Comfort

Our kids on the roof

Is comfort a bad thing? In many ways our life on the islands isn’t completely comfortable. Visitors are probably more struck by the discomforts. One visitor compared our life to “camping” on multiple occasions during their stay. We are not living at an American standard of living, but we aren’t living at the same level as many of our neighbors either.

In reality, we are never going to be exactly like our neighbors. We have a steady income each month. We have a bigger house than most. We have education and a freedom to travel that they don’t have. But we try to minimize the differences. We learn local language. We adopt many local customs (as long as our beliefs allow us). We wear local dress, eat local food, and avoid displaying our relative wealth. But it means we are living a harder life than we would have in our home countries. In the hard times, it is easy to long for things that could make life easier--- constant electricity, constant water, a few more appliances...

The struggle intensifies as more “stuff” comes to the islands. When things aren’t available, you don’t have the choice. But nowadays you can sometimes find nice appliances, power systems or even speciality foods in island shops. “What islanders buy these?” we sometimes wonder.  But here they are, nice things. They are available, we can potentially afford them, they could add comfort to our lives… is there a reason not to get them?

Well...most of our neighbors don’t have them. It would be one more thing that we have that they don’t. It would free me from a discomfort that they would continue to live with. We would be bypassing a form of suffering that most of them can’t avoid.

Then we ask the big questions, do I really need it? Can I live without it? Will it help me to get to know my neighbors or will it be a barrier between us? Will it help me to get to know God or will it be a barrier between us?  Is this thing’s only purpose my comfort?
Our team has been struggling to come up with united answers to these questions. 

One of our team values is simpler living and as such we struggle together as a team to think through these issues.  That means we talk to each other about the “stuff” we’re thinking of buying.  This might sound strange.  We don’t imagine many of you who read our blog ever ask your friends if it’s okay to buy something for yourself.  But as a team, we have committed to thinking through together many kinds of purchases, and to challenge one another about these things.  Are you uncomfortable yet?  So are we.  It’s not an easy thing to do.

Is my own comfort a good enough reason to buy something?

This is where opinions differ. If we say, “No, comfort is not a good enough reason to buy something,” then are we just being ascetics who don’t know how to embrace God’s blessings?  If we say, “Yes, these comforts are meant to help us to find joy in life.”  Could it be we are actually sliding down the slippery slope of materialism? The answer is seldom clear.  So as a team we struggle to find common ground.  We try to listen to one another.  Sometimes it means things don’t work out the way we want, but we are glad for the struggle, to be wrestling with these questions rather than just allowing ourselves to slide to extremes. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Rejoice with us!  We have a new team mate!  A beautiful baby girl arrived last week in South Africa, and now Mom and Dad are working hard to get all the paperwork done and bring our newest teammate back to the islands.  We are so happy for a safe delivery and a healthy and happy mommy and baby.  Tom has been getting regular opportunities to tell Book stories.  It has been really encouraging.  There has been some positive steps in terms of more fellowship among islanders--only small first steps, but encouraging!  Keep praying!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray with us as we seek to challenge and encourage each other in this area of “stuff”.
Megan continues to meet with Ma Imani and encourage reconciliation in her family- continue to pray for real forgiveness.  Our pregnant teammate continues to struggle with back pain, sleep deprivation  and other related pregnancy pains.  Pray for healing, pain relief and indomitable joy.  Pray that we would continue to be able to share with islanders the reason for our joy and find many opportunities to do so. 

Stories

Tom & friend at wedding event

Have you ever stopped to think about the power of a good story?  When you see a particularly good movie, the story stays with you.  If you read a particularly good book, you can hardly put it down.  How many times have we heard our children ask us, “Can you tell us a story?”  Everyone loves a good story.

Yet in the West we have a bias against stories.  Everyone loves a good story but when it’s time to learn something, we put the stories away, we take out the text books and we listen to lectures and we expect a logically presented argument.  Stories are for children and entertainment.  Not for learning.

The western worldview of our team in regard to stories was challenged this past week as we engaged in a seminar on the use of stories in teaching.  From the beginning we felt this challenge.  The seminar started out, not with theory or lecture but with a story.  We learned to tell a story--without any pens or papers--completely orally.  We learned to tell a story from our favorite book with accuracy and detail.  It felt strange, almost like a waste of time.  The story was familiar, although before we couldn’t have told it nearly so well.  Why spend so much time repeating and repeating this story?

