Fundraising Island Style

Ma Imani with her little one

When Ma Imani told me she had a tari in a few days, I assumed that someone in her group of friends or family was getting married. Tari is a term for a certain type of music and any event with that music is called a tari. A group of women with drums will pound a beat while someone sings and women dance. There is always a money line, where those in attendance dance up and give money toward the event. Most commonly these are for weddings, but there are different kinds. She quickly told me that this was her own tari, a “tari la msaanda” (meaning a tari for help/aid). It was a fundraising tari for her daughter. Doctors have told her that her 18 month old daughter needs to travel abroad for an operation. I’m still not sure what the problem or operation is, but she was told that she’d need close to $2000 to pay for everything (travel, treatment, etc). This may not seem like that much money, but Ma Imani only works part-time at normal island wages, earning around $100 a month. I was surprised to hear that she was organizing a fundraising tari. I had only heard of large groups or neighborhoods putting them on, not individual people. But there I was on Saturday evening ready to participate.

What do you do when you find yourself in need of money that you don’t have? On the islands this often happens with medical concerns. There is no insurance. The expenses add up quickly. Local medical care is quickly exhausted and people are often told that they have to travel abroad to get the care they need. It is a big expense and islanders don’t usually put money aside for contingencies like this.

Setting up fundraising tari, where is everyone?

The solution is to go to your network of friends and family. You let people know. You go on the rounds to people’s houses, explaining and asking them to help. Everyone gives some and hopefully the whole sum is found. It is actually this practice of relying on one another in financial hard times that binds the communities together. They need each other.

The fundraising tari ended up being a bit of a disaster. Everything was late coming together, so what should have been an early evening tari didn’t get going until late that night. There weren’t many people there. Then the ladies with the drums never showed up! This is unheard of from my experience and I’ve wondered if it was an intentional slight. One of my friends called it a betrayal. Eventually they got some recorded music playing, but the power was going in and out, plunging the event into silent darkness. Ma Imani was running around but it didn’t seem like she had anyone else that could take up the reigns and make things happen. Everyone who had been waiting put their money in the decorated box, but with none of the usual fanfare about it.  It all seemed pretty discouraging to me. Perhaps Ma Imani didn’t have a strong enough network of people around her.

I saw Ma Imani again this morning. She complained about all the things that had gone wrong— placing most of the blame on the electric company and the drumming group (who were apparently apologetic). She had raised around $700. I didn’t know if this was good or a disappointment,  but she didn’t seem too upset.

Then she told me how Imani had called to her last night and said, “Mama, they said your name on the TV!” Some of her extended family (who hadn’t made it to the tari) are organizing another fundraising tari for her this coming weekend and had put ads on the local radio and TV. They hadn’t even told her. She smiled as she told me and I was warmed with the thought that people did care for her and were stepping up when she needed them.

Family Olympics: Tallest Tower Building

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The first week of local school went really well. We were excited to see how well our youngest did (as this was his first time) and even our older son came back with good reports (he’s usually down on local school). Pray it continues! We’ve already found a couple possible houses as we look for a house for our new teammates (coming next month). We are dedicating this week to intense house-hunting. Pray that the right house would be clear.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Ma Imani has her second fundraising tari this weekend and then plans to travel to the big island on Monday (there is a visiting specialist coming to the big island for a couple weeks). From there she is preparing to travel abroad with her little one. Pray that she would have all she needs. Our youngest is sick, pray that he gets better quickly. This coming weekend is supposed to be a gathering of women (the beginning of a monthly practice), pray for Megan as she is supposed to be sharing and helping to lead the time. Pray for us as we get in touch with doctors about following up with Megan’s medical concerns— we were hoping to wait until January (when we could travel as a family), but we’re getting mixed messages about whether it can wait that long. Pray for clarity.


Our organization has changed the format for online giving. They now have a link dedicated to each worker. Here’s our link.