Giving Thanks in All Circumstances

We’re thankful that we have a special day marked out for the giving of thanks. It is refreshing and humbling to remember all that we have to be thankful for from the past year. We take the time to look at photos and remember all that’s happened— so many good things.

Thankful for Thanksgiving chickens!

But we have a memory verse that we learned many years ago and it doesn’t say, “give thanks on the 4th Thursday in November,” or “give thanks when you have a day off and have lots of yummy food to eat,” or “give thanks when everything is going well and you’re feeling good.” It says, “give thanks in all circumstances.”

Now we had lots of good circumstances this year… There were some awesome months in the US reconnecting with so many friends and so much of our family, enjoying the outdoors, making some of our kids’ wishes come true, sharing with people about the islands. There were great times on the islands: our outstanding team, welcoming a new teammate, seeing God work in island hearts, seeing our kids grow.

But there were plenty of hard circumstances too… there was illness and pain, there was death and grief, there were carefully laid plans falling apart, there was saying goodbye to our daughter and leaving her at boarding school, there were rising prices and shortages, there was corruption and unrest, there were tales of violence and tragedy. There are many circumstances that we call out to God, asking for a change in the circumstances. But the verse doesn’t say, “give thanks once the circumstances change.” It says, “give thanks in all circumstances.”

Thankful for son cooking!

Not that we pretend that the hard circumstances don’t exist. Not that we close our eyes to the darkness around us— but we ask God for the ability to give thanks in the midst of it all. Today is the first day of Advent and the theme of the day is hope. We give thanks that God gives us hope in the hard circumstances. Thank you God for sustaining us through illness and pain, for meeting us in our grief and allowing us to cry, for orchestrating our failed plans into new opportunities that we wouldn’t have pursued otherwise. We thank you for a wonderful boarding school, where our daughter is thriving. We are thankful that in the midst of shortages and inflation we have always had enough. We thank you for the vision that one day spears and swords will be turned into farming tools and people will no longer think or plan for war and violence.  We thank you for the hope that change is possible.

Looking back at the year, it may be easier to be thankful for lots of the circumstances that were hard in the moment. We can smile now, but at the time there were no smiles. That’s a good reminder too— thank you God that some day I will be able to see your hand in this and be thankful!

Whether it was easy or difficult to be thankful this long weekend, we hope you had some good times of reflection with grateful hearts, rejoicing and giving thanks!

Thankful for cooling downpours

PRAYERS ANSWERED


Our teammates had a great trip to the French island and the visitor had a good, if short visit here too.  We are thankful for people visiting our island and our teammates being able to go and visit others.  We are thankful that our daughter is on her way here.  Unfortunately, the Sunday flight (as it often is) was canceled, so we have to wait to see her until tomorrow, but we will be thankful in every circumstance.  We are thankful that she finished her term well and is able to come back to us and stay with us for a whole month.  We are thankful for the beginning of advent and the joy and traditions that it brings to our family and the opportunities it gives us to share with our island neighbors.  We are thankful that our teammate and the printer were able to finalize our annual proverbs calendars that are being brought by our daughter— we look forward to giving those out and the openings they will provide for good conversations. We thankful for some cooling rain in the past few days!


PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are still waiting to hear the results of the trial of the former president.  So far, things have remained calm.  Pray that the days ahead with our daughter at home could be marked with lots of lasting memories and special times together.  Pray that we would be able to find the balance between celebrating having her around and giving her space to do her own thing as well as remembering that we still have jobs to do too.  Pray for our friend Uhaju and Tom to be able to start meeting this week to study a story set together.  Pray for his continued growth.  Pray for the island sisters that have struggled to find a time to gather and study this month.

Picking up Burdens and Putting them Down

Sometimes it feels like everything we do is about balance.  Stray too much to one side and fall down a slippery slope, but stray too much to another side and there is another slope, another undesirable extreme.

Island men exiting after prayers

The current lesson we’re learning is not unique to this place or to this moment.  And like so many things in our lives, it is about balance. Could this be one aspect of what He meant when he talks about the narrow path?  It seems like finding balance is finding a narrow path between the slopes.  In this case, the area requiring balance is in carrying each other’s burdens.

