The Community, the Orphanage, and Us

A test run for being gone
Near the end of September/early October we travelled down to South Africa for a quick three weeks.  While there we were able to pick up some important things for the ministry and work here, reconnect with several church’s, friends and supporters and spend some much needed time with Jako’s mom.  Our time there was good but passed in a blink of an eye. 
On a practical note we were interested to see how the orphanage and community would do without us for these three weeks and thought it would be a good test run for them for when we were gone to the States.  I must say that we were quite happy with the way that the committee, community and house mothers stepped up to their responsibilities and we trust and pray that that will continue so that the community can begin to take more ownership in this “community” project and hold true to the promises and commitments that they have made.
Orphanage Garden and Water
One example of this is the garden.  Up until this point we have been buying most of the fresh produce for the orphanage such as cabbage, rape, onions, tomatoes, etc… We always had planned for a garden but the plans for us being gone for an extended period of time gave us and the community the push we needed to make it happen.  In early September we cleared land, put up a fence and planted a nursery.  The orphanage committee (who receive no compensation and all has families of their own) was instrumental in helping with all of this work and proved their commitment by the hours of effort they put in there.  My time seemed to be spent on trying to figure out a water solution since the orphanage well has gone dry.  Planting enough vegetables to  sustain all their produce needs while we are gone required quite a sizable garden and hence tons of water.  Approximately 1000 liters a day! 
That’s a lot to pump so at first I tried a drip irrigation system which proved to be too difficult to maintain with everybody wanting to move and mess with the pipes.  Then we erected a water tower by the well we have been allowing the community to use so that water would be pumped directly into the tank and then flow to the orphanage house (reference previous blog).  And now most recently God gave me the wisdom to figure out a way to hook up the submersible pump and still have the hand pump working for the community.  It took many days of hard labor, building towers, digging lines, taking apart the pump, servicing it, raising and lowering the pipes, cutting new pipes and threads, but now at it is worth it to have running water for both us and the orphanage just by turning on a generator.  However to keep the housemothers and children in touch with the village way of life the still pump their own water for bathing, eating, cleaning etc.  At least they don’t have to transport the water anymore and the pumping that they do do is easy compared to having to pump for all the garden.
Now the garden is looking great and it is time to plant another nursery again so that we can have fresh veggies all year round.  Isn’t it awesome to see the way that God works?
Community Difficulties
Unfortunately these past few months have seen us experiencing some community difficulty lately.  Please keep that in your prayers.  It is difficult and hard on the heart to give of your life to someone (or a group of people) only to feel taken advantage of.  When we came here we came under the premise that the community was going to be working alongside us and more so that we would be working alongside the community but lately that doesn’t seem to be the case.  The area that God has placed us in seems to be a dark place and Satan definitely has a stronghold here.  The headmen are actively involved in witchcraft (if not leading it), and the people steal, lie, drink, deceive, and basically just wait around expecting to be given out handouts.  Obviously this mindset is of the devil and shows even more why they need God but yet it is a difficult task to show love to them in a practical way that will not enable their behavior and wrong ways.  We feel that we would be doing them an injustice if we didn’t do our part to encourage responsibility, doing what you say you are going to do, and living right.  And the sad thing is that many of the locals around here say and confess to be Christians and yet, when you talk to them you see that most don’t even really know what that means.
So in there lies the dilemma, to be loving, caring and compassionate as Christ called us to be, while at the same time not enabling them in their destructive ways.  Just one of many examples of this was when one villager told us that we HAD to give to him because that Bible says that “you white people must give to us black people”.  When we asked him where we could find that in the Bible of course he didn’t have an answer.  Recently several incidents have happened, of builders running away with money, headmen spreading rumors, people promising to do one thing and never doing it, things being lent or borrowed and never being returned, that make us feel like we are getting slapped in the face.  That has been a bit hard on the heart – especially after all that we have tried to do for them which is why it is so important that we do this in God’s strength and not in our own.  For with man it is impossible but with God ALL THINGS are possible. 
  Please pray that God would keep our hearts from getting hard, that He would give us HIS heart and passion for the people here and wisdom in how to respond to tough situations.    Please know that there are good people in the area as well but right now it seems like they are too afraid to stand up for themselves and are being influenced for bad as well.  That is where the tribal religion has such a hold on them – those without Christ constantly live in fear of having curses put on them or being bewitched in some way so community pressure plays a big role.  Without Christ they have no strength or protection to stand up.  Pray that God’s light would break through the darkness here in our area.  I really believe that God is still wanting to do a work here so pray that those that need to stand up in the community will and those that need to silenced will.
Orphanage Happenings
We are also having our fair share of challenges at the orphanage house with mothers that not getting along and children running away but in all of this everyone is happy and thankful that God has given them a home. The children now finally seem to be settled in now and while there is still obvious testing of the boundaries (that is normal cross cultures) none of them have run away for a while. Now it is only dealing with the jealousy between the mothers and that might take longer then we would like because this it is so embedded in the Tonga culture (jealousy and not wanting anyone to have more than they do).  Please pray for this.  The children are really doing good at school and are trying very hard to have a good standing in the class. The local community school that they attend is not the best because most of lack of good teachers, good education of the teachers, and the teachers rarely showing up to school (because of trying to provide for their own family). Currently there are three teachers for over 300 children so you can think what a problem that could be.  Seeing the need we are praying to start a grand A school where we would have a lot more control of the teachers and quality of teaching so please pray for this.  We have experienced first that the role the education plays in poverty and how with out a good school education you can not make informed decisions.