Worth the Visit?

 How long does it take you to go 70 miles?  Usually an hour or two.  If there’s bad traffic possibly longer.  When we stay in the Boston area we regularly commute from the North Shore down to Metro West.  It’s about 35 miles.  And we could do it in about 45min on a good day.  If there was traffic, it could take a whole lot longer.  But imagine if it took 7 hours… going on average 5 miles per hour the whole way…

Settling in for long, slow overnight boat ride

Last week, we (Tom and our youngest) took the boat to the neighboring French island.  It is about 70 miles away.  There is no direct flight.  There is only a boat, and it takes all night to get there.  70 miles at 5mph…

This is the second or third time we’ve taken this boat.  It is not a pleasant ride.  Not only is there the extremely slow rate of travel and all the passengers who get seasick, but added to that is a great deal of time for baggage handling, immigration, and unknown reasons for delays which can take hours.  So you are already tired of traveling by the time you step on the boat.  And you know that the same sort of hassle will meet you when you arrive on the opposite side…

But it’s worth it.  There is nothing like being in a place, being with your friends in their home, in their neighborhood, in their life, to give you a proper understanding of their situation and how to encourage them.  We are thankful that our organization realizes this and helps us find the funds to travel to each island during the calendar year to do these in-person visits.

Their beaches are still fun!

While there, we were able to go with our friends to their jobs, to see where they work.  We met many of their friends and acquaintances and we got to spend lots of fun time with their kids.  We ate meals together and talked as we did the dishes.  After the kids went off to bed, we drank tea and ate chocolate and talked some more.  There isn’t anything I can think of that can replace that sort of time together.

Our friends on the French island have been through a lot.  Their island was devastated by a cyclone last year, and the island as a whole is still finding its feet.  Our friends are living in a small apartment while they wait for their home to be fixed.  Their home lost its roof.  Nearly everything was damaged.  We joined them in that small apartment.  It was cramped.  Their 3 kids shared one room, and our son joined them.  Tom slept on a mattresses on the living room floor.  We don’t think the apartment could have held one more person!  But I’m glad we did it that way, their good friends after all, because we got to see what their life is really like.  How they have found new rhythms in their small apartment and found ways to make it work.  They long to move back to their old home, but what they have right now is serviceable.  We don’t think we would have had such insights if we hadn’t been able to experience it for ourselves.

When we walked around town, our friends were able to point out all the damage we might not have noticed and some of the repairs that have happened and how it is affecting their life right now.  At his place of work he showed me how things seemed to be running smoothly on the first floor, but if you climbed up to the second floor, you saw the unfixed devastation of the cyclone.  These things hit home like words and pictures simply can’t do.  Even as I write this, I know we are giving you a very poor impression of what we saw.

Damaged buildings with tarp roofs

But these things add up to new understanding.  Our friends’ stories take on new color and detail.  We’ve seen firsthand the people they’re talking about, the places they go, the things they do.

We live in a time when face-to-face time seems almost unnecessary when we can video chat now—is there need to actually go?  We say, “Yes!”  It’s worth it.  The time, the trouble, the expense—it’s worth it.  The expensive boat tickets, the slow boat ride, the hassle of baggage and immigration going and coming—it’s a lot, but it was worth it. But maybe only once a year…

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are back together on Clove Island. Tom and our youngest made it safely back first and were able to jump back into life and homeschool. Megan’s travels went smoothly as well and we’re thankful that she was also able to travel with some more of our daughter’s special medication. Praise that Tom continues to have men showing interest in studying— we pray for the follow-through on that interest. Our colleague on Clove Island was able to make it home and spend a week with her ailing grandma before she passed away. We thank God that He opened up that timing for her to travel.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
As we feared, the illness last week led to a flare-up of our daughter’s rheumatoid arthritis this week. She made it through the SAT but she was confined to bed the rest of the weekend. Thankfully she was better enough to attend half her classes today (Monday). Please pray for a quick resolution to this flare-up, especially as she has an AP exam on Wednesday (which is also her birthday), and continue to pray with us for her complete healing. Pray for the Clove island women as we have a women’s gathering on Wednesday— pray that it would be well-attended and that the women would be encouraged by the study and by each other. Tom and his friend met and prayed for each other that they would have God-given dreams confirming the true path— no dreams so far but let’s keep praying that God would reveal the truth to this friend. An old worker from the islands is back visiting all three islands— pray that his visit would be encouraging and that he would know whom to try and see and that God would speak through his interactions.