Afraid to Protest

“People are scared.” “People are afraid.” This has been the refrain on everyone’s lips on our island this past week.

Quiet mornings and nights on the island

The fear comes from uncertainty. The fear comes from a sense that trouble is imminent. The fear comes because things seem out of their control and there doesn’t seem to be any justice or recourse for change.

Our short-termer asked us if there are often protests and strikes on the islands. Our initial response was, “Yes, strikes and protests are common.” But then we started to think about it… not recently.  Before, there were strikes a lot and protest marches happened. But things have changed. The current government has cracked down. People disappear. Journalists are arrested. There was supposed to be a general strike over all sectors a couple months ago, but word came from the government that people who didn’t come to work would lose their jobs. People were scared and went to work.

Crowd for village English certificate ceremony

Now for a long time, May 26th has been talked about as the “final day”. The day after which trouble would begin. Some islanders used the word for “war/battle”— and that May 26th was when it would all start. So the island woke up scared on the 26th. The roads were quiet. Many schools didn’t open, people stayed home. But after a couple hours of quiet, people started to trickle out of their homes. A few taxis started driving around. By 8:30am, the city was gearing up for a semi-normal day. The next morning was the same— people hesitating before going out. Schools getting started late. Everyone waiting to see if something was going to happen before they committed to leaving the safety of their homes.

In the meantime we hear about arrests. We hear about soldiers going into homes and causing havoc to people’s belongings and taking people into custody.

People are scared. They don’t know what the opposition will do and when. They don’t know what the government and military will do and who they might arrest next. They don’t expect justice. They don’t expect it to be fair. Most are unhappy with how things are, but they are too afraid to stick their heads out for fear of getting hit. Peaceful protests would seem to be the answer— those strikes and marches that we remember from previous years. But now people are too afraid that protests like that would lead to violence or that participating in one would paint a target on them or their family.

I don’t think I ever appreciated the right to protest before. I usually saw the frequent strikes and marches as a sign of dysfunction and a personal annoyance.  But without them, what can islanders do in the face of a government that is taking advantage of its people?

Tom's teacher training class

Some may choose violence and the rest are just afraid. We share with our island friends about our prayers for peace, our prayers for justice, our prayers for freedom from fear and hear in return a loud- Amen!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our short-termer’s orientation went well and he made it safely to the small island (where he will be while we travel). The islands stayed peaceful through the much anticipated May 26th. Tom’s intense teacher-training finished well! Last we gave thanks for a new island brother, this week it is for a new island sister and another story of islanders hearing and accepting good news from other islanders (not foreigners)! Very encouraging. Another group has been working for a long time to bring some story book sets translated into the local language to the island. This week they finally got the first sets— we’re excited to use them and for our island brothers and sisters to be able to use them with their families and children.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are glad that the islands have been peaceful so far, but we are disconcerted by the fear and arrests on the rise— these are not signs of a healthy or just country. Pray for the islands. We are traveling to Kenya this week to renew passports— pray for negative COVID test results and for all the logistics. When we first get to Kenya we will participate in some meetings for team leaders— pray that they would go well and that our participation would be a blessing to us and others.  Pray that Megan’s back would stay strong amidst the travels and strange beds. Pray for the new island brother and sister from the past two weeks—may new resources be used to help them grow and understand the journey they have begun.

Work and Rest

Tom and friends at a ceremony

Balance is a recurring theme in our lives and our talks with our teammates. Are we balancing our different responsibilities and roles well? Are we prioritizing the most important or are there things slipping through the cracks? Are we spending our time on the things that matter most? Are we striking the right balance? Are we maintaining a sustainable rhythm? Are we balancing work and rest?

Sometimes it takes awhile to find the right balance, but once you do, things go well. But then inevitably something shifts. Either you, your schedule or your surroundings change and you have to rethink the balance.

Gathering on retreat

As team leaders we feel the balance shift as our teammates have crises come and go and as our teammates grow more comfortable in the culture. They don’t always need the same amount of care or attention from us. Our new teammates recently told us how they have noticed that their day-off needs have changed. They can go out and about without it sapping their energy anymore. They are changing.

