Holiday Messages

Tom sending his over 150 texts

It’s become something of a tradition for me.  A few years ago I noticed that on the big holidays I would receive text messages and phone calls from island friends and even distant acquaintances.  It seemed a bit weird at the time, but then I came to realize that this was classic island networking.  On the islands, as in most of Africa, keeping up connections with a large circle of people is seen as good, necessary, and important.  I won’t go into all the reasons for this, but suffice it to say that staying connected is a highly valued skill in this culture.  Now I’m not terribly good at keeping connected.  It doesn’t come naturally to us.  But I realized, this text messaging thing at holidays—I can do that.  It doesn’t cost me much.  All I have to do is write up a short message, send it out to everyone on my contact list and voila! I’ve strengthened my connections.

So I did it for one of the holidays.  Then I got the idea: I can do this for every major holiday!  I can remind them of holidays that I celebrate of which they are ignorant.  I can even use a text message to spread love and truth in a short and simple way.

Now, you’re probably already saying, “Well, isn’t that nice.  Kind of like an email forward holiday greeting over the phone.”  But let me give you some examples of how I know that it means a lot to people here.

- As soon as I send out the message I already get at least twenty text responses in return filled with thanks and blessing (the ones from my English students are always especially enjoyable, “Think you Techer! You miss me so much.  God you give blessings and your family!”)
- Those who have the money or really desire the relationship, call me back.  They want to wish me a happy holiday over the phone voice to voice.  I will usually get phone calls for the next three or four days.
- In the following days, as I run into friends and acquaintances they thank me profusely for the message and ask my apologies for not sending a message in return.
- In the following days people I haven’t seen in weeks or sometimes months stop by the house to thank me for the message.
All this from a little forwarded message that says nothing more than a few words.  These few words, however, can also lead to some good conversations…
As many of you know, we recently celebrated a big holiday.  So, as is my custom, I sent out a message.  In the message I tried to remind people in just a few words  what the holiday was all about.  This led to three deeper conversations (so far). 

Birthday Time!

 The first was with my landlord.  His wife came up and said, “I got your message.  Who died?”  (When I explained to her who had died, she acted like she didn’t understand, like she had never heard of him, but I know she understood perfectly well.)  But then I got into a conversation with her husband.  He wanted to tell me how things “really happened” but instead I got to share with him in a meaningful and powerful way the deeper reasons for the holiday.

Later that week, taking out the garbage I ran into a neighbor who got the message.  He ended up sharing with me a sad episode in his life about his first wife who was of a different faith and taught him about the different holidays, but who left him many years ago.  I had never heard this story, and the conversation didn’t have a chance to go anywhere else, but for certain we just went a little deeper.

The last conversation was with a man I hadn’t seen in months.  A mere acquaintance from English teaching.  He came by the house, and over lunch (he happened to arrive at lunch time) we were able to discuss some truths about life that I don’t think could have happened if not for that message.

So a text message…it’s a little thing…but then again we have a Father who loves to use little things.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Thank you for praying about our big English teaching picnic.  The different administrators have come to a compromise which everyone is okay with and no one seems offended.  We are very thankful and hopeful that they will continue to work together, especially after we leave, and that a picnic would not be a source of strife.  Thanks also for praying for those with sickness.  Our little teammate is doing much better and the teammate with tummy troubles seems to be getting over it now too. Our eldest son turned 6 years old this week— we celebrated with a new hike up a river. It was a lot of fun and we are very thankful for all the ways our son is growing and learning.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
One of our teammate’s moms just went for heart surgery yesterday.  Pray for her safe recovery and for our teammates as they struggle with being so far away during a difficult season like this.
Our time is drawing to an end, and in classic island fashion, people are realizing this at the last minute and organizing all sorts of picnics and celebrations.  This makes are last days fun but stressful.  Pray especially for this weekend as it seems like we’ll be going non-stop!  Pray for our final days, that we can end well with unity, love and purpose!  Presidential elections (for the islands) are next week.  Pray for a good leader to be chosen and for the end of campaigning and elections to be calm and without incident.