Growing in Generosity

 We are told that it is important to be generous.  There are many proverbs and verses reinforcing this idea. And yet, I see in myself that I am not overly generous by nature. It is something I continue to grow in.  I have not figured it out yet.  I recognize that it isn’t meant to be legalism but a heart posture flowing from my love of God and others, but sometimes, even when I am generous, my heart is not.  My hand gives with a grumble.  My mind questions my actions. 

Tom giving his time for ceremony

When I lived in America I thought of myself as generous.  Though we didn’t have a lot, we did a good bit of charitable giving to different organizations—more than the 10% baseline.  When we went out with friends, we would often be happy to pay for the meal.  Things like that felt good and were relatively easy to do.  It’s true, we didn’t usually give money to strangers or to homeless people.  We were taught (and perhaps rightly so) that this exacerbates the problem.  “If you give a drunk money, he’ll just buy more alcohol.  So giving to him doesn’t actually help him.”

This taught me to be circumspect about giving. Then we came to the islands, and initially my old understandings of generosity seemed to work and were reinforced.  There were a lot of books out at that time like “When Helping Hurts” which were offering a needed corrective to naïve, disconnected giving.  In our first years we saw the practicality of being cautious about giving too generously as the first people to approach us as foreigners were the ones who knew how (or thought they knew how) to work the system and get money out of foreigners.  The false sincerity, lies, and damage we saw them doing not only with us but also to the sense of trust and community among local brothers and sisters was enough to confirm our approach to generosity as a good one.  

But as time passed, year after year, my old understandings of generosity stopped working.  They needed to change. Life simply demanded it.  How did life change?  I began to understand island people, their culture, their understanding of generosity, but most of all I got to know islanders.  My deeper friendships demanded that I change.  I had a choice between growing in my understanding of generosity or giving up my friendships to hold on to my old views.  That battle still rages in my heart, but I am learning.  

Here are some of the lessons I have been learning:  
Generosity is all the time.  There are many beggars in our town.   Most of them are handicapped in some way.  They make their living through begging.  It is understood by islanders that this is their lot in life.  So when I walk through town, I should probably be ready to give to the beggars I see.  I should leave the house with some change in my pocket.  All too often I forget to bring anything and must pass them by without giving them anything.  Every time I do this, I feel a tug at my heart—I just missed an opportunity to be generous because I wasn’t ready for it.  I wasn’t ready for daily generosity.

Friendship is harder when faced with real poverty.  I have become friends with some very poor people.  We may not seem rich to you, but compared to many islanders we are so rich and some of my friends are so poor.  Muki lives in a tin shack that is 10ft square.  He sleeps on a dirty mattress on the ground.  He gets one good meal a day.  Many times he comes to my house hungry.  I do not like dependency.  It is something we need to avoid.  I worry that Muki cannot separate the good of the things we study from the good of the food I give him to eat.  But I also don’t know what else to do.  I don’t want to see him go hungry.  I try to be generous with him, but sometimes he asks for so much—‘give me food’, ‘give me medicine’, ‘give me money for a taxi’, ‘and when you come back from your travels give me a phone’.  It is tremendously difficult knowing when to say yes, no, or “here’s something else instead of what you asked for.”

Friendship involves giving.  That seems obvious.  Isn't that what love is all about—putting someone else’s need before your own?  And yet, I’ve come to realize that I expect a lot of reciprocity in my friendships— I don’t like when giving is mostly one-way.  I also usually don’t expect friends to “go out of their way for me” unless it is a special situation.   But islanders (and I think they’ve got this right) see going out of your way as very much part of friendship.  Friend’s are meant to go out of the way for one another.  Friends are meant to give each other gifts.  Friends will do their best to help their friends even at the great cost of personal time and resources.  To deny such things to a friend is to break relationship—or to say, we aren’t really friends.

But the biggest lesson is that generosity is personal and relational.  Giving online to a charity is great and easy—and impersonal.  Giving to your poor friend who has gotten to the end of the month, run out of money, or his boss hasn’t bothered to pay him this month, and he asks you to pay his electricity bill and you wonder if you are creating dependency and have to decide how much to give—do I pay the full amount or give a contribution or should I refuse this time?  Should I give as gift or just as a loan?  Giving like this is complicated.  It’s not easy.  It’s very personal.  