Island life ebbs and flows. For example the month of fasting has a completely different pace and balance from the rest of the year. At other times there can suddenly be a rush of English teaching requests, or it’s wedding season or a string of visitors come one after another. Our normal patterns of work and rest have to be tweaked to find balance.  

So there we were last week—the month of fasting was complete.  Our newest team members had just completed the 3 month mark.  We were welcoming a short-term intern in a few days.  We were in transition—our balance was being disrupted. The perfect moment for a team retreat! A chance to check-in, reflect and rest.

Team retreat Group shot

Unfortunately team retreats can be kind of stressful. We may live on a beautiful tropical island, but, in a place where there is little to no tourism, organizing a time away for 7 adults and 3 kids is no easy feat.  Transportation can be difficult.  Accommodations can be difficult.  Food can be difficult.  Even water can be difficult. The logistics are stressful.

There is really only one motel in our whole island that is both in a beautiful location and can accommodate our team.  Thankfully, that option was available.  It’s a long car ride to get to there, but thankfully we found a taxi driver willing to take us the shorter route. The motel’s accommodations are less than ideal (one towel per room, unpredictable meal times, expensive water, fans that don’t work, power cuts), but with a little ingenuity and planning (bring your own towels, snacks and water filter) we could have a great time. Our wonderful teammates stepped up to help figure out the logistics, removing stress.

We had a good, restful time. We only had two nights and one full day to spend between the big holiday and our new intern arriving, but it was time well spent. We hit the balance right. We came back to work feeling more rested and with more energy to figure out our new post-holiday balance.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for a nice retreat! Our short-term intern arrived safely and his orientation time has been going well. We have a new island brother! We heard from island brothers and sisters that at their gathering this weekend that a new young man made a decision. Tom’s teacher training has been intense, but has been going well. Another book has been fully translated and checked! We are so thankful to have more of the Book in the local language.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
The islands are tense. On Wednesday, the opposition has set the ultimatum that the standing president is supposed to step down. No one expects him to, but past Wednesday everyone expects there to be unrest. We aren’t sure what will happen or even if it will amount to much, but please continue to pray for the islands—for justice, for peaceful avenues for change, for the protection of the innocent and for good leaders. Pray for all of us traveling at this time. One teammate, our short-termer and then our whole family are all supposed to be traveling to other islands this coming week.

Holiday Roles

Front room and son is ready!

 It always seems to start later than we think. In our minds, it all gets going right after the early morning prayers, so in anticipation we eat breakfast and get the house all ready as soon as we wake up. The outside stairs, porch and living room are swept and ready. We have a little reception area, with chairs and a table which holds the candy, cake and soda. Most of our visitors will be kids— the candy is for them. Some will be men (either alone or with their kids in tow)— the cake is for them. For those that take the time to talk and linger, even sit down, we have the additional soda.

Tom and the boys are raring to go, but we want to follow the flow. It’s pointless to start visiting if people aren’t ready to receive visitors. Our house is part of a little compound with four other homes that all share an outside gate. Our neighbors hadn’t unlocked the gate, and it felt presumptuous for us to open it if they weren’t ready for visitors yet. So from our second-story home, we waited and watched the street, looking for signs that the visiting had begun.

Me and my partner

Finally around 8am, we couldn’t take it anymore. People were starting to mill around on the street. We would open the gate, but no sooner had Tom descended the stairs with the boys than our neighbor unlocked the gate herself. Let the holiday begin!

Now while we associate this holiday with lots of visiting, the visiting is actually the purview of the men and children. The women guard the house and wait to receive the visitors. All the other years, I (Megan) have waited by myself. There would be dull, quiet periods when I’d be tempted to do something else, but as soon as I left the door, a pack of kids would descend on the house, hands out for candy. Then there would be crazy periods with group after group when I could barely get back to refill the candy bowl without the kids pushing into the house. Then there is the desire to have the camera ready in order to snap a picture of a good friend or particularly cute kid to show Tom and the kids when they got home. So the holiday would go—periods of boredom, periods of rushing, but no visits lasting more than a handful of minutes, mostly I was just waiting for the next people, alone.

