Visiting the Littlest Island

Some teammates on the boat

This week we took a team retreat over to one of the other islands of our small islands nation.  We went to the littlest island (we’ll call it Vanilla Island).  Many of our teammates had never been there and we hadn’t been there in five years, so a visit was long over due.  Here are some highlights from our trip:

First of all, if you think Clove Island is remote you are right, but little Vanilla Island is truly about as remote as one might go.  Inhabited by only about 30,000, the island seems nearly deserted.  So different from our own island with its 350,000 people where town spills into town.  You notice the difference when you travel.  Flying over Clove island, you notice village after village.  Flying into Vanilla Island we saw only the village where the airport was located.  On Clove Island, driving in a taxi, the spaces between towns are short or even non-existent.  In Vanilla Island you drive through jungle for long stretches of time before passing through a village consisting of a handful of mud huts.  (Our son complained on the ride, “Where are all the houses??”) We also took a boat trip from nearly one end of the island t the other and saw only one town in between our starting point and our destination!  However, being remote has it’s perks.  The people are friendly, the island is mostly clean and much of it looks untouched.  Marine and land wildlife still abounds and the snorkeling is wonderful.

Tom on a boat

Did I mention that we went snorkeling?  There is something truly amazing in experiencing the underwater world of a coral reef.  It is an amazing world of light and color and yet hidden under the ocean waters.

Vanilla Island is also known for its turtles.  We arrived just in time one day to see about 30 tiny sea turtles emerge from their nest and make their frenetic dash for the sea.  We stood over them and protected them from the crows as they left their little tracks in the sand and found safety and rest in the crashing waves.

In this far off place we had a chance to relax and reflect as a team and just enjoy one another.  We also had the chance to enjoy our colleagues who work there on Vanilla Island.  On Monday morning we went for a walk around the village where one of our colleagues live, talking with their friends and neighbors.  It was clear that our colleagues are well loved and accepted into the community.  The people we met were very friendly and kind, and we realize that the sorts of hopes and dreams we have for Clove Island mirror the hopes and dreams of our friends on Vanilla island and beyond.  So many people who long for a better life, who are looking for so much more, a hope that will not disappoint.  There are many places in the world like this, and what a privilege it is to be in one of these places.  I love Clove Island and feel blessed to serve there, and I am thankful for my friends who love Vanilla Island and are blessed to serve there.  So many in need.  So many without a real sense of hope.  We have been called to serve them and it is a blessing.

Back home celebrating Tom's birthday

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are very thankful that we got to have our retreat (at the last minute it looked like our flight there might be cancelled, so we were very thankful when we all arrived). Tom celebrated his 37th birthday! We are very thankful for him and the ways he is being used to bless others as a father, husband, team leader, friend, neighbor and teacher here on the islands! The survey trip last week went well and will be followed by another. Continue to pray!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We’ve been having some big talks on the islands about strategy and what the next 5 years of work on all the islands could look like. We are very excited to say that there is wonderful cooperation between organizations and we are looking to coordinate for best efficacy. These talks come just as our team was hoping to figure out the next 5 years on Clove Island. Now we’re realizing that this is a much bigger conversation. Pray for us as we try to find our way forward as a team while at the same time we participate in this bigger conversation. Pray for great unity of purpose and vision.

Don't Be So Confident

On a hike with fellow island workers

It is a quiet morning. I am sitting on the porch having some quiet time of study and prayer. Our guest approaches me tentatively, “I’m going to walk to the bank to see if the ATM is working now.” “I see the taxi strike is still on, I’ll be able to get to the airport for my flight?” he adds nervously.

“Don’t worry about it,” I assure him confidently, “We’ll take care of you and make sure you get to the airport on time.” With that he walks off our porch and onto the taxi-less streets.

When I go inside, I am glad to see Tom calling the airline. Usually we try to call the day before but we had forgotten in the midst of a busy day yesterday. But it is an afternoon flight, so calling this morning should be fine.

Tom’s tone of voice catches my attention from the other room. Something is wrong. “Well, what are we supposed to do now?” he asks into the phone.

Once off the phone I get the quick run-down. They changed the flight to the morning. Our guest needs to be at the airport NOW if he wants to catch the flight. The airport is 15-20 minutes away. Our guest is not even at our house at the moment. There is a taxi strike and we don’t have a ride lined up yet.

So much for my confident assurances. We were thinking that we had all day to find him a ride to the airport, now we need someone with a car this instant (a tall order on the islands).

Tom starts calling people with cars. I go to my neighbors, I quickly explain the situation. “How can we find a car to take him to the airport?” They shake their heads, “That’s going to be hard.” None of the taxi drivers want to be seen on the road during the strike. One neighbor walks off. I go back and check on Tom. He may have tracked down someone with a private car, but in the meantime our guest isn’t answering his phone. He is roaming the streets, oblivious to our anxious efforts to get him to the airport.