Our son on big island

I still struggle with this.  I grumble and roll my eyes when someone keeping asking me for just one too many things.  Sometimes I still say ‘no’ when I should say ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ when I should say ‘no’.  I struggle to get it right.  But I’m thankful for the struggle.  My heart needs stretching in order to grow and God in His grace loves to bring people into our lives who stretch us.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The men had their monthly gathering, several men came and there was good discussion. Our youngest son traveled by himself to the big island and had a good weekend with our friends there. We were able to pack up and close up our house. Tom was able to do one final English ceremony the night before we left. We were able to give away some stuff and bless some friends as we left. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are in the middle of travels to mainland Africa and our youngest son is not feeling well. Pray that he could find healing and energy to last him through our travels. This week Tom has an appointment at the US embassy to renew his passport, pray that he would get his new passport without any delays. Please be pray that those with whom we study regularly, that they would continue to study and grow in our absence.  Our fridge door is broken. Pray that it can hold together until we get back to the islands and be a blessing to those who might use our house while we’re gone. 

Washing Feet

 How do you feel about feet?  Are they smelly and stinky and something you never want to touch?  Or are they just feet?  I don’t feel strongly about feet.  For me they’re just feet.  But I find island feet kind of fascinating.  It being a hot tropical place, most people wear some kind of sandal, often a very simple flip-flop.  You will see people wearing shoes and socks sometimes, but the majority of people who come by are wearing sandals.  Moreover, island culture demands people to take off their shoes when entering a home or stepping on a mat.  The result is, we get to see people’s feet quite a bit.

Most common sandals

Our friend Ananas (he’s the one who sells us eggs and bananas at inflated prices) is a part time farmer.  He often wears the flimsiest of flip-flops which seem redundant with his large, flat, hard, calloused soles.  The cracks in his callouses on the sides of his heel are canyons, crevasses you could put your finger in.  He is missing a number of toe nails.  He has some impressively tough feet.

Women will sometimes put henna on their feet.  It is traditional for a bride to receive guests while sitting on her bridal bed, her feet sticking out in front of her.  Very often those feet have been decorated with henna—sometimes in intricate designs.  Women must take more care of their feet, because I don’t notice their feet being cracked and calloused like men’s.  Pumice stones are naturally available here, so it’s not too hard to find that helpful tool for looking after feet.

Muki’s feet are somewhere in between.  He still has all his toe nails and though his heels have some cracks they are not the deep fissures of Ananas.  I had the privilege to hold them in my hands a few weeks ago.  We were reading John and came to the part about foot washing.  As soon as we started to read it, I thought, “I should wash his feet.”  I think every time we read this passage we should wash each others feet.  We’re told to!  “For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”  Here’s how it went down with Muki.

We read the passage as we normally do a study and then started to discuss the implications of it.  We talked about how it really is a challenging passage as the “teacher” is serving others in a humble way.  It’s so different from how people in authority act on the islands.  Those with honor, status and authority never do menial jobs.  It is beneath them.  Even husbands refuse to wash dishes in the home and will call it “women’s work.”  

Ready to wash!

The study was going very well and I was getting ready to say, “Okay, let’s do it.”  When Muki paused and said, “So, I have a question.”  “Go ahead,” I replied.  He looked a little sheepish.  “So if he was their teacher and he did these things…well, you’re kind of my teacher…so would you…?”  Immediately I got up and said, “Wait right here.”  I went out and got a towel, a basin and a pitcher of water, then I came out and set it before him.  With a big smile on his face he put his feet into the basin.  (I was expecting one foot at a time, because that’s been my experience of how it’s done, but Muki was all in.)  I washed his feet.  He was silent as I did it.  His feet were quite dusty and took some attention.  The water and wiping washed that all away.  Then I dried his feet with the towel, and went back to my seat.  We continued to talk about the passage a bit more, but it was clear that actions had spoken much deeper than words.  His face was delighted.  He prayed with a deep joy and went on his way grinning with his clean feet.

