Keeping in Touch

One of the people on our call list

Tom’s phone is ringing again. It only rings twice and then stops. Someone just “beeped” him. On the islands, people only pay to make a call, not to receive. So if you want to talk to someone but can’t afford to call them or think they can afford it easier than you can, you “beep” them. Basically you call them but hang up before they can pick up.

If someone beeps you once, you might think they just called you by accident. If someone beeps you twice, then the message is clear— they want you to call them.

“He’s beeped me 4 times today. I guess he really needs to talk to me.” Tom makes the call only to discover this island friend has nothing specific to say. He just wanted to say hello and a long hello at that. “Why was it so urgent to use my credit for that?” we used to ask ourselves.

Introducing son to watching American football

But then this same scenario played out so many times that we began to understand it, we would refer it as a “maintaining the relationship” call. It is just a call to keep in touch, letting the person know that you still value their relationship (even if you haven’t seen them in person for awhile).

We began to realize that to many islanders this was very important. Sometimes our phone would ring and the number would be listed as “unknown”. This usually means it is an international call. We’d pick up and be pleasantly surprised to hear the voice of an island friend who had left to study abroad. Nothing to say in particular— just to say hello.

So now it’s our turn. Have we learned this cultural lesson or not? Here we are, far away from our island friends. This is our chance to let them know that our relationship with them is important to us. So we put money on our Skype account and started to call. We called all our good friends and each time we were greeted by loud and happy exclamations— “It’s you! I’m so happy. I’m so very happy you called!”

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We had some great calls to our island friends. We learned that the island women had a retreat with several women in attendance— this is so encouraging to hear! We learned that the English teachers we helped to train have opened an English center on the island. It is exciting to know that things continue in our absence. We had some great opportunities to connect with people from our old Northshore home. We look forward to even more in the coming weeks. We’re thankful that our youngest is feeling better after having a stomach bug midweek.

Little girl (on left) who had accident

PRAYERS REQUESTED
One thing we learned from our phone calls was that one of our island neighbors (a young girl of around 6 yrs) had a serious accident and was evacuated to the neighboring island for medical treatment. Please pray for her quick recovery, we assured the family that we would be praying for her. Last month there was a survey trip of the other side of our island for a possible medical team— pray for guidance and wisdom as decisions are made concerning that team. Pray that God would be preparing the future teammates for our team. We’re housesitting for Tom’s parents right now while they are in Europe. Tonight water started to pour from the ceiling. Pray that we could find a good plumber!