Scarcity and Plenty

The lychee season on the islands is very short, usually only a month. When we see the first lychees of the season being sold on the side of the street, it is a joyous day. We pay the high prices and get some and take them home and cherish them.

Happy day- 1st lychees of the season

This year was a really good lychee year. At the peak of the season the price was a third of the cost from the beginning of the season and lychees were everywhere. In a single day, we were gifted 2 bags of lychees from friends with a couple kilograms of lychees in each bag. Instead of savoring the lychees, we were stuffing ourselves with them at the end of every meal, and still some went bad in the bag before we could eat them.

Before the lychee season started, it had been almost 11 months without lychees and the idea that we would ever allow lychees to go bad would have been unthinkable. Had lychees become less delicious? Did we like them less? No. There was just a lot of them and with that abundance we didn’t feel the need to cherish each one. Was it a case of “too much of a good thing?”

Lots of gifted lychees!

But lychees are never really bad, we just appreciate them less when they are so plentiful. It makes me think about water on the islands. Some island neighborhoods have serious water shortages. We have colleagues that have to collect their dirty bath water in order to flush their toilets. Water is so precious that the idea of flushing with clean water is just too much of a waste in their minds for them to consider it. Meanwhile, we have island friends whose bathroom tap is always on, gushing water out constantly. When asked about it, they seemed to say that it was too much of a bother to turn it on and off, so they just kept it on. Whenever we go to the bathroom there, we turn it off, but the next time we come, it is gushing again. Surely, our island friends would not treat water like that if it was scarce, but because it is plentiful, conservation seems like an unnecessary annoyance.

The truth is that we cherish things more when we don’t have them a lot. Scarcity makes things precious. We were just reunited with our daughter this weekend at her school and she gave up sleep to spend time with us on Saturday morning. During her vacation, when she was home with us all the time, sleeping would definitely have been more valuable to her than spending a few more hours with her family, but since time with us is scarce it was worth the sacrifice.

Some things should always be valuable to us, but the truth is that it is easy to be blinded by the value of things if they are ever-present or plentiful. A book I read recently suggested that perhaps that is why God allows us to go through periods of trials and want, to make the good times and the provisions that much more valuable to us. Perhaps we need that contrast. We need the barren waste lands in order to appreciate the lush valleys of life. I wish it weren’t necessary, that we could learn appreciation and to cherish blessings without at first lacking them, but there are many instances where it has taken the lows to appreciate the highs.

This past week as I walked around Clove Island, there wasn’t a lychee in sight and I thought about the 10-11 months to go before we can expect them again. After that wait, it will sure be good to eat a lychee again!

With our daughter at her school

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We made it safely to mainland Africa.  As far as the islands are concerned, the cyclone stayed well south and didn’t cause any substantial harm.  We were able to make all our flights without a problem.  Thanks for praying!  We got to spend the weekend with our daughter.  She’s gotten to show us all around her school.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We have a busy time ahead with a week of testing for our boys, a week of conferences and then the start of orienting a new family to the islands.  It’s a lot of travel, networking, study, learning, and work—but we are hoping it will also be a wonderful time of blessing, reconnecting, making friends, being encouraged, and welcoming a new family to our island home!  We are also in charge of several things. So pray for all the transitions and busy days ahead.  Pray this week for our boys as they have annual academic testing.  Be praying for the many people flying in for the upcoming conferences.  Pray that we would play our role in the conferences well.  Pray for Megan’s back to be strong.  Continue to pray for our island brothers and sisters. We heard several stories this week of rocky marriages and heartache. Pray for healing, reconciliation and encouragement. After we left, we also heard that a woman who has been a neighbor and acquaintance since we came to the island in 2013, died suddenly and unexpectedly. She was only in her 40’s and her family is in shock. Pray that God might be near to them as they grieve. Pray also for one of our teammates that is grieving a family member who died this week back in the their home country.

Love is Forgiveness is Sacrifice

 I found myself in a conversation with a good friend.  We were talking about love, which led to talking about forgiveness.  We both agreed that you can’t have love without forgiveness.  But then, inspired by something I read in a Tim Keller book, I said, “And forgiveness is expensive.”  My friend was intrigued by that statement.  What did I mean by it?  Why is forgiveness expensive?  “Because someone has to pay,” I said.  He didn’t understand and asked me to explain.

