Family Walks

Tom & the kids find a foot path

The sun is low in the sky. All the streets are shaded and cool. Everyone is out. Many are just sitting in front of their houses. Others are going visiting or going to play soccer or heading to the ocean for a quick dip. It is a time of day to be enjoying the outside, especially on a Sunday.

As we leave the house we greet the neighbors. As always they are curious to know where we are going, especially when we are all out as a family (not common for islanders).
-Are you going to see someone? Are you going to the ocean?
-“We’re just walking.”
-But where?
-“Around the neighborhood, we’ve never been this way before.”

Our son (with BIG leaf) and daughter stop to pose on a shady street

-There’s no way that direction, better go that way-- it goes to the ocean.
Someone whispers in their ear that we are just walking around not trying to get anyplace. The speaker looks puzzled.
-Oh, you can go that way then.

So we continue on the road “that goes nowhere” and it meanders past many houses, turning into new parts of the neighborhood we have never been. We discover a little shop tucked in a random building that sells, among other things, tupperware! Eventually we find ourselves at an intersection we recognize, but there is still a direction that we haven’t explored so the walk continues.

Our daughter holds her own. She’s a good walker now. She runs ahead and helps us pick our next turn. Our middle son often gets occupied in finding a good rock or collecting leaves (he has to find one for each member of the family!). Tom’s holding our youngest who enjoys looking back at Mommy.

We stopped to watch a local soccer match for a bit

It’s a time to be refreshed by the beauty of the island in the light of the setting sun (everything is prettier near sunset) and a time to get better acquainted with our neighborhood (both the streets and the people). We know as time passes, our responsibilities are going to increase and we probably won’t have these nice family walks-- so we’ll enjoy them while we can.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We continue to be thankful for the warm welcome and friendliness that we feel from everyone in our neighborhood.  The meeting went well.  There was a lot of sharing and teaching and a general opportunity for getting to know one another better and to grow in love and unity.  We were also really happy to reconnect with teammates who were here for the meeting--especially Abby who was able to stay at the house with us.

Tom and our youngest pose for a picture up on the roof of our house

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Last weekend there was an attempted coup on the islands. We might not have known about it if we weren’t told, but it was a serious attempt and several foreign mercenaries are now in prison. Pray for the stability of this nation, for an end of corruption and coups.
Megan continues to suffer from leg pain.  Pray for her healing.  Pray that the good things learned and experienced at the meeting this weekend would carry on into the future.

Special People

Old photo: Only one we have with Ma Fado

Living where we do and how we do, we meet a lot of people.  First off all, there aren’t many foreigners on our little island, so people are keen to learn about us and/or see what they can get out of us.  Secondly, we speak English (a sought-after commodity here), which also brings a swath of people across our path.  Thirdly, we are learning to speak the local language, which many people find astounding and so they want to get to know us simply for the novelty of speaking to a stranger in their own language.  Finally, islanders are very friendly, and practically everybody knows everybody so it is inevitable that we get to know lots of people. 

Yet among this host of people we try to keep our hearts open and our spirits tuned to guide us toward certain special people.  Now of course everyone is special in their own right, but we are talking about ones marked by their generosity, hospitality, respectability and openness.  In our favorite Book it talks about special people like this--people like Cornelius--who are happy to receive you and bless you and be blessed by you.  So we are always on the look out for these people.  Today we thought we could share with you some of the folks we think might be this type of special person.

We’ve already told you about Ma & Ba Fado,our landlords. Since the very first day they have shown us a kindness above and beyond your normal relationship.  This past weekend Ba Fado invited Tom to a family celebration.  Ma Fado is often bringing us small gifts, things she has cooked or something from her shop.  We’ve also noticed their good reputation in our community.  They are very well known and respected.  Could they be special?

Tom made a good friend just down the road.  We’ll call him Barak.  In the first weeks when Tom was walking around the neighborhood, this man stuck out as he called him over to talk to him.  He showed a patience and a willingness to teach that is rare.  He also seemed available.  Now Tom goes and visits him multiple times each week to sit and talk and practice language.  Barak doesn’t seem to do very much.  He owns a small shop, but doesn’t get much business.  On the other hand he seems to know everybody and is well received by them.  Young men, old men, and even women greet him with a smile and what seems like genuine friendliness, and all sorts of people regularly come to sit with him by his shop.  Could Barak be special?

As we wrote about last week, our daughter just started school.  On his way from picking her up, Tom got into a conversation with one of her teachers.  This woman, we’ll call her Ma Hadisi, was very interested in our work.  You see, she has a son getting ready to take a big exam and she wants him to practice speaking English with us.  We hear this story often and we always say the same thing, “If they want to come by the house and speak English with us, they are welcome to do that.  We are happy to have them.”  Most of the time, however, they never come.  So we didn’t think much about it.  A few days later our daughter and Tom headed to the market (which is across town) and got caught in a downpour.  They took refuge under a doorway to wait for the rain to pass, but the rain kept coming.  Suddenly the door behind them opened.  Standing there was Ma Hadisi.  Of all the doorways on the other side of town, we happened to stand in hers.  Coincidence???  She invited us in and treated us very kindly and soon we were talking to her son, who we’ll call Nuni, who has now started coming by our house.  We are still getting to know this family, but they seem like hard working people with family members in important and respectable jobs.  Could this be a special family?

