A Great Day

 Last Sunday was a Great Day.  

Ready for the event

We had visitors, which is always fun, and we were taking them to an island event—a chance for them to experience island culture.  Only, this was no ordinary event—a birthday party in part, with a worship service and a prayer time, all wrapped into one—a gathering of lots of island brothers and sisters.  Gatherings like this can’t happen all too often so when they do they are special.  The organizer had asked everyone to dress in their traditional best (hooray for thoughtful contextualization coming from islanders!).  So we put some traditional hats on our guests, got ourselves and the kids all dressed and headed to the event. 

View from Hike

The event went about as blessedly as it could.  There was lots of prayer and singing.  There were thoughtful and meaningful words shared.  Good fellowship and food followed, including the Happy Birthday song sung in 3 languages and a beautiful delicious cake.  At the end of the event, a few of us were asked to go pray for the husband of the organizer who suffers from crippling gout.  Though not exactly a happy moment, it was powerful to gather around him and pray for healing.  We got to share with our guests all of this special occasion—a rare gift that, I hope, will stay with them.  The kids did great (not something we take for granted) and we taxied home around lunch time.

A delicious lunch was followed by some deep conversation with our guests.  It’s a blessing to be able to talk to them about important things.  This was followed by some welcomed rest. Not napping, but gathering with the kids and reading aloud 5 or 6 chapters of the Wingfeather Chronicles by Andrew Peterson (which I’d highly recommend them).  Restful family time together around a good book is a joy.

As the afternoon sun moved toward the western horizon, we rose from our repose and headed out with our guests and teammates for an afternoon hike.  The hike was near perfect.  Cool breezes, lemurs, beautiful sunsets, exercise, and pleasant conversation.  As we made our way back home walking through the narrow streets of the city’s medina, I had to say goodbye to the group to join two guys for a scheduled appointment.  

We’ve been meeting each Sunday for about 6 weeks now, studying the great stories and looking for the truth in them.  Today we studied the story of a paralytic man having his sins forgiven and his paralysis healed.  My two study companions did not become angry as the religious leaders (then and now) had done, but rather became quiet.  They well understood what was being said, but didn’t dismiss it. They were struggling to understand what it all meant.  When we got to the part of the study where we ask the question, “How will you apply this to your life?”  Their response was simple.  “We need time to reflect on this.  How about we read this story again next week and we will bring our questions to you then?”  It was easily agreed upon.  

Rejoining my family and guests, there was some good dinner and some good kitchen conversation as our guests graciously offered to do the dishes (or “the washing up” as they might say).  While one washed and one dried, we put the dishes away and enjoyed some more good conversation.  A little while later we did devotions with the kids and talked a bit more and then headed to bed.

Team at weekend retreat

It wasn’t until I reflected afterwards that I realized just how great a day it was.  Days don’t often look like that, so it’s important to be thankful for them when they come around.  Some days we are sick.  Some days we are tired.  Maybe on another occasion, we could write a blog about a day where everything seemed to go wrong.  (Often enough those days happen too.)  But some days are special.  Some days are great.  We want to give thanks for all of them.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for great days! They are often a needed encouragement. Our team retreat went well. The hotel changed up our reservation at the last minute, but the changes ended up being a blessing. We’ve had a great team these past 7 months that we have been together and it was good to celebrate even as we prepare for the breaking off of the medical team. The first house-hunting trip to the far side of the island went well— they saw four houses. No clear winner, but house-hunting on the islands often takes multiple tries to get the word out before you use all the possibilities.  


PRAYERS REQUESTED

The first of the reconciliation meetings on the big island happened today and went well. Please be praying for the larger meetings that will happen tomorrow (and perhaps the next day as well). Pray for humble hearts among both foreign workers and islanders, and for grace and forgiveness to abound. We are going to the big island on Wednesday afternoon for a long weekend kick-off of a year-long leadership training that we will be attending with other team leaders/potential team leaders. We will be leaving our kids on Clove Island and our teammates will be helping with them. There are supposed to be two more face-to-face weekends like this, so we pray that this first one goes well, both for our kids/teammates on Clove Island and for all of us gathering on the big island— may we be able to surrender and be refined into better leaders! Our future teammate is trying to make plans to come to us on the islands before the end of the year— pray for open doors and clear direction. We’ve had a message from others looking to come to the islands (not with our group) who are asking us for advice, pray that we can speak words of wisdom to them.  Pray for our old teammates on the French Island as they await their baby boy— the mother would prefer he be born as soon as possible! We’ve also just found some electrical problems in our house. Island houses always have outlets/fixtures that don’t work, but now half our house isn’t working. Pray for an easy solution and especially before we leave the kids alone on Wednesday.