The Power of a Story

Wedding being set-up in front of our house

Do you ever sit down with someone and feel, “Man, I need think of something to say???” We run into that problem a lot here.  It’s hard to find topics of conversation.  A lot of it is cultural.  We have different interests.  (We know little about the lasted soccer match or what happened on yesterday’s Brazilian soap operas.)   Some of it’s language.  Depending on the subject, we don’t always have the vocabulary to make for good discussion.  So often we come to those moments of, “What’s up?”  “Nothing.”  What’s up with you?” “Nothing.”

But that is when a story breaks through.  Stories are great on so many levels.  They are great for language practice--I can tell the same story again and again to multiple people, they have a limited vocabulary. Plus, everybody loves a story!  Of course, stories are great in other ways.  They can transmit Truth in a way that allows people to hear it without getting defensive.  In short, a story has power.  We got to share a couple of stories this week:

Story #1:  Our friends and former team leaders over on volcano island sent us a text message.  “Please pray, our computers and other technology have been stolen.”  We were so sad for them and started praying.  Two days later we got another text.  “Praise, almost everything has been returned!” I talked to our team leader the next day.  The police had caught the thief and found all the goods.  What an answer to prayer.  But it gets better.  Our team leader teaches English at the prison.  Who should he meet there but the thief.  Our team leader is a good man and forgave the thief.  Now he is teaching him English.

I got to share this simple story with many people this week.  I hoped some things would stick out to them, like the answer to prayer and that our team leader cares about people in prison and forgave the thief. (Islanders stigmatize people in prison and thieves are usually beaten mercilessly if caught by

Our youngest trying mataba (favorite island dish)

islanders.)

Story#2:  There once were two towns (we’ll call them Hometown and Othertown.) The people of these towns didn’t get along.  One day a man from Hometown was on the road when he got robbed, beaten and left for dead.  A religious leader from Hometown walked by, saw the man, but continued on his way.  Then a religious teacher from Hometown walked by, saw the man and crossed to the other side of the street.   Finally a man from Othertown came.  He saw the man, bandaged him up, took him to the local clinic and paid for his care.  When he left he told the doctor, “Take care of this man.  I’ll return in two days and pay whatever other expenses he may have.”

I used this familiar story to practice language learning with my language helper.  Over the course of telling the story we talked about who told the story and the greater context of it.  We talked about how parts of this story are all too familiar and how it is applicable to lots of situations all over the world.  It was a great talk. 
Later that day someone asked, “What have you been doing today?”  I said, “I’ve been studying a story.  Want to hear it?”  And I got to share the story again and have a similar conversation.

I’ve been impressed with the power of stories this week.  Do you have any stories to share?

Tom & kids

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The quick answer of our prayers for our old team leaders!  What a wonderful outcome to a pretty horrible situation.  Our family has all been healthy this week.  We are thankful that Megan’s back has seen some improvement.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for the power of stories like this to sink in deep.  Pray that we would find more stories we can share and opportunities to share them.  Pray for the people with who we had a chance to share these stories.  Next Saturday we will start our English Club.  We are very excited to get back into English teaching and the Club is a fun way to ease our way back in.  Pray for a good turn out and for our growing relationships with the different English-speaking islanders!  Keep praying for Megan’s back.  We continue to ask for full healing.

Curtains

We needed curtains. The goal-- get material and have curtains made. What we didn’t know was that this task would draw us into two relational, cultural dilemmas with our landlord, Ma Fado.

Kids read with friend (note curtain-less door behind them)

First dilemma: Where do we buy the curtains?
We went into the old medina to look for material. Ma Fado owns a shop there and sells some ready-made curtains that we didn’t want. So when we stopped in, we made sure to tell her that we were planning to get material, rather than the more expensive ready-made curtains. “Oh, we have material! Great material, in lots of colors and patterns and a great deal. I’ll show them to you at home.”

So we cut our shopping trip short thinking that we would just buy some of her material-- it would make our life easier and it sounded like she would have a good selection from which to choose.