Megan with bride and groom

The next day was even stranger.  The same story again, but this time we were learning to tell it in the island language, alongside islanders!  This was a challenging language time for our team, to say the least.  And then after going through that same story again and again, we were given homework:  Go tell the story!  To an island friend! In the island language!

And so we did.  On the third day of the seminar, we talked theory.  We got to put things into categories and hear logically presented arguments on the usefulness of this method and how to go about it, and different factors we might want to consider.  It was time well spent, and I think we would all have enjoyed more hours of it.  Theory! Lists! Programming! Our western minds were pacified.

Meanwhile the stories were working their power. I had told the story separately to two people, my friends Sterehi and Ananas.  It went relatively well.  They asked some questions, and seemed to enjoy the story.  I assumed that was the end of it.  But a few days later Sterehi came back to me.  “Do you have a new story?” he asked.  “I don’t yet,” I replied, “but I will.”  He wanted to hear another story!  The first story had stuck with him.

A few days after that I went to visit my friend Ananas at his home.  We were talking with him and his wife, when the subject of the story came up.  Imagine my surprise when it was Ananas’ wife who retold the story and asked questions about it! I hadn’t asked Ananas to share the story with anyone.  He had just done it. The story I had told to Ananas he had in turn told to his family.  This is exactly how it’s supposed to work!  And his family was engaging with it, thinking about it, challenged by it.

She lost her first tooth!

These are just my two anecdotes.  Yet many others who told the story had similar anecdotes to share.  How the power of the story went out, how it was retold, and how the people who heard have returned with questions, understanding and a desire to hear more!  Based on the numbers at our seminar you can multiply my anecdotes times ten, and then add to that the unknown number who have gone on to retell this one simple story again.

I am impressed anew with the power of stories.

 All these things [he] said to the crowds in parables; indeed he said nothing to them without a parable. Matt. 13:34

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for all that we are learning and being challenged to think in new ways.  We are also thankful for the opportunity to take the things we learn and put them immediately into practice.  Ma Imani had a good conversation with her mom this week that helped break through some of the issues that still hadn’t been discussed. We hope the same will happen among the sisters of the family!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
As of writing this, our teammates are still waiting for their baby, but it could be any day!  Pray for our teammates as they get impatient for their baby girl to arrive.  Pray for our storytelling.  Pray that we might become people who tell stories.  Pray for our language to grow as we learn to tell stories well. Our second pregnant teammate is having a lot of back pain- pray that she can find comfortable ways to sleep and alleviate her pain. Pray with us as we seek how to best encourage fellowship among islanders-- we want it them to have the ownership and the desire!

In the Dark

Our kids with the birthday girl

By outside standards, electricity is never great on Clove Island. Generally these days, there had been a pattern. Most mornings there will be power, most afternoons there won’t be power, and every third evening there won’t be power. It isn’t a great schedule. Our overall hours of power per day has gone back down to less than half the time, but at least it is a schedule.

Wednesday evening we didn’t have power. We did everything by candle and lantern light. But then we knew-- two evenings of power will follow. We weren’t the only ones counting on it.

On Wednesday and again on Thursday our neighbors reminded us of the birthday party on Friday evening. The birthday girl was turning one and the party was set to start after sunset. We had an early dinner with our kids and got them into their nicer clothes. Usually the power came on around 6pm. But 6pm and 6:30pm passed with no power. Usually if the power isn’t on by 6:30pm, it won’t come on until 10pm.

I went over to the neighbors. “We’re waiting for the power,” they said.  “It is coming at 7pm today,” someone added.

So I went home and started reading to the kids, wasting time until 7pm. 7pm passed. At 7:45pm, I went back over to the neighbors. “So are you going to have the party tomorrow?” I asked. “No, we’re just waiting for the power!” they insisted again.

Then I saw the little birthday girl in her cute little dress. I saw their living room all decorated and with all the furniture taken out. I saw all the restless kids jumping around in the completely dark room. All the adults were downcast.

Party guests in the dark (with flash)

Rich people will just call the electric company and offer a large sum of money to have the power turned on for their party or gathering. But these neighbors aren’t rich. They just wanted to celebrate their little girl. They couldn’t bribe the electric company so they found a broken generator and tried to get it working.

I grabbed the birthday girl and took her to our house to get Grace and Peter. David was already heading for bed, but Grace and Peter could at least join our neighbors in the wait as an act of solidarity. I snapped some pictures of the birthday girl and her guests, no doubt more would come to dance once the power came on and the music started.

