Island Christmas

10 SIGNS of AN ISLAND CHRISTMAS DAY

1. You’re sweating all the time! It’s hot with 100% humidity.
   

   

   Kids on Christmas morning

2. Your kids get an apple and an orange in their stockings and are genuinely excited. “Can we eat it right now?!”
3. Hand fans in every stocking! It’s hot, no AC in our homes and lots of electricity cuts means no electric fans either.
4. You get a number of text-message attempts at Christmas greetings from your English students. “Happy Merry Christmas.” “Mary cristmas.” “Marry chrystmas.”
5. One of your Christmas treats is fudgesicles, but even after more than 36 hrs in the freezer, they’re not fully frozen. It’s hot and lots of electricity cuts.
6. Your daughter gets Frozen for Christmas and you have to explain that in America lots of kids know about this movie.
7. Last minute gift--- a homemade backscratcher for our 4 yr old son! He’s been asking for a “scratch back” for a long time. It feels good on the heat rash that has appeared all over our boys’ backs!                      
8. You have to explain to multiple people that it is a holiday for you today. We wrote a letter saying our kids wouldn’t be at school and no, we won’t be working either.
9. Little water guns in the stockings turns into a water fight for the kids on the porch.
10. The day ends with a late night visit from a neighbor and the chance to share the message of truth and hope!

Day after Christmas enjoying a new book

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We’ve been thankful for the opportunities to share this season. Teammates had opportunities to share the Christmas story too! Some had a party with over 50 islanders! Our teammates’ parents made it safely to the islands. We got our things done in time for Christmas.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Tomorrow we go to Volcano island (our old home)-- we will go camping with our old teammates and spend some restful days of vacation. Pray that it would be truly restful-- we’re looking forward to it. It is still very hot. Pray for relief from heat rash (especially the kids). Pray also for the breastfeeding mother on the team who is having trouble staying hydrated amidst tummy troubles to have enough milk for his thirsty little one. Pray for all those who heard about the Christmas story that they might come back and continue the conversation.

The Annual English Club Christmas Party

Kids prepare welcome signs

7:25pm:  We sit prepared for a party.  The food is ready, the room is arranged.  The kids are washed and dressed.  Everything is ready, except that we sit in complete darkness.  No power.  Oh, and it’s raining...a lot...the first big rain of the season.  Islanders don’t like to go out in the rain.  So in the next five minutes we need to decide.  Do we cancel the party?

7:30pm: Decision time.  The rain is still coming down pretty hard.  No power...do we cancel?  Just then the lights come on.  Maybe the rains letting up...a little….we’ll decide to go for it.  The party is on!

We have a confession to make.  We are not the best party planners.  Neither of us gets terribly excited about figuring out all the details to make a party happen.  Sure we like a good party, we don’t even mind having the party at our house, but planning it...

Every Christmas we’ve spent on the islands we have hosted and organized a small Christmas party for our English students.  This year was no different.  So as the day approached we felt the pressure mounting.  What will we eat?  What kind of games will we play?  What songs will we teach them?  What will we talk about?

She fed him answers to win some of the games! :)

Remember, people on the islands know next to nothing about Christmas.  This huge holiday with all its different traditions both secular and religious, is a vast ocean of cultural knowledge that islanders are, for the most part, completely unaware of.  What do we share?  What do we teach them?  Opportunities like this come rarely.  We want to make the most of it.

One of the cultural ideas we come back to every year is the distinction between secular and sacred. Where we (from the West) easily and clearly have these boxes for things: (i.e. Santa-secular; wisemen-sacred) this is an idea quite foreign to our island friends.  The sacred and secular are not distinguished.  Everything they do is defined as representing the majority faith.  They apply this to us as well, so that everything out of the west--everything from sexy music videos to Santa’s elves--is a reflection of our majority faith.  So we find it helpful to teach this distinction to highlight the difference between true faith and cultural traditions.  And what better time than Christmas!

Go Christmas Club!

So this year we decided to teach “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” for the secular side of things this year and explained the angel’s message to the shepherds for the sacred: “Good news of great joy that will be for people everywhere.”  We sang “Angels We Have Heard On High.” In between we played games and made snowflakes. And then we just generally enjoyed one another’s company. 

The rain kept many people away, but we prayed that the right people would come and hear. The time was good.  And just maybe, some of them went home with a spark of the Christmas story in their hearts.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The Christmas party was a success despite the rain.  The special swim went well--more on that next week.  The rains mean a bit of relief from the terrible heat!  Our teammates with the new baby are adjusting back well.  Megan’s new class is going well too.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Other teammates will be having their own Christmas parties, and gatherings, and opportunities to share.  Pray that all of us would be able to share about Christmas in meaningful ways.  Our teammates with the new baby are getting a visit from their family.  Pray for all their travel and for a good visit.  We still have much to do before we go on vacation.  Pray for our sanity amidst the busyness (and we don’t even have to look for parking spaces in busy malls!) It has been miserably hot- pray for cool nights so we can sleep and for relief from heat rash.