Just yesterday Tom got a call from a guy we’ll call Fakhadi who wants to practice his English.  He invited Tom over to his house and gave him some nice juice to drink and was very hospitable.  It turns out Fakhadi is a judge and is studying for an advance degree in international human rights.  We’ve only just me him, but could Fakhadi too be special?

Grace with some neighbors

Sometimes we get excited by a friendship with an islander that doesn’t end up going anywhere, sometimes it deepens and we find someone special. So whether all of these people or none of them turn out to be those special people, we wanted to share them with you, so that you too could be thinking about them and praying as we look for those people who will bless us and to whom we may be a blessing.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are very happy to see that it seems like things at our daughter's school might be picking up.  She got to play outside this week and told us they’ve been doing some singing, some letters and even painting, all of which we are very excited about.  We are feeling pretty good about language learning at the moment.  Tom is especially thankful for a great language partner as well as people like Barak for informal practice.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are very much aware of the incidents that have taken place this week in Boston.  Since the Boston area is one of the places we call home we have been extra concerned.  Please continue to lift up the people of the Boston area during this difficult time.  Megan continues to suffer from leg pain.  Please pray for her healing, as when it comes the pain is pretty bad.  We’re still looking for Megan to have her own formal language partner.  Good women language partners are trickier to find and to fit into the schedule, but are still very important.  The important meeting of similar minded people will soon take place.  Please pray for its success.  Finally, think of these special people we’ve spoken of and that we would have opportunities to share Love and Truth with them.

School Hunt

Our daughter dressed for school!

Our daughter had her first day of island preschool this past Monday.

It was a day of some excitement and some nervousness. We had gone through these “first-day-of-school jitters” in France but we had some assurances there that the school day would be filled with fun and engaging activities, that there would be at least one other American in her class and that her teacher would have a least a little English. On the islands we had none of these assurances. Her teacher would speak no English. Most likely, our daughter would be the only anglophone, the only foreigner, the only white kid not only in her class, but in the entire school. And finally, the standard that often passes for  preschool on the islands is the kids sitting in one spot quietly all day, everyday with little to no engagement.

We knew all this going in, our friends on other islands have struggled finding a preschool on the islands where they do anything, but we knew we needed to find one. Our daughter has been bored--she started school in France and is used to it. All the other kids her age go to school. Plus, we noticed that she was hesitant to engage island kids (unsure about language and just being different). We knew in this regard that school would be a great way to get her interacting with island kids, brushing up her French and maybe even learning some local language too.

For this year, we weren’t really concerned about how much she would learn (she loves learning and we will supplement at home), but the point is trying to find a school where they actually DO something with the kids. I visited three preschools within walking distance of our house that seemed like options. The goal of the visit was to see what the school was like-- do they engage the children?

The first school had some fun pictures painted on the walls (an encouraging sign) and the adults seemed friendly, but the school rooms were small and dark, with tightly packed benches, no room for kids to walk around in the room and not all children would have even a table or desk to write on.

The second school had make-shift rooms created from bigger rooms with partial plywood walls, but they had posters up and it seemed like some instruction was happening. Then at recess the little kids were mixed with the older kids and I imagined our daughter (the natural object of attention as the only white kid) thrown among kids all the way to 12 years old and I didn’t feel comfortable.

Our youngest learns to crawl!

The last school was the one that I had been told was the most “serious”, in that they actually teach kids French (the language of instruction in all the schools on the islands). The rooms were bright and colorful and there were posters on the walls. The room were still crowded but there was table space for everyone and I saw them writing and coloring handouts. It was the obvious winner, but the test would be in actually sending our daughter to school.

Would she hate it? After her fun and engaging school experience in France, would she be bored to tears? Would she be isolated? Would she make friends? In short, was this going to be a positive or negative experience for her?

Our daughter ran into the house after her first day with a smile.
-“How was school?”
-“Good! I made three friends!”

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our daughter has been excited about going to school and overall it seems like it has been a positive experience for her. We were given permission to officially introduce our future teammates to one another (over email of course) and it has been a blessing to see our team begin to interact-- it helps us imagine what the team will be like and gets us excited about having them join us! We have found some great resources for learning the local language-- a grammar book and a dictionary!! These are resources we weren’t necessarily thinking we’d have so they are a blessing.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Continue to pray for our daughter's school experience--it is a little boring and for the most part it sounds like they stay in their seats in one place for the entire day and color--no outside time. We will specifically need discernment whether to stick with this school next year (when our son would be starting too). Megan has been having sciatica pain again for the past few weeks. Pray for some relief as she tries different things to help.  At the end of the month there will be a special gathering for representatives from all those groups interested in our type of work on the islands -- begin praying now for the travel of all those coming and that the weekend would be a great time of fellowship, learning from one another and mutual understanding.

