Showing Off

It is a little surreal to be in your old home as a guest. Everything is so familiar and yet you are just one in a crowd, waiting to be invited in and told where to sit.

New paint, new furniture, new TV on wall

Twice in the past few weeks we attended weddings in our former homes. We had rented and lived in each house for around 4 years respectively, so we knew every nook and cranny, every sticking door and finicky light switch. But coming into them now, we had to work hard to recognize them. Paint and furniture were new. New doors. New light fixtures. New decorations. One had a new TV mounted to the wall with the stickers and plastic still on it (proving that it was indeed brand-new). In the other, they had rebuilt the entire front entrance, had put wood paneling on the entire ceiling with recessed track lighting, and added a new backyard patio.

So much time and money to try to make them look as new, fancy, and beautiful as possible.

Now you might think that this is a great gift to the newly married couples— a nice home for them to settle down into, but here is the thing…in both cases, no one is planning on living in these houses. Having a wedding means having events at your home means needing a newly fixed up house. The brides and grooms in these cases don’t even live on Clove Island.  They will travel back to their actual homes in a few weeks and may not be back for years. All the money poured into these homes was for the sake of the wedding, so that everyone attending the weddings could see and notice how much money they had spent.

Check out the fancy new ceiling!

So basically— it is showing off. People are displaying their wealth. While “showing off” has a negative connotation in our minds, on the islands it is expected and even applauded. This is how a family bestows honor on the child that they are marrying off and gains honor in their community. If the family doesn’t spend enough in the eyes of the community, then there will be whispering. Perhaps they will be considered cheapskates or people will think that they don’t really love their daughter very much or that they are actually much poorer than they let on. Any of these scenarios would be disastrous—completely shameful.  People go to great lengths to avoid this shame.  Rich islanders who live abroad often import everything (furniture, decorations, presents), making their wedding almost foreign.  While this kind of showing off seems over the top, it is considered honorable, even expected. As long as the family is seen as generous to the community, then the extravagance isn’t resented.

Of course, not everyone has this kind of money, and there is a difference between poor and rich weddings. At the weddings of poorer islanders, you get the sense of them stretching to reach the minimum required by society for a wedding. The house has a new coat of paint, but perhaps not much else. There is new upholstery on the cushions but the sofa itself may be old. There are gift bags handed out to guests but they may contain the bare minimum number of gifts needed to be seen as acceptable.  They may be going into debt to achieve even this meager display.  Even what they are doing may be much more than their family budget can handle, but the alternative is unthinkable.  A wedding is meant to bring honor—not shame—and honor is expensive.

Bride and groom on their fancy imported thrones

Island culture cares a lot about honor and shame.  Wealth is a source of honor, and a wedding is one of the prime ways to flaunt it.  Moreover, weddings are a huge chance to gain honor.  It may seem strange that islanders are willing to go into debt and call in all kinds of favors to make sure that they put their best foot forward for weddings.  It may seem surprising that we were forced to move from the previous home we were renting because of a wedding, but islanders weren’t surprised.  A big wedding brings great honor and a chance like that is priceless!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our leader’s surgery was today and we’ve had word that it went well. Tom’s new plan for engaging the island brother that he is studying with went well. Our short-termer made it back safely to the US. The baby born last week is doing well and the delivery was smooth— the mother has been having some abdominal pain, so continue praying for her. Tom’s first trip to the other side of the island for teacher training went well. His study with the two men continues to go well. Our teammate made it back safely from the UK.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for our newly returned teammate— she still suffers from long-COVID systems. Pray for healing and energy! Our two medical teammates are meant to start an internship this week as an introduction to the medical system on Clove Island. It looks like it might not officially start until next week, but pray for their meetings this week that they would make good connections with their fellow medical workers. One of the men that Tom is studying with has agreed for our teammate to pray for his wife who has suffered three miscarriages. They believe the miscarriages are caused by a curse someone placed on her. Pray for our teammate as she prays for healing and a child for this couple. Pray that our unit leader will recover quickly from her surgery. We have a few short-term and long-term possibilities in the pipeline, pray for wisdom and discernment as to who should join our work here.