Defining Family

Our nuclear family this week

How do you define family?  On the islands, families are big and complicated. Traditionally islanders grow up with their maternal extended family around them— mom, aunts, grandmother and lots of cousins.  Moreover, the word “mother” and “father” are loose terms and can refer to aunts/uncles or any other parental figure. When an islander calls a woman “my mother” it is common for there to be a longer explanation— “who raised me”, “who gave birth to me.”  Plus, polygamy, divorce and remarriage are common on the islands too, which further complicates family life. As Westerners, it can be very confusing to know “who is who” in island families. Islanders will often make an effort to explain who someone is… “Oh, that’s my cousin, her mother and my mother are siblings. They have the same mother but different fathers.” (Though sometimes their explanations only make things more confusing.)

Then what about us? In much of the Western world, the concept of “a family” is the nuclear family of parents plus kids. For extended family, we stay connected by phone calls and periodic visits, but our extended family often doesn’t know about our day-to-day life.  As overseas workers, we are far from our families.  True, whole nuclear families will go overseas together but they leave their extended family behind, while singles go completely alone! Sometimes islanders can’t understand why we would do that for more than a couple years at a time and for us it can be hard too. So we’ve learned to redefine family a bit. Our team becomes family for us. The singles become aunties and uncles.  Of course we stay in touch with our families back home but on a daily basis, it is our teammates who know the ins and outs of our lives and understand our struggles. 

Team family last month

Then what about God’s family? We use the language of “family” to talk about our faith communities. Does the family of God do a good job of being family to each other? Does it follow the Western model of nuclear families and isolated singles? Does it follow an island model of maternal connections?  God’s family is beyond blood and culture.  Sometimes we’ve struggled: how do we get involved with islanders like a “family” without creating dependency? How do we encourage islanders to integrate into the family of God? How do we encourage isolated islanders to become family to each other when they aren’t inclined to trust people that aren’t related to them? How do we model family well? Are we willing to let people into our families even if it makes our lives messier and more complicated?

We don’t have all the answers to these questions, but we have seen one thing that seems to go a long way toward this: prayer.  It may seem a simple thing, but regular and frequent prayer seem to bind us together in ways that other strategies simply haven’t achieved.  Something about prayer reveals hearts, breaks down barriers and brings people closer.  It’s not the only part of the solution but it seems to be an important part.

With some extended family this week

A few weeks ago, one of our island sisters was traveling and would be away for 4 months.  So as a group, we went to her house and prayed for her.  A week later, as our island siblings heard we were going away for a few weeks, they came to our house as a group and prayed for us.  It’s not a big thing.  But somehow, these moments serve to bring us closer and we feel the family of God being strengthened. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We were traveling a lot this past week, but our family and kids did well and Megan’s back seems to be doing okay so far. It has been great to reconnect and spend time with our extended family!We’ve heard that our island friend was not miscarrying (as feared). Thank God for this answer to prayer but continue to pray for a healthy pregnancy (she is still nervous). 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
One of our teammates is in the USA having just celebrated her brother’s wedding this weekend— pray for a good time with family and friends before she heads back to the islands. Our other teammate (still on Clove Island without her team family) is doing well. She is keeping busy. We left our short-termer on the islands with our colleagues. This is his last week on the islands. Pray for him as he processes his experience and transitions home. News from Clove Island is that people are upset about a number of arrests this week related to mysterious explosions that have been rumored to be happening around the island. The explosions are rumored to be connected to plans for future unrest. Not sure what to make of all the rumors, but continue to pray for peace, stability and justice on the islands.