The next morning, she called me downstairs. She had three bolts of material and they were all (to my eyes) hideous. Each was a mix of garishly bright colors in very busy patterns- one was neon pink but she insisted on calling it orange. “Which one do you want?” she asked. I timidly inquired, “ Are there any others?” “Yes there are others, but they are heavy and hard to get out of storage,” she responded.

As I left, I realized the existence of some ambiguity.  It was possible that her comment meant the materials really ARE heavy and that she WAS going to get more material out later for me to see.   On the other hand, “They are heavy and hard to get out of storage”  could also be her indirect way of saying, “This is all I’ve got I’m not going to show you any more.”  This would be a very culturally appropriate way of avoiding a direct refusal.
I was left not knowing whether we were free to look elsewhere or whether we wee still relationally obligated to try to buy from her.

Finally we came to a compromise in our minds. We would get material somewhere else but pay Ma Fado to sew them. Therefore hopefully still fulfilling any relational obligations to give her our business.

It took forever to find material. I was prepared to choose material I didn’t really like-- I have seen very little island curtain fabric that I actually enjoy, but the problem was no one had any (it’s not curtain buying season).  I asked all around the medina and everyone kept pointing me vaguely ahead (another avoidance of a direct refusal-- if someone doesn’t know they give you vague directions). In one awkward moment, someone suggested I go to Ma Fado’s place. Finally I found a shop and some material.

Happy Mother's Day!

Ma Fado seemed a little surprised that I had material already and not from her shop. But she was quickly all smiles. She took the material, called it beautiful and said she would come over to measure.

Second dilemma: How long should curtains be?
We were getting curtains for one set of big windows and two doors. (Islanders usually keep doors open at all times and use curtains for privacy.) Ma Fado came upstairs and we measured the window. She quickly agreed with us that we wouldn’t take the window curtains to the floor because there was a sofa against the wall under the window. She didn’t measure the doors, but we assumed that they must be standardized. I got a piece of paper and wrote down the measurements for the window for her. “Will you have enough fabric?” I asked. “Of course, it will be enough,” she said confidently.

The very next day she was back with the curtains. She gave me one of the door curtains while she worked on the window. As soon as I hung it, I was stunned... It only covered half the doorway. Door curtains always go to the floor. I waited, expecting at any moment for her to turn around and gasp in horror at her mistake. Instead she came over and said, “Oh these are beautiful,” she said. “They are beautiful like this?” I asked indicating the length. “Oh, yes, you can do them like that,” she said with a smile.

I didn’t know what to do. I thanked her and asked how much it should cost. She smiled, kissed my cheeks and refused to be paid.

We quickly got confirmation that indeed no one on the islands has door curtains that only cover have the doorway. We took down the curtains. What do we do now?

Tom & our youngest show some Midd pride

Three possible cultural explanations came to mind. 1) Ma Fado had made a mistake and was trying to play it off to avoid shame. 2) Ma Fado ran out of material and so made them short (not sure if this would be considered our fault or hers) and she was playing it off to avoid shame. 3) She misunderstood and thought we wanted all the curtains the length of the window curtains and didn’t want to shame us by telling us that no one does that.

The problem for us was that we didn’t want to shame her, but we didn’t want curtains like that. I went and bought more material and planned to potentially give it to someone else to fix, but when I went down to say good morning to Ma Fado, she asked, “So the curtains, are they bad?” I wondered if she had noticed that we had taken them down or if this was just an opening for me to praise her sewing. “I think we will add to them so they go to the floor,” I said. “Yes,” she said. “They are too short.”

Ma Fado is supposed to come up tomorrow to measure the doorways.  Cultural dilemma successfully navigated...maybe...

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Before we could request prayers for something they were answered.  Our old team leaders from Volcano island had their computers stolen from their home two days ago.  This evening we received a text saying they had gotten everything back!   Tom was able to meet with a friend today who is helping him learn to talk to our Father in the local language.  Our youngest has been doing better this week (excepting today, see below) and we’ve been able to get more sleep.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our youngest threw up today, we think it was just something he ate.  It seems like the problem is passed, but we pray for his good health.  Megan’s pain continues but the exercises are having an effect. The pain is changing, hopefully for the better.  Continue to pray for complete healing. Each week we are doing things to research and prepare for our team (coming in November), pray for us even at this early stage as we try to discern where our teammates should live and work.