A Bigger View

Our son turns 3 years old!!!

Sometimes our world has to be small. We are occupied with the problems and tasks of a single home or a single neighborhood. We are focusing on celebrating the life of one three year old boy or having a significant conversation with one person. These are special, valuable moments. But sometimes we also are reminded of the bigger world, of people and purposes outside our daily routines.

Saturday, 30 March-
We were out on the street chatting with neighbors and watching kids playing with the balloons we had brought out for our son's birthday. We were surrounded by the cement streets and cement homes of our neighborhood. Suddenly a voice starting calling us from above. Looking up we saw the petite figure of our landlord up on the roof of our building. She was calling us to come up.

A cool afternoon breeze met us as we emerged from the dark stairway onto the roof-- we could see the ocean, we could see the jungle of green extending up the mountains, we could see the unique coastline of our island home. But we could also see all the buildings, home built on top of home extending all along the coast and further into the city.  Wow, so this is where we live.

The Pirate-themed birthday game

Wednesday, April 3-
I (Megan) didn’t get to explore the area with Tom while he house-hunted and with three little kids at home, the errands have often fallen to Tom. So I’ve been studying our neighborhood, trying to figure out how everyone is interconnected and which little shop sells the best eggs.  But this morning I have the chance to go beyond our neighborhood, so I ask our daughter if she wants to follow me on an adventure.

I don’t know how far to have the taxi go as we wind back and forth up the hill to the town above. I want to check out the town a bit (we are thinking someone from our team might live here) but I also want to visit a family while I’m here and I don’t know where they live. So eventually I tell the taxi to stop and our daughter and I get out.  We look around a little and stop in a shop. Then I decide it’s time to call my friend and figure out where they live.

As soon as I pick up my phone it rings a menacing little tune to tell me the battery is dying. I call my friend, hoping the directions will be simple. “Oh, she’s not home. Call back in 10 minutes.” I hang up and my phone gives its warning ring again. So I call back and ask for directions, but before getting any useful information my phone dies.

Now I told our daughter this was going to be an adventure so I hold her hand and cross the street to a group gathered in front of a little stand.  I give them the name of the grandmother of the family and one of the ladies lights up, “Oh yeah, I know her.” She quickly discusses with the other islanders where my friends live but I can tell right away that it must be far away because no one wants to show me. I let them off the hook by asking them to just tell me the direction I need to start in. “Go down to the hospital and find this road that is next to it.” The hospital is a good ways down the hill and the shade is lessening as the morning continues, so I try to push our daughter at a steady clip as we walk on. “Mommy,

Megan & boys with neighbors

I’m thirsty and hungry.”

We stop for a little rest and while we do, someone comes up to us. “The people back there said where you are going. I can show you the way. Here let’s take this path right here, it is faster.” We must have taken our break at just the right spot, we follow our new friend away from the road and into unseen neighborhoods tucked into the jungle. I now understand the others’ hesitancy in showing us the way. This is a hike! But it’s not an isolated hike, it takes us into a huge community of people-- home after home, path after winding path. Our daughter does great and eventually after several steep ups and downs on tiny little paths between houses, we see the familiar faces of our friends. They are very excited to see us and are proud of us for thinking of asking for the grandmother. “Everyone knows me,” she declares. She goes on to tell me how nice their town is, up high and away from all the cars and noise of the “city” below. I look out from their house and am struck with the same feeling I had on the roof of our house. Wow, so this is where we are...among another mass of formerly unseen people.

Megan, kids & landlord on the roof

I hope someone from our team can live up here and learn the ins and outs of these paths, find out the names of all the major families and get to know all those grandmothers that “everyone knows.”

This is one of the exciting things about our future team-- rather than be overwhelmed by these bigger views, we can get excited about the reach that our team will have-- beyond our neighborhood, into other towns and communities, along the coast and up into the jungle. It’s exciting.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our daughter and Megan had a good adventure, with help coming through just when it was needed. Our son turned 3 years old! We had a wonderful day. We are very thankful for our son and the kind boy he is becoming. Our youngest has started crawling (maybe this should be a prayer request). It is great to see him growing and doing well. Teammates from Volcano Island welcomed a baby girl. Tom, Megan and our youngest were hit by a one-day stomach bug that thankfully didn’t last long and didn’t effect our other two kids. We had a nice Sunday-- celebrating the full impact of the statement- He is risen!


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for our teammates and family as they adjust to life as a family of 5, for recovery after the birth and as they get all the documentation needed to travel back to the islands. Our daughter starts school Monday-- pray that she would have an understanding teacher, make friends quickly, remember her French and really enjoy school here. Pray for us as we get into our pre-team routines that we would make wise decisions about the use of our team-- balancing language learning, family, time in prayer, preparing for the team, networking for English teaching and getting to know our neighbors.