Broader Perspective

In the morning, we heard someone from central Africa discussing his life and work in academia in northern Africa. In one of the sessions, we heard stories from a couple working 37 years among hardened pastoralists in the deserts of eastern Africa. Then it was dinner with our good friends struggling to retain workers for the hard work on the Sahel.

Tom and friend during our first team near the Sahel

At times there are layers of similarity with our life and work on the islands, there are things we can relate to and parallel stories that we could share. At other times, our experiences and contexts contrast greatly, and we can only imagine what we would do in a similar situation.

When we first came out to Africa and during the first team we led, it was using a specific 2-year program. The program threw a team into a new place and people group under the guidance of experienced leaders. The program gave the team tools to help them understand and appreciate all the newness they were encountering in this new language and culture. But you spent much of that first year (if not the whole time) being stretched and pulled in new ways. Diving into a new culture like that automatically makes you view the world with a new and broader perspective than you did before. No doubt people going home at the end of the 2 years are changed, but the program does one thing more. Towards the end of those 2 years, it asks each person in that program to go somewhere new for a month. The reasoning being that after 2 years working cross-culturally in one place one can begin to think that the way your team does things is THE WAY to do things, and as much as that one place has broadened your perspective, you can also have a fairly narrow perspective of cross-cultural work if that one place is all you’ve known. That month out of your context can help push people out of their rut and open their eyes one more time.

Our boys, not on the Sahel

Several times during this past week’s conference, we heard ourselves saying that we have been on the islands for 14 years! We first arrived on the big island in 2009 with a baby. In May, that baby turns 15 years old. And as much as we are continually humbled by the ways we need to continue to learn and the things we don’t fully understand, there is a sense where we are comfortable on the islands. We have learned what to expect and have strategies about how to respond in a variety of situations.

That’s why we need these conferences, these chances at cross-pollination. We need to be surprised by new ways of doing things. We need to be challenged by different complications that cause us to reconsider old assumptions. We need our perspective broadened to include new contexts and new ways of doing things. If travel was cheap and not so time-consuming, we would love to visit all our friends in their different remote locations, seeing and experiencing life and work from their perspective. In the meantime, we listen to the stories from villages, cities, deserts and coastlands across Africa and ask God to open our eyes to new things He may want to see in and through us on the islands.

Our kids enjoying our daughter's long weekend

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The conference went well. The African speaker was wonderful. Our kids had a great time and we got to see many people we care for deeply but don’t get to see often. It was encouraging to hear about how God is moving and changing lives and calling workers across Africa. We also got to spend the weekend with our daughter as it was her middle of term long-weekend break.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are still in mainland Africa, but have already begun the orientation for the new family joining us on Clove Island. It has been a tiring whirlwind for this family for the past several weeks and their two youngest have not been well.  Pray for the energy to get through the orientation process and complete restoration of health for all of them. Also pray for wisdom for us as we guide and support them at this time. Pray for our daughter as she returns back to school for the rest of her term. Pray for our travels back to the islands and for our transition back to life, work and relationships on the islands as we continue to orient our newcomers. Pray for everyone from the islands and elsewhere that were at the conference, may we not forget the commitments we spoke and the challenges we received, but come away renewed and ready for what God wants to do in and through us.