I'm Gonna Miss You So Much

Tom with his heartsick students

Last week we mentioned some of the differences between Clove Island (our new home) and  Volcano Island (the neighboring island where we used to live).  Well, here’s another thing that’s different.  Sentimentality.  As most of you know we are on vacation for a few weeks right now (a grand total of three weeks).  But for some of our island friends acted like it was an eternity.

The following were real conversations:

My friend Sterehi came to visit the day we left.  He told me how much he was going to miss me.  I reminded him that I would only be gone three weeks, but that didn’t seem to matter.  He had brought a USB drive because I had taken a bunch of pictures in the last month with him included in them so I was happy to share them.  Some of them were of Megan and the kids.
“Now I have pictures of all of you, so I won’t forget you,” he told me.
“I’m only gone for three weeks,” I reminded him.  Meanwhile our daughter was dancing around the room.  As if he hadn’t heard me, he watched Grace and remarked, “When you are gone I will remember this moment.”

Our kids (worth missing)

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One of my students came by to visit.  He is an extremely eager English speaker, the kind who makes the whole class have more fun because he is willing to say or try anything and challenge his classmates to join in.  With a big smile on his face he told me how sad he was feeling because I was leaving.  I reminded him that it was only three weeks.
“Three weeks!” he exclaimed. “That’s,” counting on his fingers, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday…” he continued until he had done three weeks worth.  I tried to console him a bit (although I wasn’t feeling a whole lot of pity) but he went on.
“You know, I haven’t eaten anything today.” I looked at him skeptically.  “Really,” he said.  “I was so sad that my teacher is leaving that I couldn’t eat all day.  Only just now I ate a handful of popcorn, but that’s all!” 

The whole family on vacation

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Ma Riziki, our neighbor, told us, “We’re going to miss you so much...We’re going to look up at your porch and no one will be there…”

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Now, it’s possible that we really are that special and memorable--that we’ve made such a deep impression and culturally integrated ourselves so well that they really will be devastated to have us leave.  But I think more likely this is a cultural way of showing friendship.  Most likely they will hardly notice we are away and when we get back, we’ll hear things like, “Oh, you traveled?” 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We’ve been having a wonderful time with Megan’s parents. They watched the kids and let us have a few nights away to celebrate our 10th anniversary. It was a great time! We’re thankful to be in a place with good dental care for vacation-- our daughter's tooth just started hurting and it turns out that the dental work she had in France was not well done. We are thankful that this was discovered with time for it to be taken care of before we return to the islands.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our future teammates just have a couple days left to raise the rest of their financial support. Pray for them as they come to this deadline. We have lots of important email to respond to, pray that we can keep a “vacation” feel while still keeping the preparations for our team moving. Our daughter is going to the hospital on Wednesday for some dental work-- pray that it goes well and that it isn’t traumatizing in any way.

A Drop in the Bucket

Tom teaching his class

There are many small differences between “Clove” Island (where we live now) and “Volcano” Island (where we lived from 2009-2011), but one bigger difference that effects us is the level of English on the island. We are English teachers and on Volcano Island we were part of a team of English teachers, there were various well-established and Islander-run English learning centers and many high-level English speakers amongst islanders.

Once we got to Clove Island we found little to no English teaching on the island. Our arrival was met with lots of excitement. Rumors of what we were going to do spread quickly. We were met with a barrage of questions by people all the time, “When will you start? Where will you teach? What time? How much will it cost?”. People stopped us in the street. People came to our house. Shopkeepers asked us as we shopped. We took down people’s phone numbers and promised to let them know when we had details, but we knew whatever we offered would not satisfy the demand.

Megan teaching, our son visiting the class

We decided to teach three Level 1 classes in collaboration with three different local groups. We let people know all the information, but before we could even finish explaining the complaints always began. “Why can’t you teach more levels? Why can’t you have a class for children? Why don’t you have a class at this time? Why don’t you have a class in my village?”  Then after a few weeks there was the new disappointment,  several people come to our front door to say, “I called the man for the class, but he said it was full already!!”

All we can do is apologize and say, “Sorry it is just the two of us right now and many people want to learn English. We’ll start new classes once these are finished. We’ll let you know.” Resigned they get up and leave.

Tom & students on break from class

We’re getting used to disappointing people, but we’re grateful that we are doing something that people on Clove Island are excited about and we only hope that islanders will be as excited for all the things that we and our team have to offer the islands.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
All our travels went smoothly. The kids did great on the planes and Megan’s back did well. Thank you for praying! Everyone arrived safely for the translation conference. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for our teammates preparing to join us on the islands. They have only a couple more weeks to raise the funds to join us. Pray that their support teams would come behind them. Continue to pray for the translation projects-- we haven’t heard how the conference went yet. Pray that we would have a restful break off the islands.

The Last Minute

Talking to the final landlord!

We never were super excited about the idea of having to find houses for all our teammates. It was a daunting tasks and we knew it would stretch us. Plus, with three little kids it meant that most of the weight of the task fell on Tom. He was the one going out and canvassing neighborhoods for leads. He was making the initial assessments and taking pictures for us to look at and discuss about at home.

We got an early start. We had extra time during the month of fasting so we started the house hunt in July (almost 4 months before our team’s arrival). The first two weeks we came away with two houses! What an answer to prayer, a huge encouragement. God is with us. We can do this.

The third house was a lot slower coming, but when we found it-- everything was in order. The house was in good shape, no major work needed to be done, the neighborhood was good and the landlord was friendly and cooperative.

