Getting Used to It

"They’ll get used to it!"

Throwback: Our daughter on homestay in 2009

Having a new family on our team and having them live in our house with us this past week highlights for us the ways that we have gotten used to island life. If you live with something long enough, you get used to it, but it takes time. When we look at them, we see ourselves from years ago.

We notice our new teammates reacting with concern to things that for us are normal— a mentally ill man in the street (he’s always there), the armed soldiers on the street (the president must be passing through town), there’s a goat on our stairs (just shoo him down), people are yelling in front of our house (a normal debate among neighbors). You get used to the sights and sounds of our town.

Our neighbors hear their baby crying in the cold bath water and they say, “he’ll get used to it.” It’s true. Most of the times the cold water feels good to us now.

We see our teammates struggling to differentiate sounds on their voice recordings from their language lessons and then fail to get the music of language quite right in their repetition. Their ears and brains will get used to hearing the island language and their tongues will get used to making its sounds. “They will learn,” our island friends declare.

Learning to take out trash

Our island neighbors saw the new family’s babies dripping with sweat and suffering from heat rash and they reassure them that the babies will get used to to the heat. It’s not just our temperaments but our bodies that adjust too. We don’t sweat as much and we don’t get heat rash as easily.

We notice our new teammate holding out the traditional wrap, trying to remember how to put it on. Soon she will be so used to putting it on that she won’t have to think about it.

Continuing with what you were doing when the power goes out or washing all the dishes when the water is cut, these are part of our everyday, so we don’t really think about it, but our new teammates need advice and tips on how to cope with these new realities.

Learning about traditional wrap

I am not sure if the repeated calls of “you’ll get used to it” are actually encouraging. Perhaps, it is encouraging to know that everything won’t always be a struggle, but it isn’t a phrase that helps them in the moment. In the moment, they aren’t used to it. In the moment, it is hard or awkward or painful. In this moment, these things aren’t coming naturally and our everyday life looks exhausting to them. Because it is exhausting, until you get used to it.

We asked one of our new teammates how to pray and they said to pray for perseverance. Perseverance is a great word— it implies patience and hard-work and hope. Persevere, it gets easier, you’ll get used to it!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We’ve gotten some rains, providing needed relief from the heat and humidity. Trash pick up has become very irregular and problematic, but we are thankful that the trash truck came a couple times this week when we needed it most! Our daughter had a wonderful weekend on a choir tour— we got to listen to recordings from one of the concerts and hear her stories— it sounds like the music and words touched many. We are so thankful for our team who has worked hard running orientation and preparing the home of our new team family— things have gone well and and the house is ready! Our new teammates have made good connections with their language helpers.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Continue to pray for the transition of our new team family— pray for them as they finish their homestay with a local family and move into their own home this week. Pray for them as they start to establish rhythms of living and language learning and as their children continue to have a lot to adjust and to get used to. We are finally returning to more of a normal routine this week, but we are behind on a lot since we paused many things to do orientation for our new teammates and we’re already feeling tired. Pray that we would have peace about what to try to do each day. Pray that we would be able to reconnect with some islanders that we haven’t had good time with for awhile. Also pray for a young woman coming to do a vision trip to the islands, coming this week to the small island and next week to Clove island, pray that it would be clear to all where she should go longterm whether the islands or elsewhere.