Rights?

Our island home

Several months ago, the islands’ only telecommunications company started blocking some of the most popular audio/video chatting programs. Apparently they had seen a drop in their revenues as islanders switched to online chatting programs and stopped making expensive international calls. It was annoying but we found ways around it.

Then some weeks ago, more and more websites weren’t coming through on the islands. Suddenly some of our teammates were seeing all their internet credit disappear. Finally one of our teammates went to the telecommunications company to get to the bottom of it.

“All of my credit is gone? I want my money back.”  He said.
“Were you using video chatting programs or going online via outside servers?”
“Yes, but…”

Connecting via outside servers is how we ensure we have a secure connection on the islands. It is standard procedure for us. It also gets around some of the blocks, so the telecommunications company decided to put an end to it. 

Our team’s (and our) reaction included a lot of:
“But we have a right to be warned before my credit is taken away…”
“But we have the right to get a statement explaining where our money has gone…”
“But we have the right to connect to whatever servers we want…”
“But we have a right to make our connections secure and to protect our privacy…”

Celebrating our 3 yr old

But the truth is….I’m not sure that we do have these rights on the islands. It is so ingrained that people have certain rights that we assume everyone agrees with us. Sometimes we act like the islands are like our home countries. But they aren’t. Our teammates want to keep pushing the telecommunications company on this, but we don’t know whether it will amount to much. The islands are not a free place and people here don’t have all the rights we feel they should.

This serves as another reminder of that fact.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our team is all taking some vacation time at the moment. As far as we know everyone’s travels have gone well. We are enjoying some time with parents/grandparents! Our little boy is 3 years old today! We are very thankful for him and had a great day with him. We are excited about Tom's sister's engagement!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that our team would continue to be rejuvenated and that we would all make it back to the islands ready to dive back in! Pray that the islands would be a place that embraces truth, justice and freedom of thought. Pray for those islanders that are trying to stand up for these things.