This year was different. Our daughter is 13 yrs old now and we decided together that she should stay at home with me. I don’t see girls her age in the packs of kids that go from house to house,  and since the traditional clothes that women wear for the holiday are hot and somewhat uncomfortable, she was happy to agree to stay home. So this year I had a partner. I could step away from the door and do something in the back of the house without fearing an invasion of rowdy kids. I could go cut up more cake without missing welcoming a friend to our home. It was nice not to do it alone, to have a partner.

Early on, I sent my daughter/partner over to our compound neighbors with plates of the cake we had made. It was then that we discovered that all the girl neighbors were stuck at home too. So before long the greeting team at our house was up to six (me, our daughter and four neighbor girls). At first I thought they would eat some cake and candy and go home, but I was wrong. They were bored, so they stayed and stayed. Our daughter read stories to them and got them playing some games. We gave them water and then sodas. They stayed in the front room and watched as we greeted group after group. Eventually after more than an hour, we heard mothers calling names from across the courtyard and one by one our team got smaller. Finally it was just my daughter and me again. By that time the visitors had dropped to a trickle. Tom and the boys came home, tired and sweaty, with pockets and baggies full of goodies, having traversed all our old stomping grounds and visiting all the people dear to us. We had each played our role and now we could rest.

Our daughter reading to the neighbor girls

Another successful holiday living in community!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The days of language push went well— it was a lot to take in for our newbies, but hopefully brought them to a deeper understanding of the local language. The month of fasting is over— more people than ever prayed with us everyday for the islands! The big holiday went well and we got to see lots of people (hopefully strengthening those relationships). After the holiday, we were able to go on a team retreat. The logistics of taxi and food came together and we were able to have a relaxing couple days away from our normal life. We were able to get our second dose of the COVID vaccine this morning, so we are both fully vaccinated! Our to-do list isn’t as overwhelming as it was before.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
We have a short-termer coming—he has already left the US, but won’t arrive on our island until Thursday. Pray that having him at our house will go well and that our time of orientation with him will set him off to a good start for his over two months on the islands. We only have two weeks before we go to Kenya (we have to renew passports at a US embassy and the islands don’t have one). In those less than two weeks before our trip, Tom is going to be offering an English Teacher Training course that normally is stretched over a month or two. Pray that the course goes well and that it won’t make our life too stressful. Start praying now that our passport renewal goes smoothly and we will get our new passports before our return flights to the islands at the end of June. Everyone on the islands are looking towards May 26th with trepidation. That is the date in the old constitution when the standing president was meant to step down, so everyone expects unrest on or beyond that date. Pray for meaningful change without loss of life. Pray for justice and good governance on the islands. Every week more people are arrested.

Breaking Fast with Friends

In Island culture, people don’t usually eat together.  In fact, they don’t really have regular meal times.  Whoever is there eats when the food is ready, or when they are hungry, wherever they find food.  The exceptions to this rule are events (like weddings) and the month of fasting.  

Frying the Starches

In the month of fasting, families eat together and every night (if they have the money) is a feast.  The menu does not vary a great deal.  There are fried starches in abundance like cassava, green bananas, breadfruit, arrowroot, and sweet potato.  There is tea, porridge, juice and water for drinking.  There will be a meat sauce (or sauces) made with beef, chicken or fish.  There are bread options—especially a special spongy bread from with coconut milk that is a must for the season.  Usually there is salad, with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, carrots, cucumbers, etc.  Beyond that there can be other additions, like samosas, desserts, soda, coffee, dates, etc.  A good fast-breaking is a feast to remember.  And when it lasts a whole month it makes the time special.

We want to take advantage of this time.  It is a time for fellowship, a time to deepen relationships and a time to get to know families.  For those in the family of Truth, it is an opportunity to love neighbors and one another.  And that is how it came to be that this past Thursday we had nearly 70 people at our house for breaking the fast.  It was meant to be a time for the family of Truth to gather, encourage, and simply be together.  We would not only eat, but we would sing and pray and worship in spirit and truth.  But such an undertaking would take some work.