Our son does his PE running before the rains start

So I said, imagine your good friend steals money from you.  A few days later he comes to you and says, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.  I stole your money.”  What do you do?  Maybe the first thing you do is say, “Okay, give me my money back, right?”   But he says, “I don’t have the money.  I spent it all.”  What can you do then?  You have some different options.  You could say, “I don’t forgive you.  Get out of my sight.”  Your friend must pay for his crime, and so he loses your friendship.  

Or perhaps you say, “I forgive you my friend, but you must pay me back for the money you stole.”   In this way we have a compromise.  The one who was wronged will get his money back eventually, but in the time in between, the money is gone.  So in this case, both pay.

The third option is to say, “All is forgiven, my friend.  Forget about it.”  In this case, the one who was wronged pays the entire debt.  Does he not?

My friend agreed.  So then I asked him, Does God forgive us?  “Yes,” he agreed.  Who pays when God forgives us, us or him?  “He does,” he replied.  “How does he pay?”  I asked innocently.  “What does it cost him?”  My friend had no answer for this.  He said, “Let me think about this and we can talk about it again.”

This argument is closer to my heart right now than just a clever way to think theological thoughts.  As we shared last month, a boy whom we love and welcomed into our home stole from us.  [click here for an earlier post about it] A large amount of money by island standards.  It hurt to know we could not trust him.  It hurt to know that he had probably just wrecked our relationship.  It hurt to know that he was headed down a path that would lead to death.  How could we keep loving him?  How could we show him that we would not stand for this?  We confronted him, he asked forgiveness, but the money was gone and trust was broken.  How do we love him?  Who will pay?  He can’t pay.  He’s just a little boy.  People always suggest, “Find jobs he could do around the house, so he can pay you back that way.”  But we don’t have a yard and we don’t trust him in our house.  It sounds like a good solution, but circumstances often mean it doesn’t work.

The porch ready for our little friend's study time

The Holy Spirit gave us a novel idea.  We told him he could only come on our porch (not inside the house) until he had learned to read really well.  So he could come and we would study together and he would learn to read.  After we explained the concept, he left and we wondered if we would see him again.  He stayed away for about a week, but then he started coming regularly.  When He comes, I sit down with him for about half an hour.  We practice letters, writing and then read simple books.  He can read 4 of them now, without too much trouble.  We feed him too—out on the porch.  Sometimes he looks longingly through the window into our house.  But he hasn’t come inside.  He understands the boundaries.  And he really seems to like reading.  Many days he has come and has seated himself right at the table—the model student ready to study.  It’s great to be able to praise him for progress and see him smile when he figures out a word.

He has been forgiven.  But who is paying?  We both are.  He has made a commitment to study and must pay the consequences of his theft by being stuck on the porch.  But in reality, we are the ones paying much more.  In a sense, we are the ones doing “community service” for his crime.  It was our money and now our time being taken.  So there is a sense that when we see him at the door, we sigh because if we want him to be able to keep his side of the bargain, we have to be willing to teach him. But seeing him learn, we are reminded that the money and the time aren’t that important.  It is a sacrifice we can choose to freely give—to see this boy growing and learning and hopefully learning some important lessons about right and wrong and consequences and love and grace and mercy.  When you put it that way, it sounds worth it.  

Early reading book in local language

Forgiveness costs, but so does love.  Love is always a sacrifice.  What is love without sacrifice?  Forgiveness, Sacrifice, Love—they are all costly.  Love comes at a great cost and it’s easy to feel our hearts harden and hesitate to pay that cost.  That happens to us all too often.  But on those occasions when we do pay, we realize it is worth it because with the love, forgiveness, and sacrifice comes redemption.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Preparations are coming together for welcoming the new family coming to live and work on Clove Island— we’ve found a house to rent, a homestay family, possible language helpers, and plans for their orientation are coming together. Continue to pray for them and the preparation of their house and relationship with their new landlord.  Our teammate made it successfully to mainland Africa (we will see her there in not too long!)