The verse says, “Carry each other’s burdens…”  What does it mean to carry each other’s burdens?  We think it means to come along side, listen well, understand the situations, problems, fears and anxieties of another and offer support—sometimes words of encouragement, sometimes a commiserating sigh, sometimes a call to action, sometimes physical or material help, sometimes a reminder of the truth.  Always prayer.  

One narrow path of this lesson is compassion, love and empathy—all excellent things.  We are meant to feel and feel deeply.  The Spirit stirs in us even greater compassion, greater love, greater empathy for others.  He is the one who makes it possible for us to carry each other’s burdens.  

And we are called to do it for each other.  There will be times where we will carry that burden for someone and there will be times when they will carry the burden for us.   

Living on the islands we’ve learned to carry many burdens.  New teammates struggle with culture shock, language learning and the difficulty of living in a new culture.  Sometimes we struggle with our teammates through problems happening back home—in their home country thousands of miles away.  Sometimes we struggle with interpersonal conflict and people not getting along on our teams.  We carry islanders burdens too.  People struggling without enough money.  People sharing with us their hard decisions (which we may think wise or foolish). Sometimes we are called to love people who are hard to love.  Carrying others’ burdens comes in many forms and we can be overwhelmed by all the needs. It is too much for us.

Tom & teacher training class

The slippery slope on this side is to love too little—to lack in compassion or empathy.  It is easy to become jaded.  It is easy to harden our hearts.  It is easy to avoid difficult people and difficult situations.  It is easy to keep our burdens to ourselves and keep others at arms’ length.  It is often easier to just feel a little bit less of their pain and stay away from the mess.  But that is not what we are called to.  We are called to love deeply, to serve each other, to honor others above ourselves, and to carry each other’s burdens.

But there is another side to the lesson.  As we’ve learned to pick up and carry and join in the burdens of others, we’ve made the mistake of making the burdens our own.  When a teammate struggles, our hearts can start to worry, what will become of them?  As an island friend makes a poor decision, we ask ourselves, why didn’t we give them better advice?  As two people struggle to get along, we agonize over how we might bring them to a place of understanding.  What can we say? What can we do to fix it?  It is a slippery slope that can lead to deep fear, anxiety and burnout.

What have we done?  We’ve taken up the burdens of others and made them our responsibility.  Why do we do this?  Perhaps out of fear for them and the situation?  But more often it is out of a desire to control and because of pride—as if we are the ones who can fix it.  As if it all hinges on us.  As a team we’ve been reading Henri Nouwen.  He challenged us this past week with these words,

“Without realizing it, the people I came to live with made me aware of the extent to which my leadership was still a desire to control complex situations, confused emotions and anxious minds.”  (italics added)

Notice that where one side of the slope is to love too little and lack compassion, the other side of the slope is not to love too much.  No!  We can love extravagantly, but we have to learn to put down the burdens—or better yet transfer them to the only one who can handle them.  “Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you.”  

On this side of the narrow path we have had to learn the lesson of letting go.  Let go of the burden and give up control.  Pray.  Give control over to the only one who can really do something about it.  But we find that we are continually tempted to pick up the burden again—to examine it, to feel its weight.  Even when we have decided to let go, it is easy to spend a sleepless night picking up the burden we know we were supposed to put down.  

After haircuts

So the lesson is learning to really let go.  We carry each others burdens, but not forever.  No!  We know exactly where to take them, and together we take them to the foot of the cross and leave them there.  We must leave them there…

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful that when we do lay our burdens before Him, He is so faithful in answering, either in relieving us of our burdens or giving us the grace and strength to endure. May we remember and be thankful! Our teammates made it safely to the French Island (though we’re not sure that they enjoyed the boat trip much) and the first day of short-termer orientation went well. A former worker made it safely back to the island for a visit— we pray that he would able to speak words of encouragement, challenge and inspiration to his island friends while he is here.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
The islands government has decided to finally take the former president to trial (after 4.5 years of house arrest with no charges). We imagine that this trial could lead to significant unrest— pray with us to peace, justice and fair governance on the islands! Please continue to pray for our daughter as she takes her final exams this week, packs up her dorm room and travels to the islands. The sisters haven’t been able to have their monthly meeting for November yet, pray that it would work out to meet this week and that they continue to grow together. We are hoping that she can make a same-day connection on Sunday, but interisland flights are notorious for cancellations and schedule changes. It would be a nice gift to our family to have her back on Sunday and not have to spend another night away. Pray the interisland afternoon flight isn’t changed or cancelled and that she can make the connection.

