. Teaches us to get our hopes up.

Now apparently there is a new little restaurant on the main road that makes sandwiches and small pizzas. Our teammates were telling us that it is pretty good. “But there are no signs or anything marking it. Even going inside, there is nothing telling you what they are selling. You just have to know and ask what they have today.” We came to realize that we had passed this place a few times already and wouldn’t have known they made food. Their lack of signage seemed like bad business! But then I thought...maybe signs are poor investment here. After all, you may be a sandwich and pizza place now, but who knows what you’ll be in a month or two!

Son was gifted photo by neighbors

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammates recovered from their colds and were able to go into homestays just a few days late! We’re glad they are getting this experience before the month of fasting starts. There was a women’s gathering this past week and we were introduced to two newly written songs in the local language! What a blessing to get to sing new songs together, we pray for more! Only a couple weeks after originally advertised, the island president was the first to be vaccinated against COVID on the islands— we’re hoping this means that the vaccination campaign is really starting now.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for our two new teammates as they finish their homestay with island families over today and tomorrow. May they make strong connections that they will be able to build on in the future. The island president has opened the buildings for prayer and pushed back the curfew an hour so that islanders will be able to do their five times of daily prayer during the month of fasting. It is unclear whether this move will appease islanders enough to prevent unrest. The body of a military official, who opposed the current government, was found not properly buried and reportedly with wounds consistent with torture. This led to an evening of unrest that was dispersed with gunfire by the military. We still hear rumors of more unrest to come, but people are hesitant to embrace violence during the month of fasting (since it is supposed to be a month of peace). Please pray for the islands during the month of fasting. It starts after the new crescent moon is sighted, which should be tonight or tomorrow night. It is often a hard month where islanders are irritable and persecution increases. We want this month to be marked by joy and rejoicing. Pray for us all on the islands that we could find ways to embody joy this month and that it could be a testimony to our friends and neighbors.

The Burden and Hope

Island worthy of hope

One morning, many many years ago, a few women went to a tomb.  They were weighed down with burdens.  The future seemed bleak.  Their friend and mentor was dead.  Their greatest hopes dashed. And moreover, who would roll away the heavy stone so they could weep and mourn?  Who would take away this burden?

Lately I’ve been feeling the burden of this place.  I’m not talking about the day-to-day life—the heat, meetings, classes, homeschool, emails, prayer times, etc.  I’m talking about the great burden of hoping for something that can appear utterly impossible.  We long for prolific and abundant heart change across the Islands.  Yet every day we see and hear of people making terrible choices.  We see them putting their trust in things that cannot save.  We see them embracing darkness and dark practices.  We see them chained to despair and slaves of fate.  We see selfishness destroy families, friendships, and governments.  We see a jaded resignation to life and acceptance of evil and injustice with heads bowed down to the ground.  Compared with huge, widespread transformation that we long for, it feels like we see little.  Sometimes it is a heavy burden.  

A ridiculous burden!  What could I possibly do to change anything here?  What could anyone do?  It would take something miraculous.  It would take a power greater than anything available to mere men.  What kind of a fool would try to carry such a burden?

The truth is, I am a fool to try to carry this burden.  And who is asking me to carry it?  No one.  But what of this crazy hope that I have?  What am I to do when there is little change?  Shall I give up hope?  No.  You see, hope is not the burden.  The burden is thinking that I can somehow bring about the changes I want.  The burden comes when I try to lift things I was never meant to lift.  My struggle is to stop trying to lift it and to hold onto hope.

Beautiful new growth

It is a wonderful thing to drop the burden I was never meant to carry and to grab onto hope.  It is freeing.  It is joyful.  Hope puts my mind and my heart on the things that are to be, the things that I long for, the things that will burst with life and love and peace.  What a wonderful place for my spirit to be!  But for some reason, I have a tendency to drop hope and try to pick up the burden—the one I cannot lift.  What a waste of time! And yet I do it, time and again.  Until I am reminded anew of the futility of it and I decide to grab onto hope again.

Sometimes it is when I need hope the most, that I leave it to strain at the great burden. Something goes wrong, a challenge arises and instead of holding onto hope I try to fix it myself and so grab onto the burden. Paradoxically, when I am experiencing the fruit of trusting and I am holding fast to the hope I have, I can also be tempted to go try and pick up the burden.  There are good things happening here, but when good things happen, when I see fruit, or growth or new maturity, I see it as my job to keep it going, and before I realize it, I’ve slipped back under the crushing weight of the burden that is not mine.

So in good times and in bad I can have a tendency to try to carry the burden.  Will I ever learn?  The burden isn’t mine.  There is someone else who will and does carry the burden.  He does not ask my help, but he asks for my company.  He has taken the burden upon himself and He carries it well.  He asks me to come along with Him.  To follow him on the journey and to hope, as He does the things I cannot.

One morning, many many years ago, a few women went to a tomb.  They were weighed down with burdens.  The future seemed bleak.  Their friend and mentor was dead.  Their greatest hope gone. And moreover, who would roll away the heavy stone so they could weep and mourn?  Who would take away this heavy burden.  But when they came to the tomb, the stone was rolled away.  The burden was already lifted.  The hope is secured.  

Our son turns 11

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our old teammates made it back to Africa safely and are settling into their new home in mainland Africa. We were able to celebrate our son’s birthday well over a couple different days. We are very thankful for him and the ways he is growing and maturing! We were able to celebrate this weekend with a small gathering at the river and were able to enjoy ourselves. We are also grateful that we were able to safely reach higher ground before a flash flood hit the river valley! (It was an abrupt end to the outing.) We are thankful that even though Megan’s back got very painful for a day this week, it has made a quick recovery and we have been able to work out a better sleeping situation for her back.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We had homestays organized for our two newest teammates, but then they got sick. Thankfully they tested negative for COVID, but they still aren’t feeling great and so we’ve had to delay their homestays. Pray that they would heal quickly and able to have homestays before the month of fasting begins next week. The island sisters are hoping to get together this week to remember this past weekend’s holiday— pray for an encouraging gathering and that a plan of meeting and supporting one another could be formed for the month of fasting. One of our brothers on Clove Island, who is originally from mainland Africa, lost his father to COVID. He couldn’t go home for the funeral and so they had a memorial service here. It went well. Pray that God would comfort our brother as his father’s death was unexpected and it is hard to be far away from family at this time. We continue to pray in preparation for the month of fasting— pray that it would be a month marked by hope and joy! We have heard more rumors about possible unrest in the coming days/weeks. We never know whether these rumors will amount to anything, but we continue to pray for stability, peace and justice on the islands.