PRAYERS REQUESTED
There is currently a cyclone forming south of the islands causing extra rain, winds and rough seas. It is not expected to get close to us, but pray for those in countries south of us and also for the fishermen that might be tempted to still go out and for all of us traveling later this week (including our family). We are praying the winds and rain will calm by the end of the week when we are supposed to fly on Thursday. The local brothers and sisters want to push this year to meet more, study more, share more and to teach their children more. Pray for them that there would be unity and passion for this new push and pray for us that we would do what we can to empower, encourage and partner with them as appropriate.

Different Boxes

She had excitedly told the group that they were going to find cloth for matching holiday outfits and in the holiday colors— red and green! We took this proclamation with a grain of salt.

Our 'red' and green outfits

You see, we knew not to trust islanders’ colors. When we first got to Clove Island we were trying to find some curtains for our living room and we were thinking that a soft pink might go well with the furniture and decorations already there. Our landlady happily declared that after a long search she had found the color cloth we needed and presented us with a very bright, close to neon orange fabric. When we decided to clarify that we wanted “pink”, she smiled and pointed to the garish orange and said, “yes, pink!” We left that interaction stupefied.

Since then we’ve seen many island women pair colored tops with the traditional wraps in ways that to us seemed to clash, but which islanders said matched! So this time we weren’t very surprised when the holiday outfits returned decidedly green and orange instead of green and red. It wasn’t a big deal— the holiday isn’t about what colors we wear after all, so we joined with others in praising the pretty cloth and didn’t say anything about what was to us the ‘wrong’ colors.  

The issue is that islanders just have different boxes or categories for colors and for them orange/pink/red are usually all in one box. In the US, we are actually quite particular about colors and for the sake of matching colors would want to separate different shades of red or orange from each.  Scarlet and burgundy may both be considered red, but we wouldn’t say that they are the same.

Now those are masindza!

How we see colors may not seem that important, but it highlights the reality that we don’t all operate with the same boxes or categories. We don’t group or perceive things the same way. Different cultures can look at the same two things (whether objects, actions or ideas) and one group can say, “those are different!” while the other can say, “they’re the same!”

In another lighthearted example, look at the difference between how we and islanders see bananas. For us bananas are bananas, but islanders have two different words (ndrovi and masindza). Ndrovi refers to bananas that are cooked green as a starch (boiled or fried, like potatoes). Masindza are bananas that are eaten yellow and sweet. We were just gifted a bunch of green bananas, and we had the momentary panic because we didn’t know if they were ndrovi that we should cook up right away or if they were masindza for which we should wait to get yellow. To us, they’re all bananas.

But what if our differing boxes are about something more important than red vs orange or ndrovi vs masindza? What if it is borrowing vs stealing? Islanders don’t think you have to automatically return something you borrow unless the owner actually bothers you and asks for it back. What if it’s being honest vs being disrespectful? Sometimes an islander accepts an invitation to an event that they have no intention of attending, because to say no would hurt the relationship and be rude. What if it’s losing one’s temper vs speaking with passion? For some Africans, losing one’s temper or the appearance of anger can be a huge affront. What if it’s being generous vs being taken advantage of? We often wonder if we’ll look like fools or just good people if we give into the demands made of us. What if it’s the difference between tough love vs cold-heartedness or  privacy vs secrecy or accountability vs mistrust…. the list could go on. Do we draw a line between the two categories (if so, where?) or do we see them as being the same thing (and either acceptable or unacceptable)?

Welcomed rain storms

Our cultural assumptions will tempt us to think that we are the analytical ones that always carefully and correctly differentiate things into different categories, but we need to realize that we won’t always be on the critical side of these differences. Islanders will sometimes look at us and see our ideas and actions as clashing terribly even as we think we are matching perfectly.

