Isolation

Youngest at island school

It is never easy to feel alone or isolated. On the islands, our children are always different.  Though they have many island friends at their island school, they will always not quite fit in.  This is the reality of our life, for we too, as adults, though we have many friends, speak the language, and understand a great deal of island culture, will never quite fit in.  The reality of that is isolation.  It is one of the reasons why we work on teams, but often kids don’t have have kids their age on the team (or in our kids case right now, any kids at all). So that is a reality for our kids…but not this week. This week we write to you from continental Africa where we have been attending something called Educational Support Week (ESW).  Held at a school for children of workers in Africa, ESW allows our children to be tested for grade level, participate in a regular English speaking school setting, and enjoy the company of a whole bunch of kids a lot like them.  It’s been a joy to see them running around on playgrounds, playing sports, eating in a cafeteria, and reading books from a library.  Our kids are surrounded by kids like them in many ways.

It is not only the children who benefit from this time with others, but we as parents get to interact with parents from all over Africa, we get to hear their successes and difficulties and commiserate over the challenges of being a lifelong sojourner.

As we talked with other families, we realize how difficult this problem of isolation can really be, and how, though we deal with this on the islands, it can be far more difficult in some contexts.  One family we spoke with lives among a violent and dangerous people group where honor killings are frequent and children fighting, beating and throwing rocks at one another is the norm.  In this context they have to keep their children close to home.  Local schools are not an option.  Children sometimes come to their house, but even then, neighbors can be suspicious and hinder their visits.  Their children’s world is quite small.  Comparatively our kids have it easy on the islands, they may always be “different” and without the extended families that island kids live with, but they can still go to school and play.

Oldest at island school

Girls are a whole other isolation challenge.  As they grow into adulthood, many times the places in which we live, where standards of acceptable behavior are very different, become increasingly difficult for them.  Already we have neighbors who demand for us to tell them when our daughter officially enters puberty.  We have no intention of sharing the details of our daughter’s body with the neighborhood.  Still island men, though not normally inclined to make physical advances will talk and look and leer.  How do we teach our daughter to withstand that?  Many island families will keep their daughters at home.  Safe. Secure. Isolated.  Will we have to do the same with our daughter?

It could be worse.  Again we talked to other families in other people groups where young women are regularly groped and often unsafe.  Other places where cloistering adolescent girls at home is the cultural norm and the rules of keeping them at home are strictly kept.  We empathize with these families and the challenges they face.

In the Kingdom of Light there is no such isolation.  We are fully known.  We have complete and joyful community.  There is no fear.  There is no taking advantage of innocence.  There is no need to hide or guard what is good and pure.  It is yet another example of it’s power to transform.  In the meantime, we will live with the problem of isolation.  We will suffer with it’s consequences, as we proclaim the freedom, inclusion, and community that can be found in the Kingdom of Light, so that one day, isolation will end, and all may be free.

There were monkeys at ESW too

PRAYERS ANSWERED
ESW went very well.  Our kids’ testing went well and the kids didn’t seem stressed about it.  They greatly enjoyed the opportunity to be in school with other kids a lot like them and their teachers appreciated having them. We also were given great advice for how to help them in the future. We are so thankful for how well the week went.  We had a bit of sickness over the weekend, but everybody seems to be doing better now.  We are thankful for good health. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are finishing up one conference and beginning another.  Pray that these conferences would be good times of prayer, fellowship, and learning.  Pray for all the travel and logistics that go into moving from one conference to the next.   Pray for the networking that happens, as we talk to people that want to work on the islands and people who can guide our future work. Continue to pray for our island brothers and sisters that they would encouraged and studying with one another as most of the foreign workers are off-islands.