Freak Out or Trust

We started to hear rumblings of a possible strike a week before I traveled.  The pilots were unhappy and would strike if the company did not meet their demands.  But travel from the islands is complicated.  It takes multiple days.  First you have to fly from our island (Clove Island) to the big island. Then you spend a night on the big island and fly out the next day, because there are usually no connecting same day flights.  That’s the normal way of things. 

Tom & our daughter reunited

So I had already flown to the Big Island when word came out that the pilots had gone on strike.

This is the moment to freak out.  Or at least that’s what something inside us tells us.  But if we’ve learned anything from living on the islands, we’ve learned to be more flexible.  In fact, we’ve learned that these are opportunities for spiritual growth.  So we try to swallow that impulse to freak out because the other option is to trust. Who is in control?  Who holds all things in His hands?  Who knew there would be a pilot strike?  Who will make a way for us?  So I took some deep breaths, tried to remember these truths and proceeded with plan B.

Plan B was to wait for the airline to put us on alternative flights, and since my flight was no longer leaving Sunday morning, I might as well go and join the fellowship of my brothers and sisters on the big island.  So I did, and it was great.  But after the gathering, I had a message on my phone.  The airline wanted to put us on a flight with another airline, routing through another city in a more distant country than my destination and arriving the next day at 2am—yuck!

Our boys moved up karate belts!

There was another airline that had a flight out and a much nicer schedule, arriving in the evening, not the middle of the night.  Unfortunately, the two airlines don’t work with one another.  It would mean getting reimbursed for the one ticket and buying another.  My teammate was on the same flight as me, so we talked about what to do and agreed to try to get on the other flight.  I said a quick prayer and went about buying the ticket.

As soon as I bought the ticket, I received a text that the airline I had just booked tickets with minutes before had had a crash that day.  Time to freak out, right?  More deeps breaths.  There was little I could do about it now.  The tickets had been bought.  An airline that has just had a crash will probably be extra careful after that, right?  So maybe we would actually be safer—assuming the airline kept flying…but I had no control over that.  All I could do was wait and see if the airline would still be flying the next day.  So I prayed—for patience, peace, and for the airline to still be running the next day, and then went about the rest of the day visiting and enjoying unexpected time with colleagues from the big island.  I’m not saying I did all this without any worry in my heart, but I tried to remind myself, when worry came, that my Father’s got this.

I am not trying to paint myself as a perfect saint in all this—it was exercise in trust (needed practice in strengthening those trust muscles).  In some ways the Father went easy on me, one thing that made it all a whole lot easier was that I was traveling without Megan and the kids.  It’s easier to trust and to roll with things when you don’t have to worry about feeding a family or about 5 people’s bags.  That would have been a lot more stressed.  It was a sign, actually, that our Father was in control.  Megan and I had considered going to this conference as a family—strongly considered it—but in the end had decided it was best just for me to go.  So there was provision in that too.

Tom's airport meal

Opportunities to trust in His provision continued.  Though I had bought the plane tickets and it was confirmed that the purchase had gone through, I had yet to receive the actual tickets to my email.  So my teammate and I arrived at the airport the next morning, without tickets and not knowing if there would be any flight at all.  But as we waited for the check-in counter to open, our tickets arrived to my inbox and the plane arrived on the tarmac.  In a few hours we were in the air and on our way.

The rest of the trip was more or less uneventful.  It did include a 7 hour layover that became a 9 hour layover in an airport that had no dining facilities. (I had a soda and potato chips for dinner—that was all that was available.)  But we eventually arrived at our destination, tired and thankful, and for the most part—without freaking out.  God is good.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Megan and our son are feeling better.  There was a gathering to give condolences to Elewa for the death of her sister. It was a time of prayer and sharing words and passages of encouragement. The grief is still painful but we are thankful for Elewa staying grounded in the Father. We’re thankful for the conference that Tom was able to attend and that almost all participants were able to make it eventually despite the strike. We are thankful that Tom was able to spend two nights at our daughter’s school and have all day Saturday with her. We’re thankful that flights started back up before Tom’s return flight and he made it back home to Clove Island today!