We need grace for others and humility in ourselves. May our eyes be opened to the nuances and categories to which we are currently blind!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our colleagues on the small island got all their bags and their children are starting to adjust. One of the refugee families that our teammate has befriended have reunited on the French Island after months of separation (the route to reunion was somewhat questionable, but we are thankful that they are together and safe). Our older son traveled to the big island by himself this past weekend, we are thankful that his travels and time there went well and for the family that hosted him. The distribution of proverb calendars has been going well and led to some positive interactions. After weeks without a good trash solution in our island capital, it seems like a trash truck is coming around and collecting trash again.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
This week and until the end of the month, we are going to help facilitate an online course for future/current leaders in a neighboring country. Pray for us that we’d have the necessary time to devote to this course and that the participants would learn a lot from the material and have the needed internet connections and time to participate fully. We are traveling in a couple weeks and have a long to-do list before we leave to make sure things are ready for the new family that will come back with us. Pray that we’d find the time to get it all done. Continue to pray for all our colleagues and the new family in transition. This coming weekend our teammate in the US makes her way back to Africa— pray for her goodbyes and travel. Continue to pray for the body for unity, growth and trust— a new believer (hopefully inadvertently) was not careful in how he talked about a gathering that led another believer to experience some pressure and threats. Pray for healing of relationship in that situation and for light to shine in darkness.

Back into Rhythm

The other day we were explaining to our kids about inertia—things in motion want to stay in motion, things at rest want to stay at rest.

Saying bye for 2nd term of school in mainland Africa

Between Christmas and New Year, we took time off from our normal life. We relaxed more, we didn’t teach, we didn’t do homeschool, we didn’t have normal team meetings. Going into the break, I felt that inertia a little bit— there was part of me that kept thinking of work things that we could be doing, tasks undone, emails that needed responses. It took a conscious effort to mentally put those things aside. But then the thought of rest and relaxation was so welcome that it wasn’t too hard to let go of those work things.

On this side of break, the inertia feels stronger. Our daughter talked about struggling to adjust back to the sleep schedule of school after being able to sleep as much as she wanted on vacation. I feel my muscles and energy levels protest against my return to my normal exercise patterns. And I feel my brain quickly tiring from all the emails, paperwork and meetings that now need doing. It’s not that the sleep schedule, exercise routine or amount of work has increased from before, it is just that we got out of rhythm. We adopted a vacation rhythm and need to return to the normal life rhythm.

Lined up to sway dance at wedding

On the islands there is a simple dance that women do standing in line together. They sway back and forth in time with the music and each other. Now, every once and awhile there is an island woman who just can’t stay in step with everyone else. They bounce awkwardly between people and often throw people off their own rhythm. When I have been next to such a woman and get thrown off, I find it difficult or even impossible to fall back into the right rhythm again without stopping a second, fixing my eyes carefully on the women swaying correctly, then syncing myself to them. Suddenly what felt hard is so easy and natural.

This morning I was feeling a little overwhelmed with our return to our normal workload. Mondays are always a lot and it was starting to feel cumbersome and overwhelming. Before we knew it, the morning was gone and much work left undone. But at midday as is our normal Monday rhythm, we stopped to pray.  

Not to mix and confuse you all with too many science and dance metaphors, but taking that time to pray helped me to get back into a good rhythm for the afternoon. Just a few moments to center ourselves. We can rejoice that prayer helps us find our rhythm, whether for times of work or rest— we won’t bounce around awkwardly when our eyes are fixed and our minds are synced to Him.

Hello to boys, in taxi on way home

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Some of our colleagues on Clove Island have been praying for a specific man for many years. He had surgery this week and afterwards had a miraculous healing unexplainable by the doctors, along with a vision. He was greatly impacted by these events but worried about his family’s reaction to any decisions he might make in response, only to learn that among his family members is the new sister we mentioned last week! He had no idea, but now that they know about each other, they can hopefully study and grow together! Pray for them— that a new group might form around them. Our daughter had a good first week back at school, but still finding her new rhythm. Megan successfully had her MRI and made it home— still waiting to understand the MRI results. Tom and boys were able to both feed themselves and get work done while Megan was away.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Continue to pray for all our colleague families in transition. One family arrived on the islands yesterday but none of their bags made it. The new family coming to our island are adjusting to mainland Africa where they will do an orientation course for a few weeks. Others are preparing to travel back to the islands. We find that there are often mishaps and difficulties in times of transition, let’s pray against them! Continue to pray for the refugees that have been stuck on Clove Island for many months— they are pursuing their options and need wisdom and favor about what to do.

