The Fire Hose, the Slow Drip, and Taking the Plunge

 There’s a wonderful proverb in the Clove Island language that goes like this:

Sun setting on Clove Island

“Better a drop of water that falls each day ‘trwa, trwa, trwa’
    than a river of water that falls at one time.”

We’ve found this to be a very helpful proverb indeed.  It comes in quite handy with our friend Muki.  Muki loves to teach our new visitors some of the local language—he is an expert after all.  Yet in his excitement to teach them something, he quickly overwhelms them with a hundred examples.  We’re always telling him, “That’s enough!  They can’t learn everything in a day.  Trwa, trwa, trwa.”  Muki laughs and seems to back off saying, “You’re right, you’re right—but just say these ten more phrases!” And launches back into the river of language our guests can’t possibly understand.  

His enthusiasm considered, we don’t set up new people with Muki as a language helper.  We try to find someone patient, who will go slowly and can resist the urge to add 5 more, 10 more, a hundred more phrases.

This proverb is also helpful for eager English students.  We’ve had English students determined to write down and memorize all the vocabulary from a dictionary.  Needless to say, there are much better ways to learn English.  Reminding students that they need to go slowly, that they will need lots of practice, that they shouldn’t get discouraged, that they should keep going even if they don’t see progress, are all very helpful reminders to English students, reinforced by this simple proverb.

We have a similar saying in English.  “Drinking from a fire hose.”  The idea being that it really doesn’t work very well—drinking from a fire hose.  You get very little water down your throat and you get drenched, soaked and bruised in the process.

For all our good advise to our language helpers and our English students, we’re afraid we have trouble remembering this wisdom when people come to visit us.  We’ve noticed that what seems like a simple and innocent question never seems to have a simple answer.  We find ourselves saying things like, “Well, let me back up a bit,” or “To understand that I need to tell you about something else.”  No, despite our better judgment of “trwa, trwa, trwa” we’re afraid that we often turn on the fire hose and drench our visitors in language, history, culture, technique, methodology, values, flavors, smells, people, visits, and places, that they leave them looking a bit dazed, confused and overwhelmed.

Taking our guests for a hike

Could we be better about this?  Surely we could, but it’s difficult.  Another saying comes to mind—  “taking the plunge.”  As nice as drops of water are each day for learning, sometimes we have no choice but to jump in.  That’s what it feels like when people come to the islands.  They’ve just jumped off the edge of a cliff—the world they knew—and are plunging down into a mysterious tropical pool far below their feet.  There’s no turning back.  You will get wet.  You will be plunged under the water and will have to fight to bring yourself to the surface.

We’d like to think that all the information we give our visitors is helpful, like a life ring, thrown out to help them find their way, to give them something to lean on, let them catch their breath in this strange murky pool in which they find themselves treading water.  But we wonder if sometimes, instead of a life ring, we accidentally throw a bucket of water—dousing them again in confusion and information that they simply can’t handle, can’t take in.  It’s hard to get the balance right.  When people are with you for a short time, when they ask lots of questions, when they seem eager to understand, it’s hard not to turn on the fire hose.

Maybe this is the difference between a short visit and a long visit.  For a long visit, after the initial plunge, we try to slow it down.  We put them in a home, get them settled and help them learn language, culture, methodology, etc.  bit by bit, step by step, day by day.  

But for a short visit—We throw them in, fish them out, and send them on their way, bewildered and befuddled, hoping they will be able to process and grasp some of the significance of the experience on the flight home.   

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our visitors doing their weeklong site visit made it safely, were thrown in for a plunge into island culture, life and work, and were sent on their way today and made it safely to the big island. Despite some sickness, their visit went well and it was good to get to know them and to consider together what it might look like for them to come and join the work here. The men had their gathering and Tom was encouraged by how it went.  Megan was able to watch the livestream of the funeral of her uncle and celebrate his life and how he blessed others. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We have had a stretch with lots of visitors and hosting— pray that we could rest well this week and get back into more normal rhythms. Pray for Tom as he brainstorms new ways to do teacher training- he has several far away villages that want him to do teacher trainings with them, but it would be very difficult to manage with the bad roads increasing commute times significantly. Pray for a breakthrough idea that could work. Ma Imani has traveled to the big island in the hopes of catching a visiting specialist there to check on her health problems. Continue to pray for us that she would find healing! Our island sister Elewa has been trying to encourage the local brothers and sisters to pray and be open to God using them in powerful ways in 2026— she believes it will be a big year for the islands— let us pray with her that it might be so.