Preparing the Salads

It began with a list.  Who would come?  What would they bring?  Thankfully, for a feast like this, we would not have to bear the burden of all the cooking.  Each part of the meal was divvied up and people were called and given assignments.  The next step was buying the things that were needed.  On the day of the feast, Tom went out with an island brother to look for and buy green bananas in bulk—that’s around 100 bananas.  Also a sack full of cassava—maybe about 40 pieces.  All of these were brought home to be shucked and prepared for frying (not a small undertaking). Frying began around 3pm (three hours before the event).  Porridge was cooked in a giant 5kg pot and carried out to the serving bowls in a bucket.  Meats and breads arrived (cooked at others’ homes) and were plated for serving at our house.  Salad ingredients also arrived needing to be arranged beautifully on serving trays.  The house too, needed preparation.  Tables, chairs and sofas were moved out, and into the back hallways.  Mats were put down.  Food was arranged into groups on the mats with plates for each guest.  Around 6pm everything was prepared and the guests promptly arrived.

We were about 40 adults and 30 kids.  Everyone ate with gusto.  Plates were passed, juice was served, and many dirty dishes were created.  Generally, Islanders get down to business when it’s time to eat.  Conversation is saved for after.  This was mostly the case that night.  When even the latecomers had been served and everyone had eaten their fill we quickly cleared plates and swept mats and invited all the adults for some singing, prayer, and teaching.  Meanwhile a few of our teammates gathered the horde of children outside for stories about God and fun, and numerous trips to the bathroom.  The prayer time went pretty smoothly.  Most people were eager to participate and ask questions and certainly there was good news shared.  Some of our brothers and sisters brought their families with them and among them members who are still searching, so this was a wonderful chance to share some good news.

Our big 13 yr old!

But in relatively little time, people were on their way home. We packed up some young men with all the leftovers they could carry. Those who had contributed food grabbed their pots, bowls, and other items.  We pulled up the mats, swept and moved furniture and then stopped. As a team, we gave thanks to God for a wonderful night.  Many dishes remained to be washed and we were all tired, but we had feasted and fellowshipped well, and we were thankful.  May these fellowships only grow and grow.

PRAYERS ANSWERED

We celebrated all three of our team birthdays, including our daughter who turned 13! We are so thankful for her and the ways she is growing, maturing and blessing our family. The large event went well and people had positive things to say— we pray that it’s impact would continue and that the connections of the group would grow into a true feeling of family. Everyone’s allergies seem to be improving! 

PRAYERS REQUESTED

We are in the middle of busy time and feeling a bit stretched thin. Pray that we would trust and rest in the midst of busyness. We are taking this week to do a language push with our team— pray that it would motivate us to greater fluency in the local language, pray that we would grow in our ability to communicate and understand our island friends, especially pray for those teammates who are just starting out, that they would persevere in their language learning. Thursday should be the last day of fasting and Friday the biggest holiday of the year! The holiday is about connecting with all your friends— may it help us build on our friendships with islanders. We are hoping to go on a team retreat after the holiday (and before our short-termer arrives), pray that the logistics for that will come together. Our old landlady (from whose house we moved in January) is now saying she’s unhappy with how we left the house. We had left money for the minor damages and wear/tear of us having lived there for 3+ years, and walked her husband through the entire house. She is not known for being terribly agreeable or reasonable, but we would like to leave on good terms with her (we thought we had!). Pray for wisdom as we negotiate that situation— we find it quite stressful and at this busy time it feels like an attack. 

Vaccinated

I hadn’t walked two blocks from our house when I saw it—a small gathering of people, some in white lab coats, gathered at a small table under the mango tree behind the fish sellers.  A privacy screen was off to the left by a doorway to a shop.  A couple blocks from the nearest clinic. No signs or placards. Was this it?  Were they doing vaccinations right here?  I asked someone standing around, and sure enough, the COVID vaccination station would be open until noon.  It was 10am.  Plenty of time to contact the team, get our passports, and get in line to receive the vaccine.