Who gets preference?

There was a big clump of people outside the bakery gate. Many of them had their hands stuck through the bars waving their money and hoping the guy distributing bread would choose them. There wasn’t going to be enough bread to go around. Everyone might get some eventually, but they may have to wait for another batch to go into the oven and in the end, some probably wouldn’t get as much as they were hoping. Flour was short and so the amount of bread being made wasn’t meeting the demand. If you wanted bread, you had to join the group at the bakery because they would sell out right as the bread is came out of the oven.

Island bread

So the question is: how does the bakery guy choose who gets bread?

If there was enough bread to go around, then it would be more-or-less first-come, first-served. But when there are shortages then it isn’t so simple. There are several factors that can get you preferential treatment. As a foreigner I’m usually given some preference. A lady comes complaining of a headache and being ill, so she is given a prized seat within the bakery itself. A young child comes carrying a bag and money, sent by his family to buy bread and the small crowd parts to let him through. Some women talk loudly about their children at home. One young man is carrying a baby and makes a point of saying that the baby is hungry. People that know the bakery worker make sure to call out his name to personally get his attention. If an older person or a person of high-standing in the community had come, then they would have been given some preference (or even someone sent by a powerful person could probably name drop and get some bread).

Sometimes, for holidays we make our own bread.  

So being a foreigner, being ill or handicapped, young children, a personal connection, age and status all seemed to help your case. I’m not sure what the relative strength of these claims have— if it came down to one loaf of bread and only an old person and a child, who wins? Sometimes it seemed like people in the crowd helped the worker decide— they would point out the child or the sick lady and tell him to serve them next.

But it also felt like most people in the crowd were looking for an angle that might help them get bread. One of my friends gave me a mischievous grin and then loudly proclaimed that she didn’t think that she could make it much longer in the noontime heat! A cynical part of me wonders... did that young man bring the baby just to improve his chances? A healthy young man has very little claim to preferential treatment on the islands, but with a baby in his arms his odds improve. And what about that little boy? Was this little 5 yr old really the only one able to come and buy bread from his household or did they know that he was the family’s best shot?

A bread and nutella creation!

One day, I wondered if it was only the first batches of bread that sold out. Perhaps if I waited long enough there would eventually be an excess and I could buy more than the per person limit they had in place. So I waited around for awhile to see, but there was no excess. When they got to the final batch and it was obvious that some would go home empty-handed, most of the people with special claims to preference were gone. In those final moments, people pointed out how long they had been waiting, or pointed out that they had exact change or that they only wanted one baguette! Or they just tried to be the closest to push their money into the bakery guy’s hand. Whatever they could do to give them the edge to get some bread!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are so grateful for all the blessings and answered prayers in 2022, we look forward to 2023 and all the examples of God’s goodness that we will witness. We are thankful that the flour/bread shortage ended and we no longer have to wait in a crowd for bread. We are thankful that Megan and our daughter made it safely to Kenya (even making a same-day connection!) to take our daughter back to school. We have a new island sister! Pray for her growth in understanding and for a changed life. Pray also for her loved ones that she wants to hear and understand as well. Thankfully our colleague on the big island that had retina surgery is back home with her family. Our teammates had a good time of prayer and found a ride home even though rains made getting home more difficult.

Christmas time is hot, so it's become a post-Christmas tradition to go to the beach or river.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our friend Ma Imani on the big island newly finds herself in a position of leadership— pray for wisdom and grace for her as she seeks to be a light in darkness and as she deals with a history of jealousy and unhealthy community. Pray for unity and healing. Pray also for guidance for her as she had been talking about returning to Clove Island. Pray for Tom and the boys as they tackle restarting homeschool and cooking without Megan this week. Pray for our daughter’s transition back to boarding school, especially as she doesn’t have a roommate this term and her class schedule had to change. Pray for Megan as she gets an MRI of her back in Kenya…may it reveal divine healing! We have several colleague families in major transition. Pray for smooth logistics, adaptable kids and good transitions for all.