I don’t come from an honor and shame culture.  I don’t know that it would matter very much to me if my teacher or leader wanted to wash my feet.  I would see the symbolism in it and accept it as a good thing.  But I can see now that it means so much more here on the islands.  A simple act of humility carries a powerful message.  I have only the honor that comes from being a well-off foreigner teacher.  How much more for the King of the world to stoop down and wash his friends’ feet!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for these opportunities to put words into action. Women’s gathering was a good study and was well attended. Megan was able to study with Hashiri and an island sister— this was an encouraging study and eye-opening for Hashiri to interact with an islander much further on the journey than herself. Our two older kids had a nice midterm long weekend break. We are thankful for friends who were able to host them. We haven’t gotten a new hinge for our refrigerator door but we are thankful that the door has stayed on and been functional in spite of the broken piece. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
The men are meant to meet this week— pray that many would come and that they would be learning to trust and care for each other. Our youngest son travels on Saturday to the big island by himself (something his older siblings also did as part of their rite of passage into young adulthood). We will follow him a couple days later. Pray for smooth travels and for it to be a good kind of stretching for him. Pray for him also as he packs up everything that he’ll want for boarding school and says goodbye to his local friends— may he leave well. One of the newer sisters is facing a lot of pressure from her family members— pray that she would continue to stand strong and know how to respond to her family. Pray for her kids as well as they watch their mother weather this experience. Ma Imani’s daughter and step-daughter are being bothered by teachers at school that don’t agree with their parents’ views. Pray for these two teenagers to have peace, patience and wisdom beyond their years. 

Hanging Out with God

Studying the Word with someone in a different language and different culture continues to be an eye-opening experience.  It is challenging in so many ways.  Start with words.  Language is not as simple as a word for word transfer.  We many know the word for something in the local language, but that doesn’t mean it carries the same definition.  Take the word, “notebook,” for example.  When you think of a notebook, what do you think of?  I think back to my school days and think of a ring bound US Letter sized booklets usually around 100 pages with single spaced lines down the page and left and right hand margins.  But when you say notebook here, while it is in a general sense the same thing—a book of lined sheets of paper, an islander will think of a half-sized (what they call A5), staple bound booklet with both vertical and horizontal lines of about 50 pages.  Similar but not the same. 

Island 'notebooks'

Not a big deal, surely.  But it often becomes a big deal with more important words like prayer, love, peace, and sin.  Imagine if your only idea of love was the romantic/sexual kind!  It would be very confusing to hear someone talk about “love” between a mother and child, or between people and God.  Sometimes it is matter of finding a different local word. Perhaps in English we have one word, while they actually have multiple.  But what if they don’t have a different word and therefore don’t even have a concept of what you are talking about.  You can’t know what you don’t know, right?  So how do you change a person’s understanding of a word ? 

It is possible.  But it takes time.  We can begin to understand words in new ways with repetition and experience.  I see that happening with brothers and sisters on the islands.  I see how certain words become more popular in their vocabulary and other words fall away. Once a new concept makes an impression and they find a way of expressing it in the local language, then they’ll keep coming back to those words. 

I also see how they begin to understand concepts in new ways.  When you think about it, prayer is not just a word, but a whole complicated framework of ideas, forms, histories, and more.  It takes time and repetition to infuse a word like prayer with new meaning.  That’s why it was a beautiful moment when Muki prayed the other day.

“God, we thank you that we can be here and study and angadza with you.”

I first learned the word angadza in regard to our children.  The children angadza, which I took to mean, they are playing together.  Did he really just say we are playing together with God?  But then I remembered that angadza is also the word adults use to talk about spending quality time together—hanging out.  

Muki was saying, “God we’re so glad we get to hang out with you.”

Tom with latest batch of teachers

I hadn’t told him to say it that way.  I certainly hadn’t used that word in my prayers. It is certainly not how the majority faith thinks about their interactions with God.  But Muki had learned something about prayer and the relationships we can have with God, and he expressed this new understanding simply and beautifully.  We’re so glad we get to hang out with God!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Things remained calm on the islands (though people were not pleased when the president visited, it was peaceful).  Our visitor had a good visitor (he called it ‘eye-opening’) and made it home safely. We heard some encouraging reports about some gatherings of local brothers and sisters— with moments of power and boldness.  We had some good opportunities to share the Word this past week—including during the big local Holiday.  Tom finished his teacher training class and feels good about this new batch of teachers.



PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for women’s gathering this week— that many would come and that they would encourage each other. There is a desire to connect both Hashiri and Muki/Mtsa with other islanders— pray that we would find islanders excited to support and encourage them.  We will be traveling in a couple weeks.  Pray that we can start getting things in order with our house, our work, and our relationships as the departure date approaches.  Pray for more people to come join us in the work out here.  We’ve seen a number of people have to leave in recent months and have not yet found people to take their places.  The door hinge of our refrigerator is broken!  It’s still functional, but we have to be careful when we open the door.  Pray that they can find a new hinge and fix it so that we don’t have to worry about the door falling off.