Book Reports, High School Students, and Language

Kids & Megan (in traditional wrap) on a walk

Sometimes being a foreigner can be a real advantage.  One of the ways we often profit from this is being invited to special occasions.  It’s seen as an honor to have a foreigner in attendance and so from time to time we get invited to weddings, religious ceremonies, school events and the like even where we have only a very slight connection with the person involved.  Something similar happened this week.  A young man I (Tom) know invited me to come to his exposition.  I’ve been to these sorts of school events before, I thought.  Now that I have some French maybe I’ll get something out of it. (Schooling here is always in French.)  So I agreed.

When I arrived to l’exposition I suddenly realized that things were going to be a little different.  Instead of a small attentive crowd of university students, the large auditorium was scattered with high school students.   Things got started and I soon realized it was going to be futile to try to understand much.  They had a generator running outside the door which made a great deal of noise.  The teenagers talked incessantly and loudly and my friend giving the talk was speaking into a microphone that was not calibrated correctly so that it sounded more like percussion than words.  I could understand very little of what was being said.  As far as I could tell my friend was giving some sort of book report--possibly on something he had written himself, but I couldn’t be sure...so I took to observing the crowd.

Picking up our daughter from school

First observation:  Teenagers are pretty much the same all over.  The guys were strutting around in their cool clothes and styles trying to act tough and impress the girls.  The girls (more modestly dressed here than in the West perhaps) placed their scarves just so and laughed at the boys a bit but spent most of their time talking to one another and worrying about what the other girls were thinking and saying.  Of course, none of this would stop just because someone was trying to give a talk.  No, the strutting, chattering, giggling and general complete lack of respect or care for their reason for being there continued throughout the exposition.

Second observation:  People like to follow protocol even when the protocol is ridiculous.  After a 5 minute book report they took questions.  They did this by having each person come to the front to register their name and then return to their seat.  (10 minutes of purely wasted time.) After every name was written down they were called up one by one to ask their question.  Each person introduced themselves and addressed their question to the speaker (my friend) usually repeating the question at least twice.  The whole system seemed ridiculous to the setting and I couldn’t help but wonder, “Would this be how they do it in France?”  This went on for over an hour, it would have been extremely tedious except for the fact that this gave each student a chance to strut his or her stuff in front of the audience.  The girls would either stand their ground and look out at the audience, strong and confident or giggle and hide behind their scarves, shy and demure.  The boys took it as a chance to show off their stage presence.  One guy even punctuated each phrase of his question with a hip-hop type hand motion.  It was rather entertaining.

Our daughter turns 5 year old!

Third observation:  Local language matters.  Seeing as this was an educational experience it was conducted all in French, but near the end, possibly because he had been asked the same questions over and over again, or possibly he was tired of everyone’s inattention, my friend (the speaker) switched into the local island language.  Amazingly, for a moment everyone stopped.  The girls stopped chatting and actually listened.  The guys were nodding their heads with understanding.  It only lasted a few minutes.  Soon they grew tired of whatever it was he was saying and went back to their talking, but for a few minutes he had their attention, and I was reminded of the importance of learning the local language.  All these kids speak French pretty well--better than me, for sure.  Even with all the talking, bad sound equipment, and a noisy generator running in the background, they could understand what was being said, but he only really got their attention when he spoke to them in their own language. 

And for a brief moment I wondered at what it would be like if these same high school students, so busy with themselves and their dramas could hear Truth spoken to them in the language of their heart.  If someone was to tell them good news in their own language--something they’ve most likely never heard before--how might that get their attention?  Can you see it?...Everything stops. The girls stop chattering and actually listen.  The guys nod their heads with understanding.  And words that were unable to penetrate in an understandable but foreign language suddenly pierce their hearts in their own living language.  Can you see it?...Someday...