The minutes ticked by...the generator never worked, but they kept trying.

Around 8:30pm Grace decided to go to bed. Peter held out until around 8:45pm.  The power came on a little after 9pm. A few seconds later the music started blaring across the street, but our kids were fast asleep.
I was readying my apologies for my kids’ absence when the neighbor came with a plate of the party food for my kids to enjoy the next morning. There were no hard feelings-- we had come, we had waited with them, we had given their birthday girl special attention and notice, we had honored them. Hopefully next time we’ll actually get to have fun with them too.

Our former teammates & our kids

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We had a wonderful time with two of our old teammates who came to lead a seminar for our team. We gained and will continue to gain a lot from the things we learned about sharing stories with islanders. Plus personally, we loved the opportunity to have quality time with our good friends.
Grace lost her first tooth! Peter has learned to write all his big letters! David is learning to go on the potty! It is fun to see our kids growing and learning.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We finished our seminar on telling stories-- pray that we would debrief well what we learned so we could apply it here. Our team is learning a lot! It’s kind of overwhelming.  Pray that we would be able to continue to learn, grow and apply what we learn in helpful ways. Pray that we would be united as team in this process. Our teammates that are currently in South Africa are expecting their new baby any day now! Pray for a safe delivery for both mom and baby and a healthy baby girl.

Working Together

Parade going past our house this past weekend

The sun was setting over the ocean and a cool breeze greeted us as Sterehi and I walked along the ocean road after one of my English classes.

“I am only one man and someday I may leave.” I said.  “I don’t want to see things stop when I leave.  Other people, islanders, can teach the way I am teaching. I am even training some teachers now.  Why don’t I do a class together with an island teacher?  The students will see that the teacher is a good teacher.  Then they can start teaching courses on their own and many more people will be learning English.  That is my hope.  That is my vision for English on Clove Islands.  If it stays with me it will be small.  But if others can teach, it will grow.”
My good friend shook his head.  “You do not understand.  Island teachers...they aren’t serious.”
“They can be serious,” I countered.
“But then the students—they will not want to come.  They will not be serious.  They don’t respect island teachers.  Only mzungus (i.e. white foreigners).”
“But if an Islander taught the class well and was serious about it.  Students would hear about it and it would grow.  Slowly, but it would grow.”  I pleaded.  The sun dipped behind the horizon and the growing darkness surrounded us.
“No.  It won’t work.” Sterehi replied again.  “They have no respect for an island teacher.”

Megan and kids visiting a bride

As a team we’ve been reading the book When Helping Hurts, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.  It has been an excellent challenge to our understanding of how we go about helping the people of Clove Island.  One of the best parts about being part of a team and reading things together is that many times we get to put into practice the things we are learning almost immediately.  This week we were learning about the important role of the local people in any kind of development work. 

The table below shows the different possible models of participation:

p148 When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself; Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert; Moody Publishers: Chicago, 2009

In our English teaching we strive for the last 3 models of participation.  So who is right?  Is my vision not right for the islands?  Is it impossible?  Is Sterehi defeatist? Can we find common ground?  Is there another way?  One thing is sure, until men like Sterehi believe islanders can teach English well, things will never really start to change.

This long slow process is repeated in so many scenarios.  Our doctor and agricultural workers can relate to similar discussions in their fields. And it is especially poignant when we think of our greater hopes and dreams for these islands.  Can leadership and teachers come from islanders themselves?  Can they meet and talk and learn without the Mzungu organizing things?  Who will take up the call?  Who will catch the vision that we so desperately want to see caught?  We can only wait patiently, come along side, cooperate, learn together, encourage and pray.

Kids outside bride's house

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for all the things we are learning together as a team and the opportunities to put that learning into immediate practice.  Pray that we can digest and understand what we are learning and make it applicable to our context. A worker from the smallest island came to visit this past week- it was encouraging to interact with him and have him meet our team.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for inspired vision from islanders themselves.  Pray that we would know how to come along side and help.  Pray for us as we try to do our best to help and neither hinder nor hurt.  Keep praying for Ma Imani and her family.  Things have settled down, but they are not truly reconciled.  This coming week we have two of our old teammates from Volcano Island coming over to teach us and our team more about telling stories in the local language. Pray for their safe travel and for a good time learning together, especially as we try to include islanders in the things we are learning.