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| Our family! |
Hanyo is a married man with children. He has a teaching job and owns a shop in his town. He also has a long history with our organization and has professed to be one of us. The ride to his village took about an hour, crammed into a taxi-bus with 14 other people. When I arrived he showed me to his house. I met his family, he has 4 young boys. One of the boys climbed a coconut tree, cut down some young coconuts and served them to us. (He cuts the top off and you drink the sweet coconut water right out of the nut!) We chatted and talked about his village and America. I was enjoying myself. After eating we went and met his mother, a little old lady who lit up when I spoke to her in the local language. I was having a great time.
After that, Hanyo took me around town. He started introducing me to all sorts of people. I met doctors, teachers, mechanics, etc. It was going well. I was telling them all about our group and our plans. However, somewhere along the line, the tenor started to change. First, on our way, out of the blue, Hanyo turned to me and said he needed to buy something for his children to eat. “Okay” I said naively, “Did you need to stop by the market?” Then he made it plain that he wanted money. “My children will go hungry.” he said. I saw his children. They were not going hungry. I also know that this man has a good job, a decent business and many friends. He was lying to me. I started to think, “This is why he wanted me to visit.” The visit got worse after that. He kept asking. I remained silent. Then as we met more and more people he started taking over the conversation. Now he started telling them of my plans to come to their village and teach English! (I never said anything of the sort.) But he was getting everyone excited. “If we just get organized, he’ll come,” Hanyo was telling them. I did my best to say, no. I said that anything that I could come to do would be far away in the future, but Hanyo was making it sound much more immediate. By this time I was ready to go. I had had enough of Hanyo and didn’t know what else to say or do.
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| The wedding that Mfuzi took Tom to |
At this point he took me to a cafe and ordered some cold waters. Hanyo turns to me and says, “You’ll pay, right?” I’ve never had anyone do that to me before on the islands. When I took out some money to pay he said with his friend listening, “Oh, so you do have money. You just aren’t going to give me any.” The funny thing is I had planned to give him some money before I left, but after all his badgering, I didn’t want to “reward” his behavior. On the way to the taxi he lectured me on how brothers should help one another. It left a bitter taste in my mouth.
On Saturday Mfuzi invited me to his town. There was a wedding going on there and he wanted me to see. As the ceremony went along he tried to explain to me what I was seeing. I could see he was enjoying himself and was proud to have a “white guy” with him. Did he hope to gain from our relationship? Certainly. He too wants me to come to his town to teach English. Yet how different compared to my Wednesday visit. Mfuzi was genuinely proud of the things he was showing me. He really wanted me to experience his home and appreciate it. I think he hoped I would be so warmly welcomed that I would want to come back; that I would want to teach English there. I believe he really wants to be friends with me.
I’ve learned that Islanders always hope to profit from a relationship. At first this turned me off, but I’ve come to realize that it’s not such a bad thing. It’s just a bit different. But the most important thing, on the islands or anywhere, is being genuine. Mfuzi may hope to profit from our relationship, but at the same time, he genuinely wants to be my friend.
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| Tom returning from the wedding |
One of our goals here is to make many friends. We too hope to see great things come from our relationships. We hope to see lives changed and hope given and the weak made strong and the dead made alive. But I was reminded this week that it must be genuine. If we love people only in the hope of changing them, it is not genuine. Our goal is to genuinely love them. Love them as they are, where they are and who they are and expect nothing in return. When we have loved like this, only then can we hope that through these relationships we might both be blessed.
PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our daughter had a fun last day of school and is very excited to move onto some homeschooling with Mom and Dad. Our middle son is getting into it too and is starting to work on his letters. We had a very good visit with a medical consultant who has helped us make some important contacts and get a better picture of medical care here on Clove Island.
PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for these two friends, especially Hanyo, as our relationship has been damaged by the unpleasant visit. Pray that I might continue to show him genuine love. This time of year there are many weddings going on and it seems like we are being invited to a fair number of them. Pray for understanding, wisdom and especially stamina as we go to these events which sometimes go late into the night. Pray for all the relationships that we make here on Clove Island. Some will be deep, some will be slight, but pray that all will be genuine.