PRAYERS REQUESTED
The weather is heating up on the islands— pray for our team’s energy as we go into hot season, that we’d know when to rest and have relief in the form of rain and fans when we need it. Pray for our two teammates going to the French Island for the first time at the end of the week— they will be helping with the orientation of new short-termers there. Pray for an uneventful boat trip, that they could be helpful and have fun, and that they would have new insights into how to pray for the French Island. Pray that the short-termers would be inspired to long-term work. Our daughter is going into the end of her first term of high school, including the stress of final exams. Pray that she can study well and not be too stressed.

Determination: Take 2

Two young women, sisters, have been coming to our English Club recently.  As they were leaving last week, we met their mother on the street.  She is a delightful woman and extremely proud of her daughters, who both speak English so well.  She asked us seriously, what it would take for her daughters to study in the US.  So we began to explain some of the process, how expensive it was, how much time it took.  We told her it was the sort of decision you should make with the whole family because it will be very difficult and costly.  We’ve known very few islanders who have been able to study in the United States. We knew it was probably discouraging for them to hear, but we didn’t want them to get their hopes up.

Many students want to study abroad

Almost exactly one year ago, we wrote a blog about El-Azima and his attempts to study in the US.  We wrote about the difficulties and time spent in filling out countless different applications and financial aid forms.  But we never followed up with what happened.  Well, El-Azima got all his applications in last year, but then he never found a way to take the English proficiency exam required by most colleges.  So he was not accepted anywhere.  All that work… wasted, because he couldn’t find a way to take an English proficiency exam.

Well, a few weeks ago El-Azima showed up at the office and asked if we could help him with applications again. We had our answer ready—“Take the English Proficiency exam first, and then we can talk about applications.”  We were not willing to waste more hours filling in forms with the same results.  But it turns out since the past year, there are now internationally recognized English Proficiency exams online.  All he needed was $50 to pay for the exam and he would be on his way…but El-Azima doesn’t even have $50.

Our son with new flower

Last year we helped El-Azima a lot and at the end of that time it was clear that here is a young man who is undaunted, but to what end?  We saw all his transcripts—he was a pretty good student in school, but not the best. His English is good but not great. And hardest of all, his family has no money—really no resources.  His parents are subsistence farmers without any education.  In our opinion, maybe El-Azima could aim a bit lower.  Perhaps studying in an anglophone country in Africa (where these tests might not even be required) would be more within his reach and more realistic for his family.  So we didn’t offer to pay for the test.

Somehow, El-Azima found the money to take the test, and so we helped him with a computer and internet connection.   He did not do very well.  He scored well below the minimum of what most colleges demand.  So when he came to me asking help to apply to colleges again, I had a hard thing to say, “We are really sorry, but you need to get a higher score on the language test if you want more help.”  He left and that seemed to be the end of it.  

But El-Azima is determined.  He went ahead and applied on his own, resubmitting his documents from the previous year, and the next we hear from him is that he’s been accepted with a $20,0000 scholarship to a small college in Pennsylvania! “Wow, congratulations. God bless you,”  we told him.  Apparently all that determination paid off.

Tom watching rugby at African airport

The next day he sent us a message asking what to do—he had just received an email asking him to pay a $500 enrollment fee. We explained to him for another time that the scholarship would not cover everything.  There would be many other fees besides this one—plane ticket, rent, books, food, etc.  How is he going to pay?  Undaunted he asked what he should do.  Frustrated, we suggested he call the university and ask them to help him.  So he asked us another question, how does he call the USA?

He is determined. Is determination enough?

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Tom was feeling much better this week and able to travel in good health.  He’s on his way to a conference in Kenya.  Some flour has come and bread is being made in the bakeries again, for which we are thankful! Our daughter had her first choir concert ever and they sounded great (we were sent clips)! We are thankful for these new experiences she is able to have there.  Tom finished successfully co-teaching a teacher training course with an island teacher this past week.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Tom is on his way to a conference in Kenya but the airline is on strike, making travel very difficult for him and many other participants. Meanwhile, Megan is home with our boys and our youngest son and Megan are sick.  Pray for traveling mercies for Tom and others, and health and strength for everyone while Tom is away.  This past week we were unexpectedly called to attend the funeral of an island sister’s family member.  Elewa’s biological sister died suddenly and unexpectedly.  This is another blow to all of us as it was only a few months ago that our brother Dimi lost his wife suddenly and unexpectedly.  Pray that the community can continue to gather around those who mourn and that they would find comfort.