With a newborn (a twin)

Tom sets off to find him by foot. Tom doesn’t find him at the bank closest our house. The ATM there isn’t working. He must have headed for the bank all the way across town. Meanwhile my neighbor arrives at our door with a taximan willing to brave the streets for us, but Tom already has a friend on his way with a private car. I thank our neighbor and the taximan repeatedly for their willingness to help. Then I go inside and start collecting our guest’s belongings to help him pack.

Tom continues the search for our guest by car. Finally they find him and return to the house. I apologize, say a prayer for him and finally shout a goodbye as he rushes in, grabs his stuff and gets back in the car.

Then I wait. My heart is still thumping. Finally I get the call from Tom. Our guest is at the airport. He is checked in. He’s going to make it.

Next time I won’t be so confident.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We have a new niece as of yesterday! We’re very thankful that both mom and baby is doing well. We had a wonderful visit from our former team leaders this weekend. Megan got to meet with the young woman and some of her family. There haven’t been anymore taxi strikes.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Tom is right now on a survey trip of another part of the island for looking at future work in that aware. Pray for wisdom, discernment and good interactions as these possibilities are explored. Pray for Megan and others as we decide what the best for meeting and guiding this family group. Tom has a plan to meet with the second man to tell him the final story- pray it happens and that they can make a plan for how to proceed. Our team is going to the smallest island for a retreat and opportunity to visit our colleagues working there. Pray for safe travels and for fun, rejuvenating times as a team. We have been talking about strategy and ideas for the future— pray with us about these important discussions and decisions.

Taxi Strike

Relatively quiet, taxi-less street

This past week there was a taxi strike.  You may think that’s not such a big deal, but on our island, taxis are the main mode of transportation.  Taxis are cheap and form the backbone of “public” transportation on the island.  Most people get everywhere by taxi.  Taxis carry the market sellers AND their wares to the market.  Taxis get the people from the village into their jobs in the city.  Taxis get people to and from the airport.

Now we don’t have a car, so we depend on taxis too.  This meant that we were indisposed by the taxi strike too.  Examples:

·      Our teammates who live in the next town over wouldn’t be able to get to our team meeting so instead they spent the night at our house, and then since the taxis still weren’t running they stayed a second night. (This was actually a blessing in disguise since we got to hang out and play board games with them.)

·      We are co-teaching some English classes with some island teachers.  When the strike hit, they were not able to come into town, so we had extra English classes to teach.

·      There’s a couple of men who come by to sell us vegetables to our door (a very nice situation) but with no taxis available, there was no fresh vegetables.

·      Our doctor teammate had to wait an hour and a half to find someone willing to take him to his village clinic.

·      When we found out that they had changed our visitor’s flight and that we had to get him to the airport right away, we had some anxious moments while we called our few friends who own cars and asked our neighbors to help us get our visitor to the airport. (He made it just in time.)

So a common question we get here is, “Why don’t you have a car?”  I usually explain how we don’t need one to get around, and that cars are expensive, and there’s unforeseen expenses like insurance and repairs…just a bunch of trouble that we’d rather not have to deal with.  But there’s another part that you might find strange.  By not having a car, we feel closer to our neighbors.  The fact of the matter is most islanders don’t have cars.  And so a taxi strike inconveniences them.  They suffer.  And when we are inconvenienced, to some extent we suffer too.  We relate to what our friends and neighbors are going through.  We even ask for their help to work around these problems.  

She keeps losing teeth!

Now I’m extremely thankful for my friends here who have cars—our visitor would probably not have made his flight otherwise—but I wonder, if we had a car, would we have noticed the strike at all?  Would it have had much of an effect on us?  Would we have really cared?

So what did we gain (besides the chance to complain along with our neighbors)?  I think it’s about walking a mile in another man’s shoes. We come from thousands of miles away and try to cross over the distance of culture, language and history in order to understand and be understood. We do a lot of things to try to reach over this gap and this time around, not having a car helped us get just a little closer.

PRAYERS ANSWERED

Our visitor made it to his flight! Our teammate has had a good time in Kenya (she’ll be back tomorrow). Tom had a chance to tell the final story to one of the guys he has been meeting with and they had a good discussion. After a couple of weeks of feeling discouraged, we are starting to feel encouraged again- thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers.  Our team finished and printed the 1st edition of a little grammar book for the local language! We pray that it will help more people learn and appreciate this language. A young woman in our neighborhood wants Megan to come and study with her and her family (siblings and mother)—this is just the kinds of opportunities that we pray for!

