What Is Important?

 There are lots of things that you can find back home in the States that we can’t get on the islands. As time goes on, we miss the things we can’t get less and less and we have gotten used to living with what is here. But we notice the missing things more around the holidays.  

Island-made pumpkin pie!

There are different strategies to consider as the holidays approach.  One approach is to go the extra mile to get the thing you’re missing.  But that takes time, effort and extra expense. It takes considering who might be traveling and who has room in their bags and is willing to bring something for you.

We’ve heard stories of people working hard to get turkeys for Thanksgiving on the islands. Sometimes a random occurrence has dropped it in their laps, but other times they have had to hunt something down in another country and then figure out how to bring it to the islands, through customs and trying to keep it frozen in tropical climates. Obviously having gone to all that trouble, there would have been a feeling of victory in enjoying their Thanksgiving turkey! But there is the question of, is the turkey important?

We’ve never attempted turkey on Clove Island.  Instead, we take the creative approach. If we can’t find it, we can find substitutes and make some version of it ourselves. We usually have chicken on Thanksgiving.  We can buy whole chickens and cook them up like we would turkey with most of the fixings. Simple mashed potatoes can be made almost anywhere, green beans are available. There are even local pumpkins so we usually have homemade pumpkin pie. Stuffing is a little harder to do, but we’ve seen very successful attempts that taste like home (though you sometimes need to import the seasonings—not very heavy—and cope without celery). Cranberry sauce is the one that usually isn’t reproducible, though we can sometimes find red currant jelly that is a good approximation, and one year we did a mango chutney in its place.  Recreating an American-style Thanksgiving is not really the point or that important.  We’re not really disappointed that it isn’t quite the same.  But we have fun making something that gets us in the holiday spirit.

When we first came out respecting the actual day seemed important.  But these days we very rarely celebrate on the Thursday anymore. It’s a normal day on the islands and there is often lots to do, so we’ve often moved our celebration to Friday or Sunday. This year our kids were delayed coming home from boarding school because of a flight cancellation, so we’re going to celebrate today (Monday). The day isn’t important.  Being together is what’s important.

The holiday/lychee season begins!

This week lychee season has arrived.  This special fruit has a very short season.  It arrives at Thanksgiving and leaves around Christmas.  As we peeled the skin and tasted the juicy, sweet flavor for the first time this year, we felt the same sort of things the taste of cranberry sauce brings to mind—Thanksgiving, family, the beginning of the Christmas season.  Our time on the islands has changed us.  Now lychees will forever be connected in our minds to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Ultimately, we realize that being thankful and rejoicing in the bounty of what God has blessed us with is the really important thing about Thanksgiving. And the really important thing about Christmas is celebrating the birth of our Savior and the hope, peace, joy and love He represents.  The rest is just bonus!

All 5 of us back together!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Megan and our younger son finally made it home to Clove Island! They didn’t make it until Thursday and had to travel via the big island at extra expense, but we were all very thankful to be back together. Our older two kids also had to contend with a cancelled interisland flight, but they safely arrived yesterday (Sunday) and were in good spirits. What a joy to be back together as a family of five! Muki has finished the studying a full set of stories with Tom, and wants to start over and study them all again! We are praying that this eagerness for studying will lead to a changed heart and life in Muki. One of our island sisters is sharing a study of the book of Ruth that she was trained in. Often times people receive trainings abroad and forget to share them with other islanders when they get back, so this is encouraging!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
There are many people sick on Clove Island right now— pray for healing! One of the main sisters that was going to be part of the study is sick— hopefully there will still be a study this week, but pray that these stops and starts wouldn’t continue. Pray for us as we try to have some quality family time this first week with the kids back. The islands are heading into a time of elections— pray that this would be a peaceful time of debate and discussion and that the elections would be fair and honest, leading to the election of leaders that will work for the good of the country.  The trash pick up on our island has gotten very unreliable— leading people to throw it beside the street or in the ocean. Pray for pick-up to start again! We continue to pray for more opportunities to share truth and hope with our island friends, neighbors and acquaintances!