Better isn’t Always Easy

I leaned my head again my hand as we were talking after the meal and my Kenyan colleagues both instantly asked me, “What’s wrong?”

Beautiful scene from the big island

“Nothing is wrong.”  I responded.  “I’m just listening.”

“When you put your head in your hands like that, it is a sign to us that something is wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong,” I assured them.  “It just doesn’t carry the same meaning for us.  Look.”  I pointed around the room to various Westerners happily carrying on conversations with their heads resting on their hands.  

We both had to laugh.  “All these Western teammates must be very troubled.”

But the thought occurred to me, how easily this could be misconstrued.  Imagine if my Kenyan colleague were giving an engaging thoughtful talk and I and other Westerners decided to rest our heads on our hands.  What would we be inadvertently communicating to him?  That we were bored or upset?  Heaven forbid!

Did you know that most cross-cultural workers go back to their home countries because of other workers? That is at least the often-repeated statement that we’ve heard many times. Many things can be difficult about working overseas— the strain of being away from family, the struggle to understand a new culture, the frustration of learning a language. I think we often assume that our relationship with other workers will be the easy part— that everyone will naturally get along and understand each other and be a support-system for each other. And sometimes that is how it is. Sometimes workers come together in unity, God does amazing things and it is beautiful.

Enjoying coast with colleagues

That’s how it should be. We should be able to find unity and work together for a greater purpose. Sometimes in our desire for unity, we seek conformity. We mistakenly think that conformity is the source of (or at least will help ensure) unity. But we are meant to seek unity in the midst of diversity not through conformity. We read about people from every tribe and tongue coming before one throne, of many parts with different strengths forming one body. One of the things that drew us to our organization is that it included people from different backgrounds and sought out partnerships with like-minded people and groups. We love that!

But here’s another secret— working amidst diversity and still finding unity is hard. We understand the desire for conformity because respecting diversity is difficult.

We’ve just come back from two larger group gatherings. First in mainland Africa we went to a gathering of team leaders from around the continent. Then back on the islands, we joined a gathering of cross-cultural island workers. In both places we were celebrating and praying for more diversity. We want to be serving alongside people from different nations and with different mother tongues. It is so much better when we do! But at the same time, we talked a lot about how much harder that is. It is so easy for one culture to dominate and either silence or alienate those from other cultures. Our group has long been dominated by western (and often American) culture, so there are a lot of habits and ways of operating that have to change for us to truly welcome in workers from other cultures.

Navigating different languages, cultures and customs will mean we make mistakes. We will offend, misinterpret and confuse each other sometimes. We have to have a lot of grace for one another and assume the best of one another. We have to believe that it is better that we work together. It won’t be easy, but it is better. It is worth it.

Boys attempting volleyball

Across the four islands, we have workers from North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa (we’ve had Australians in the past too!). I wish I could say that no worker has ever left the islands because of other workers, but that unfortunately has happened. But we can say that we have been blessed by the amount of unity and true desire for godly partnership that we have seen on the islands. We truly share one vision and the same values. By one Spirit we who are many continue to work together.

Unity and diversity have to be fought for, have to be prayed for. This doesn’t happen in our own strength. Will you join us in praying for it?

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We got our passports in time! It was a close thing and in our minds we were already making plans to change our tickets and extend our stay in Kenya, but God is good and we got the passports when we needed, got our negative COVID tests and were able to return to the islands as planned! Thank you so much for praying. All the logistics fell into place nicely and we were able to fully participate in the meeting of workers from across the islands. The new worker who was rushed to the hospital with breathing problems last week is doing much better. The meetings went well and we were blessed to get to know all the new workers who have come to the big island in the past few months. It is exciting to see the group grow and diversify! Our kids had fun playing with all the other worker kids from other islands. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Continue to pray for more African workers to join us in the work on the islands. They have unique cultural insights and are able to adjust to the islands in ways that we can’t. Pray for the current new workers to adjust well and to thrive. Pray for workers to continue to be united and to have grace and forgiveness for one another in the midst of disagreements and misunderstandings. Our teammate has taken her first leg of travel to get back to the UK— after much difficulty and a long overnight boat ride, she is on the French Island, only to be told that her next leg has been canceled! Pray for peace for her as at every step she has encountered difficulties. It has been exhausting. Pray that the airlines would take care of her and help facilitate solutions. We just sent our short-termer to stay with an island family for a month— pray that they would take good care of him and that he would have opportunities to be a light to that family.