They Just Don't Get It

Tom, Ma Riziki and a few of the kids

We’ve talked a number of times in our blog about our neighbors, the family of Ma Rikizi.  They are a large family and they are poor.  They care little for the “right way of doing things” even by island standards.  The house is full of women who always seem to be having babies.  The fathers are nonexistent or barely in the picture.   The women live on the porch.  They eat, cook and sleep there.  They sit around all day talking, working and yelling at their children.  They stay up late.  They are loud.  They are brash.

That said, we have a good relationship with them.  They are the first people we say hello to every morning.  They are always bringing things over for us to store in our fridge.  Often they give us little gifts of fresh fruit.  About six months ago we paid for one of the daughters to study English.  She has been faithfully coming to our classes and she just passed Level 1.  Since she started studying we have faithfully and daily received fresh made chapatis (a tortilla-like bread.)  Our kids are even growing more comfortable playing with the horde of children connected to that house that seem to run wild on the street.

But for all our good connections, sometimes we just don’t connect.  When we traveled last Ma Riziki asked us for a gift.  She asked us to bring her back an oven.  That’s right.  An oven.  We tried and tried to explain to her that an oven is not a reasonable gift.  Ma Riziki has never left the islands. She has a little patience when we don’t understand something she says and she doesn’t understand cultural differences well. We explained how we travel by plane, our luggage space is quite limited.  We can’t bring you an oven.  We thought she understood.  We even got an island friend of ours to explain it to her again.  It seemed like we had finally gotten through.  Then this week, Megan was speaking with her and telling her of our future plans and that we would be traveling again in a few months.

“Wonderful” she said, “Now you can get me that oven.”  She just doesn’t get it…
But today I was thinking about it.  She probably is saying the same thing about us.  I wonder how she would describe us…

Some of the women, sitting & watching the road

“We have these foreign neighbors,” she might say.  “They are nice but they are very strange.  They are very rich, but they don’t have a television, and they don’t have a car. In fact, they walk most of the time.  When they are home they spend most of their time inside.  Isn’t that strange?  They are very friendly and even helpful, but they just don’t get it.  If you want something, you have to ask them three times and you have to say exactly what you mean because otherwise they don’t understand.  Like when they traveled.  I asked them to bring me back an oven.  I thought I was very clear.  I told them three times and made it very simple, but they still didn’t understand.  They brought me back a couple blouses instead.  I understand they are travelling again, so I will try to be really clear this time.  I’ll even bring my friend who speaks some English to explain it to them.  Maybe this time they will get it.”

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammates made it to Kenya (where they will await the arrival of their little boy in January) and our other teammates made it safely back to the islands with their newborn girl! We have seen some encouraging connections among island brothers and sisters these past couple weeks-- pray that they would be an encouragement and support to one another. We got the new curriculum book/CD done in time. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for our teammates with a newborn-- for a good transition back to island life in spite the lack of luggage and the fact that the electric company cut their power while they were gone. Our lives continue to be very busy and it looks to continue right until Christmas day-- pray that we would find rest and renewal in the midst of the busyness.
A sister wants to go for a special swim-- pray for us as we find a wise way to celebrate this event. Pray that we would have many opportunities to share our reason for hope, peace, joy and love this season.

Tired

Certificate Ceremony for our English students

Our team was all together at team day this past week.  We do many things during team day--studying, discussion, book reporting, and team business.  This week we also had a time for sharing, and as we shared our joys and struggles, our ups and downs, one word kept coming up: tired.  We are tired and we are ready for a break.

Now we are not tired because Christmas season is upon us and we can’t find parking spaces at the mall and the traffic is terrible and we have to bundle up in all those warm clothes before we can go out. 

No one celebrates Christmas, so “Christmas spirit” does not exist, there aren’t any malls or parking lots, and a traffic jam is when a taxi decides to turn around in front of oncoming traffic in a desperate attempt to catch a potential client who has already stepped into another taxi.  But this is pretty normal.

But we might be tired because of the season.  We are in the midst of hot season, when going out in the sun for a few minutes is enough to suck the water from your bones and drain away your strength and energy.  When waking up in the morning means feeling the slick of sweat on your body, and power outages mean no fans and no relief.

We might be tired because we are busy.   We are working hard at our jobs, we are spending quality time with our friends and neighbors, we are encouraging and meeting with those who know or seek the truth, and we are making plans for the future, but all this is pretty normal. 

We might be tired because of language and culture.  Every day our team is learning new things, new words, moving deeper in our understanding of what makes people tick, and all of this learning takes energy. 