 
PRAYERS REQUESTED

We’ve had two rounds of the taxi strikes and there may be more. Pray for a resolution and that we’d be patient in the meantime. Pray that the second man will get to hear the final story (ideally through his friend). It is starting to get hot. Megan was supposed to meet with the family yesterday but a neighborhood funeral meant a week delay. Pray that she would have wisdom as she interacts with this family.

Who’s pulling the strings?

An event right outside our house

This past Sunday we had a nice time of fellowship.  On the taxi ride home I was looking forward to a relaxing and quiet Sunday afternoon… a time to rest, nap and regroup after what had been kind of a difficult week.  But as the taxi pulled up to our house we saw people putting large tarps over the road.  This could only mean one thing—a wedding event.

Now there are all sorts of wedding events that happen here and we are not really opposed to them, except when they happen right outside our house.  Why?  Because all wedding ceremonies include singing and dancing and all singing must be amplified and speakers have only one volume setting on the islands—AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE.  Why do they even put a volume dial on those things???

So now I start thinking, as a watch them set up speakers directly outside our kitchen window—I’ve got a meeting tonight.  How am I going to have a meeting if there is music blaring into our living room?  It’s simply not going to work.  I’ve been meeting with some friends for the past few months, having great discussions, sharing with them my favorite stories from our book.  Today was supposed to be the final story—you know, the one where the stone is rolled away and the women are amazed and then some men have an amazing walk and discussion along the road.  I was excited to share this story, but now I’m thinking, it’s going to be impossible.  There will be too much noise tonight.  I’ll simply have to cancel.  That’s when my mind asks another question, “Is this a win for the other side?”  “Is this some sort of dark scheme to keep these friends of mine from hearing the exciting resolution to the story?”  I don’t know if you ever think this way, but things being the way they are here—where interactions can feel like a raging battle in the spiritual realm; where evil spirits are an every day part of people’s lives; where strange things happen at times that seem more than coincidental—it just seemed too coincidental not to ask the question.  Just then the music starts to thump.

We haven’t even had lunch yet and we are drowning in sound.  The music is loud and frenetic in it’s tempo—the sort of tempo that makes your heart beat faster whether you want it to or not.  So much for a quiet Sunday afternoon…The questions return, “Who’s at work here?” The quiet Sabbath afternoon is ruined, but maybe this means it will be over before my meeting this evening.  So with music flooding every corner of our home, we try to take some quiet rest time…

Ours kids play photographer

By early evening the event is in full swing and our nerves are jagged.  Poor Megan has to cook dinner in the kitchen, where the music is the loudest.  I was retreating to the farthest corner of the house to get away from it.  Of course, this meant I didn’t hear Megan when she  called for help in the kitchen, for someone to set the table, for everyone to come to dinner.  By the time we sat down to dinner Megan and I are snapping at one another and the kids, the music is still pounding, and I hate everything. We have to yell across the table to be heard. Not our finest hour.  Plus, I’m really annoyed because it seems like the party is not going to stop.  It’s just going to continue on into the evening…I’m going to go completely insane.

So, with twenty minutes to spare before my friends come over I decide to call them and cancel.  So I did.  And as I hung up the phone, the music stopped.  Fifteen minutes later they were carting away the speakers.  It was over.

My mind starts to ponder again, “Who just won?”  “Is it a coincidence that as soon as I cancelled the music stopped?”  Should I call my friends back and say we could go on with our meeting?  Then I thought about how stressed out I felt; how tired; how I was only now feeling my heart rate return to normal.  No.  No meeting tonight.  I’m defeated.

Later that evening, in our now tranquil living room, I sat playing some quiet songs of worship and thinking.  Nothing can separate us from this great love…neither height nor depth…angels nor demons…famine nor sword…and I realized that I should add over blown speakers or cancelled meetings.  In the end, I may have been disappointed, but there will be other days, other meetings.  If not with me, than with someone else.  My time may be limited, but He has all the time in the world.  And nothing can stop his love.  Then finally, a frazzled soul went to bed and found some rest.

PRAYERS ANSWERED

One of our teammates is in Kenya this week for a speaking engagement.  We’re happy that her travels went well and we’re hoping she’ll have a great week in Kenya.  Asiria, our landlady’s servant girl, has been a frequent visitor and seems comfortable with us.  We are happy that she seems rather well behaved.  A friend of ours asked us to pray for his sick mother.  We are encouraged that he would come to us for prayer.  We are happy to be hosting a visitor this week.

PRAYERS REQUESTED

Pray for Tom’s friends and that they would still be able to meet and continue to share their hearts with one another.  Pray for our teammates who are away –those at home for the next few months, and the one in Kenya this week.  Pray that God would continue to give us wisdom, patience, grace and faith as we live in this sometimes difficult place. Pray for encouragement.