The unmarked table under the mango tree

The Islands are poor and COVID vaccination programs are all thanks to the charity and goodwill of other nations.  The vaccine available to us is from China.  We had heard a few weeks ago that the islands would be receiving these vaccines, but whether or not they would actually made available was a mystery.  Donations to the islands have a way of turning up “lost” because of corruption or mismanaged to the point of heartbreak.  But by some miracle, the vaccine was there, ready to be distributed, administered and carefully documented (at least by island standards).  Moreover it was free!  

By 11:30 that morning most of our team had been vaccinated.  It took almost no time at all.  A quick jab in the arm and instructions to come back in one month.  We took many celebratory pictures and posted them on facebook.  

That is when the other part of this story begins.  It’s funny because islanders are pretty good about getting their infants vaccinated.  There are WHO programs that help this to happen, they are relatively well run and mostly free.  But as soon as people get a little older, life gets more complicated.  Just like the rest of the world, it seems that there are number of reasons why most islanders—the vast majority—are refusing to get vaccinated.

Waiting for paperwork

They don’t like shots!  Kids are threatened with shots in the elementary schools.  “If you don’t behave, the doctor will come and give you a shot,” the teachers say.  It was effective in traumatizing our oldest son and a whole generation of kids.  In fact, a rumor of forced vaccination set off city-wide panic and isolated cases of mob violence a couple months ago.  They are afraid of shots!

Also, they’ve been taken advantage of before—guinea pigs for China.  It is well known that Africa has often been the test lab for new drug initiatives.  The islands are no exception.  China carried out malaria eradication tests on the island, which turned out to be effective, but no one knows if corners were cut or if safety standards were considered or maintained.  Despite the success of the program, people don’t like being asked to take medicine in an experimental undertaking.   It doesn’t matter if the Chinese COVID vaccine has been well-tested and is being used in countries all over the world—islanders are skeptical.  “They’re probably trying it out here before they use it on their own people” is the common refrain.  Then they look at me knowingly as if they expect me to sprout a third arm out of my head or to drop dead at their feet…”side-effects”.

But the biggest and least surprising blow to the success of the vaccination program is the lack of trust in the government.  There is such thorough distrust of the government system, it seems impossible that they could get something right, do something for the good of the people, or not have an ulterior motive.   No, people are convinced that nothing—nothing good can come from the government.  

Trying to show people it's a good thing

The sad flip side is,  in a way this works to our advantage.  The islands did not receive a great number of vaccines.  The chances of us getting a second dose would be quite slim if everyone was being vaccinated.  But since the numbers are so small, it just might mean we will be able to return for that second dose.  But this selfish bright side does little to assuage the fears of the possibility of another wave of COVID in the future, where all those who have not been vaccinated will get sick again, and some of them will die.  So what can we do?  We set a good example, and post on island social media.  We encourage people to go out and do it.  We educate.  But at the end of the day, as the old saying goes: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him agree to an injection.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
One of the newly recorded songs was turned into a music video and no sooner was it done then it was being shared to large groups on social media. May it be a blessing! Our teammate’s friend with the dreams now embraced the idea that they came from God and even shared about her dreams with her mom (who called them a blessing)! May it lead to opportunities to share with that whole family.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
This coming Thursday we will be hosting a break-the-fast meal for island brothers and sisters and their families. There could be over 70 people if they all came with their kids. Pray that we would be prepared for however many come. Pray that this event would help encourage us all, deepen relationships and build unity. The event will also include concentrated prayer for the islands. May the prayers grow our faiths and fight the darkness. Many on our team have been hit by bad allergies lately— pray for relief. Three of our team (including our daughter) have birthdays this week— pray that they could have fun days and feel encouraged, loved and appreciated (it is hard to celebrate well during the month of fasting). Continue to remember our friends in Chad which is still very unstable after the death of the president there.