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our daughter had a great birthday party with lots of princess stuff and dancing.  We are so glad to see the way she has been growing, learning, and thriving here.  It seems things have calmed since the attempted coup.  Pray that justice would be done and for peace and stability to continue.  Megan was able to skype last night with our good friend (former teammate and physiotherapist.)  She gave Megan some advice and stretches and so we are hopeful to see some improvement in the pain she has been experiencing.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We still ask for your prayers for Megan’s pain.  She has been suffering every time she sits down or stands up.  We keep asking for relief and healing.   Our youngest has been under the weather--we think he’s teething.  It has meant very little sleep for Tom & Megan as he has been crying on and off through the night.  As always pray for our language learning.  Pray for progress, initiative, good study time, persistence, and opportunities to  both listen and speak in a context that is beneficial. Tom is hoping to meet with someone to learn more about how to speak truth and pray in the local language.  Pray that he can find a good time for doing this. 

Parents Meeting

Our kids say goodbye to Abby

At the end of school on Friday our daughter was sent home with a typed announcement. It was written all in formal French, calling all parents to a meeting the next day (Saturday) at 3pm.

I foolishly took the announcement at its word. I guess I was thinking of France where punctuality is important. Island schools often try to copy French culture. So when I was leaving the house and it was already 3pm-- I walked quickly and kept my greetings to people along the way short. Even as I rounded the corner to the school I imagined the meeting as having already started...but as soon as I entered the school gate and saw the rows of empty chairs I remembered-- I’m in Africa.

I was “late” but no one else was there except a few people who work at the school. I sat for awhile when one of the administrators greeted me, “You came early.” “Well it said 3pm,” I said as my excuse. A lady next to me says, “Well they won’t come until after prayers.” Not long after we heard the call to prayer.

By 3:30 a handful of other parents had arrived and they steered us to actually sit in the chairs that had been set-up-- rows of little preschool-sized chairs painted pink. I took a seat. At 3:40pm a woman sat right next to me, forgoing entire empty rows.The seats were a little close together so you couldn’t avoid being squished against the person next to you...but this is Africa.

Our youngest finds the bathroom water bucket

At 3:50pm the first of two directrices (school principals) arrived. She promptly complained when she saw so few parents and teachers, “People here NEVER follow the schedule!” After another five minutes she started complaining more, “We said 3pm and now it’s almost 4pm!” I held back a smile and thought, “You just arrived 5 minutes ago!”

At 4:15 the second directrice arrived and the place started to fill in. It was hot, even in the open courtyard and one of the women beside me decided to move over a seat to give us some air. At 4:20pm the two directrices started addressing the group and I was in for my second surprise. They weren’t speaking French! This is the school where they take pride in only allowing the kids to speak French (no local language). This is the school where they have written in their materials that people should try to speak French at home to their kids instead of the local language. Mentally, I had prepared my mind to hear a lot of French-- but it was all local language. After a quick mental switch I started to follow along.

At 4:30 a larger women squeezed into our row and moved toward the tiny space between me and the woman who had moved over. The seated woman made some comment about the entering woman being a little wide but in she came-- pushing me halfway off my little kids seat and putting me in close body contact with both her and the other woman next to me.

A hot and long hour later (5:30) they were just closing things up. I only needed to know about three things-- the last day of school, the price for next year and the pre-inscription form, but I sat through several speeches and debates as they discussed how parents should help their kids at home, who gets to move to the next grade and why exactly they are raising the fees. It was in the local language because people needed to understand. At one point a directrice caught my eye-- I was the only white face in the crowd. “Ça va? Vous avez compris?” she mouthed to me. I gave her a reassuring smile from my pinned-in position-- I understand, this is Africa and this is how things work.

Our kids & friend

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Everyone got home safely from the conference (although some of our friends were stuck on a boat for over 12 hours!)  In spite of the long meeting, Megan did meet a female English speaker and was able to invite her to our English club which is starting next month.  (We’ve been looking for female English speakers to invite.)  Grace continues to like school.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Megan continues to suffer with leg pain (sitting in little preschool seats doesn’t help.)  Pray for our teammates who are at various stages in the process of preparation to come and join us here in just 6 more months!  Pray for the continued stability of this country in the wake of the coup attempt.  Pray that our daughter would have a good birthday this coming week (She turns 5 on Tuesday!)