The final house has been a battle. Our deadline had always been today. We leave the island on our way to vacation tomorrow and we really wanted the houses settled before we left.

Our kids having a snack

From the beginning we’ve had our eyes on one town but every house had a “deal-breaker” issue.  We kept trying.  Another week went by and then we had a couple possibilities-- we thought we were done! But one landlord quoted an absurdly high rent price. Another suddenly said the house wasn’t available.  We kept looking.  Time kept slipping by.  At the beginning of this week we didn’t know what we were going to do. We had a possibility but the landlord was nitpicking about every detail and the house needed lots of work. We didn’t feel good about it. All the other houses had felt so right and the relationships with the landlords were easy- we were fighting with this house. It wasn’t the one. So on Tuesday Tom hit the street again. He was discouraged after hours of seeing nothing when he decided to sit down next to a friendly looking man. They talked and he called some friends who thought and talked and eventually led Tom to a neighborhood we had both liked a lot and right to a house that fit the bill. This was it. The landlord was friendly and obliging. The house is the right size and in a good location. Wednesday, we went as a family to see the house. Thursday (yesterday) Tom went and signed the contract.

We have all our teammates’ houses and right on time! God is good.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We have all the houses and we feel good about all of them! Ma Imani has continued to hold her ground and has found support from others in the community (Ba Imani hasn’t married again yet).

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Some of our teammates are still working to get the financial backing they need to come to the islands. Please pray that the right people would come behind them and that they would all be able to come! Their deadline for raising funds is the end of the month-- as we saw with the houses sometimes things don’t come together until the last moment. We are leaving for some much needed rest BUT we have a number of plane flights before we get to rest. PLEASE pray for Megan’s back during the flights (right now extended sitting usually leaves her in pain) and also pray for our three little kids on all the flights. There is a conference starting tomorrow to coordinate translation projects in all the different island dialects-- pray it goes well and that there would be unity.

A Broken Marriage

Our daughter & Megan dressed for a wedding at night

Ma Imani is a good friend.  She’s a bit younger than us, probably in her late twenties.  She is quite petite, but full of life.  She has a big smile and is quick to laugh.  Our children love her a lot.  Often times we stand and chat in the kitchen. This day she was saying something about a woman coming to her house and a marriage…She spoke more and more quickly, the words pouring out of her like a flood.

“He wants three wives! He has no situation, what is he going to do with three wives!?”
It was her husband: Ba Imani was arranging for a second wife.  Island men are “allowed” to marry up to four women at once, but this is never pleasant news for a wife.  Especially unpleasant was the way she learned the news.  Ma Imani found out when an older woman came to the house to explain that Ba Imani was making arrangements to marry her daughter. A short time later, news of another woman came, who apparently was also receiving the advances of her husband.  Finally, Ba Imani showed up to talk things over.  Ma Imani stood firm. “Fine,” she told him, “we’ll divorce and you can marry whoever you want. But I don’t want to be a part of all the mess and drama. If you want to marry more women, you need to leave me.”  But that was the problem, Ba Imani doesn’t want to divorce Ma Imani.
“You’re my first wife.” He tried to say in way of appeasement, “and our religion says….”  “Our religion, our religion, our religion,” says Ma Imani with scorn.  “That’s all he kept saying.  But it’s not right and I won’t be a part of it.” 

Our daughter asleep at same wedding

The next day there was more.  “He wants to take Imani!” (Imani is their only child and just 5 years old.) Now Ma Imani was visibly upset. She vented some of her anger and spilled out her frustrations. She told us about how her husband doesn’t do anything to help her and Imani, how he refuses to pay for anything and only comes to take. “I’m the one with a job.  I’m the one making things to sell in the shop for extra cash.  I’m the one paying for Imani to go to school.  What does he do?  Nothing.  He doesn’t have a job.  He doesn’t help.  I keep telling him. Go ahead, leave. It doesn’t bother me. You want to marry again, then just go. But he isn’t taking Imani!”

She was very upset and our hearts were breaking for her.  We know of so many broken marriages; broken families--it’s epidemic here.  But the frequency doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking.  Feeling the heaviness and sorrow of it all, we asked to lift up the situation. We sat down with her and started to pray. We prayed for wisdom and a clear path ahead of her. We prayed for changed hearts and for God’s guidance. She thanked us at the end and was calmer. 

Tom & the boys waiting to see possible house

Today she laughed nervously while she told me how her husband brought some neighborhood elders to her house in the morning-- to continue to push his point. But by the time Ma Imani told the whole story, the elders agreed with her. “Leave her alone and marry someone else if you want, but the child is too small to leave the mother.” Apparently Ba Imani was very quiet and has promised to bring different people to talk tomorrow. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammates are working hard in their final month of support raising.  We are excited to see their drive, zeal and faith.  And we’re especially glad to see so many people already responding!  Our English classes continue to go well. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please be praying for Ma Imani and her husband and child. Pray that she would know how to proceed in this difficult situation.  Pray for all the broken families on Clove Island.  Pray for new life and truth to redeem broken situations and to heal wounded hearts.
We continue to search for the final house, but the right place hasn’t shown itself yet.  Pray that we would be guided to the right house in the right right neighborhood among the right people. This is our final week before some much-needed vacation time, so we really want to settle on a house this week.
Many people are responding to our teammates needs but some still have a ways to go.  Please lift them up.  If you would be interested in helping them come out here, send us an email.