We might be tired because of sickness.  Many of us have been struggling with colds, allergies or various ailments.  Children being sick can be as tiring as being sick yourself.

We might be tired because of spiritual attack.  We cannot deny that this is a dark place and sometimes the weight of the oppression upon the souls of those we have grown to know and love hangs heavy upon us.

Hot, sweaty kids under the Christmas tree

And then again, we might be tired because it’s time for a break.  I think everyone, wherever you are experiences this.  Thankfully Christmas and a week break is around the corner.  But we don’t want to be the kind of people who are always just living for the next day off. That’s why we are thankful for having a Rock to stand upon.  The One who sustains us through all our struggles, will continue to sustain us.  Our strength is not our own, but we trust in His strength to carry us through. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We had a nice time with our visitors last week.  We think they had a good time too except for a nasty fall that one of them took--pray for her quick healing!  David is feeling a lot better (although he still doesn’t like taking his medicine).   Tom started his new class with the police--40 students! They are enthusiastic and good singers!  The kids seem to be enjoying vacation, and its giving them more opportunities to play with the neighborhood kids. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that all of us might be sustained through the next couple of weeks and to stay engaged in the important work we have here. Pray for us as we look at the next few months and make decisions about where to focus our time and energy. Pray for island brothers and sisters-- that they would be growing in truth and in trust.   This coming week we will say goodbye to one family on our team (as they go to Kenya to have a baby) and welcome back another family with their newborn. Pray for both families as they transition and for health and safety for all the little ones. We’re supposed to be starting a new specialty English course, but we haven’t finalized the curriculum yet. Pray that we’d be able to finish the book and audio CD in time for the beginning of the course.

Thanksgiving

Piling up the plates on Thanksgiving Day

We have had a couple of really busy days, so we apologize for our blog going out late this week.
So often our life on the islands gives us a new perspective.  It happened again this Thanksgiving.

“Today is a celebration in America!” We explained to some visitors who stopped by to say hello and were surprised to see us all in a state of preparation.  Then before we knew it, we were explaining (in the local language) the story of the pilgrims.

“A long time ago, in Europe there were some people who being bothered because their religion was a little different than the others.  They weren’t allowed to worship God the way they wanted, so they decided to go to America where they could have religious freedom.”

Bobbing for apples

We went on to explain about the hard winter, the peaceful relations with the native americans and the great feast they had the following year. But for a moment, as we spoke about religious freedom we remembered Thanksgiving in a new light-- not just a story of provision and thankfulness but of the pursuit of religious freedom. How challenging in our island home, where any difference in religion among islanders is frowned upon and even forbidden.  Islanders don’t even consider it an option. Yet for us, it is such a foundational part of our identity, it is easy to forget.  The right to choose, the right to believe. The pilgrims came to the shores of America for this very reason.  Imagine a group of islanders fighting for those same rights….

We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.  We gathered together as a team and ate around a big table.  We had some of the classic Thanksgiving foods and some less traditional, but everything was delicious. Conversation flowed easily among the adults as the children went wild at the kids’ table.  We talked about all the things we are thankful for--realizing that it was just  a year ago that we sat around a table together as new acquaintances forming a brand new team.  Now we are experienced teammates, brothers and sisters. 

Dress up with island friend

So much has happened this past year, we could write a number of posts about all the different details, but if we were to sum it up, the word that stands out is “growth.”   This has been a year of a lot of growing--and sometimes hard growing.  We have been challenged again and again as team leaders to grow in wisdom, our acts of service, reliance on our Creator and to die to ourselves.  We have seen the tremendous growth in our teammates, in terms of language, lifestyle, and dying to themselves as well.  We see our children shooting up like weeds- learning and processing new things all the time.

It is exciting to think that we have another year of growth ahead of us. We will be stretched and challenged. We will continue to see amazing things happening in lives and hearts. And hopefully we will remember in all of it-- to be thankful. We are truly blessed.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are truly thankful for all the answered prayers of the last year. One that struck us particularly is the vast improvement in Megan’s back (what a difference a year makes!). We have visitors from the big island coming to learn about our island (as we get to learn about their work as well). It is encouraging to be together! Grace’s first set of island exams (as a 1st grader!) went well and she wasn’t stressed by them. Our teammates in South Africa have been reassured that their newborn’s passport will arrive in time for them to return to the islands as planned in a couple weeks!


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for David. He has been sick for the past week and has an infection. Pray for quick healing. Pray for freedom on the islands. Pray for all of us-- as the heat and humidity increases (especially our pregnant teammate). Pray for us this Advent season that we would have many opportunities to share about our source of hope, joy, peace and love! Pray that we would continue to have wisdom as team leaders to guide our team and facilitate discussions about strategy, focus and values. Our kids have two weeks off of island school-- pray that we’d be able to find some extra time to love and support them. Tom has started an English class with the island police- pray that it would bring good connections and relationships.