The Scent of Cloves

Our older kids by new cloves

Drying cloves have a powerful scent. We sit in our house and are hit by the strongly-scented breeze coming from the spices laid out in the sun outside.  It is the time for drying cloves.  On streets, porches, and roof tops you see them:  People preparing cloves.  The cloves are harvested from the trees in clumps a bit like grapes.  The first step is to pull the cloves from their stems.  When this work is done, large tarps are spread out and the cloves are carefully spread over them in a thin layer.  Each tarp reveals a group of cloves in a different stage of drying.  The fresh cloves are plump and colorfully red, yellow and green, but days in the sun shrivel them down to small dark sticks. The smell follows you around town. This is why we call it “Clove Island.”

Megan w/ our youngest by some cloves

The islands can feel pretty isolated. You look out at the endless ocean around us and realize that geographically we are isolated.  But at the same time we realize that the island’s isolation is an illusion. The island is incredibly dependent on the outside world. People wait in line at the post office to pick up money sent from relatives abroad. Islanders rejoice at the news that yet another international group or foreign nation has donated the money to save the islands from its latest money crisis (whether it be unpaid worker strikes or gas shortages or something else).  Island shops are flooded by imported goods and food. Many of the staple food items like rice, onions, and chicken, --foods that islanders eat all the time, are imported. So how do the islands give back, are we just a little economic vacuum out here in the the Indian ocean, taking in but never giving back? What do the islands export? We heard the tales of ylang-ylang factories that are now defunct and a vanilla trade that has dropped to almost nothing...

Going between the airport town and the capital, squished in a local taxi bus, we see a building on the side of the road with a big sign… WE BUY CLOVES! The first time I saw it, it struck me, here stands direct evidence of the islands actually exporting something. This company buys cloves off of islanders and ships it abroad.

Cloves drying across the street

“There is a lot of money in cloves,” one of our island friends tell us. Islanders can sell it for $10 per kilo and off it goes to other countries-- to spice tea and foods. Right now someone might be sitting in a hut in India or even in our old town in Chad, breathing into a hot cup of tea and smelling our island cloves. It’s a strange thought to have on our little isolated island in the Indian ocean.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We have a verbal agreement on one house!  4 to go!  Megan’s back seems to be making slow improvements.  We’re happy to have another visitor with us this week.  Last night we were invited to break the fast with a local family.  It was an honor and a blessing to be invited.  The kids had a great time playing with their kids.  We were able to skype with some of our future teammates this week.  It was great to spend some time with them and encourage one another as we look forward to the future.

PRAYERS REQUESTED

Our older kids with some friends

Continue to pray for our house hunt.  This week’s hunting may have shown us that one of the villages we were considering may not be the best place after all.  Pray that we would be able to make wise decisions and have discernment about the right places for our future teammates to live.  Continue to pray for our future teammates, especially in terms of them finding others to come behind them, prepare them and support them for the great work ahead.