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.