New Experiences

We’ve spoken before about our good friend Bako.  He’s the serious one, the English teacher who likes to “moralize” to his students by teaching them moral lessons in addition to English.  A few years ago he got married and now he is the father of two little girls—the newest only a few months old.

Celebrating daughter's bday early

Bako, perhaps not surprisingly, is pretty set in his ways.  Though a young man, he acts like an old one.  He sees the world in a certain way and believes there is a clear way to behave in this world—a right way and a wrong way, a way of responsibility and duty and a way of foolishness and carelessness.  There is not a whole lot of grey area with Bako.  He is firmly guided by island tradition and a sense of duty.  He has his way of seeing things and he tries to fit everything into his boxes.  

Yet, Bako is friends with us.  We don’t fit his boxes very well—although he tries his best.  For example, even though we had talked of our difference in faith on numerous occasions and even shared our good news with him, he surprised us one day a few years ago by saying, “Wait, you aren’t of the same faith as me?”  Apparently because we wear traditional clothes on occasion and join in the general celebration of the end of the month of fasting, he had gotten confused.  Bako is not stupid.  Rather he chose to ignore.  We would be much easier to understand this way, so he ignored the evidence that didn’t fit and put us in one of his boxes.  (We just keep trying to break out of them.)

Tom and friend on holiday

Bako has dreams for the future.  He wants to do good things for his country.  He wants to be an important and respected member of society.  He wants to travel.  For years, I have been helping him apply for various training opportunities abroad.  Year after year, he has been refused.  But this year, it finally happened.  He was accepted to a program that would pay to bring him to South Africa for 3 weeks of networking and training with other young African leaders.  When it all happened, it happened quickly, and it showed just how small Bako’s world and his boxes are.

About ten years ago, Bako traveled to Tanzania.  It was a life changing experience he still frequently talks about.  The flights, the big city, the cross-cultural experience—he talks about it in his slightly pompous way, as if he understands world travel.  But now he’s going to South Africa.  This is a much bigger trip, a much bigger experience.  His inexperience came through in a number of different ways—for example, his not realizing that it was his responsibility to work on getting the visa.  But somehow, with a lot of help and encouragement he has made it there.

Welcoming kids on holiday

He is now studying with people from all over Africa.  Different cultures, faiths, backgrounds, rich, poor.  Some of them with much greater experience and skill—some, we are sure, with much more to their resumé than teaching English classes.  We imagine Bako, interacting with them, trying to fit them all nicely into his boxes and hopefully failing.  How many of them don’t fit?  How many of them might be exploding those boxes?  How many of his ideas that he assumes are common knowledge are far from it?  How many opinions he is used to being with the majority is he now finding himself in the minority? How many will he just choose to ignore? Choose to not see? Will he try to place them in his nice little boxes, and come back none the wiser for the experience?  We cannot know until he returns.  But we can hope.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our daughter made it safely back to mainland Africa and her school. She started classes this morning for her last trimester of the school year. We had some nice final days with her with some good talks and fun family time. The big holiday went well on Saturday— we saw lots of people and gave candy to lots of kids. We were able to sit down and catch up with our teammate back after months away— it is a blessing to have her back on the team. There has been continued stories from across the islands of islanders being changed, islanders withstanding persecution and new people hearing good news. God has been moving during this month of fasting— there is much for which to be thankful.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
The French Island has begun their campaign to destroy the homes and neighborhoods of the illegal immigrant population and deport them to our island. But the first two boats with deportees have been turned back and we’ve heard that the islands have closed the maritime border so that the French government cannot send people to the islands. Meanwhile on the French Island, there are clashes and protests. We’re not sure how this will play out— but we continue to pray for protection of life and for justice, for light and hope to come to this messy situation. We had a visitor that was supposed to come- she’s a short-term worker on the French Island— but her boat returned to the French Island. Pray for wisdom for her about how to proceed and whether to try again to visit to Clove Island this week. We have a busy few weeks— pray that we would have a good balance of rest, work and family. Pray for our daughter as she readjusts to school and to a new roommate, and also for us as we readjust to having her far away. Pray that all the islanders that showed interest or heard good news during the month of fasting would continue to seek and find in the coming weeks.