22 February 2008

Post #28:  Friends

Dave has made fast friends with so many nice people through his work with MCAST and the Embassy.  We know this is going to be the thing that means the most to us when we leave here.  We'll treasure the friendships we've made, and hopefully, thanks to modern technology, (e.g internet) we'll manage to keep in touch with them for years to come! 

Sad news, we had to send Nemanea home on Tuesday and ask him not to come around for a couple days.  We caught him in a lie, and he encouraged David and Addison to lie as well.  They had returned from playing outside, and they brought in a bag of toys.  DeDe asked where the toys came from and Nemanea mumbled an unconvincing answer.  Something about the boys faces made DeDe suspicious, so when Dave got home from work, we went through a bit of an interrogation.  One by one, we questioned the kids.  David, then Addison, and then Nemanea, followed by another round with Addison.  Through the process, and information we got from them, it was clear that Addison was afraid for some reason, David was confused, and Nemanea was lying and encouraging the boys to lie as well. 

We told Nemanea that we cannot have our children lying to us, and that we were very disappointed.  We told him we love him very much, but he has to make better decisions and look out for these kids, not lead them astray.  If not, we cannot have him play with our boys.  We told him we needed him to stay away for a few days, and consider whether he can be a better friend before he comes back. 

He returned today, after not seeing him since this event on Tuesday.  He showed up in the after-school hours, bearing more gifts.  His visit didn't last long, but he did play a few games of chess, and then we had to send him home as it was time for dinner.  Hope we can be a good influence for him and not the opposite.  He's such a good-hearted kid, but he seems rather neglected and needs more direction.  We'll keep working on him while we can. 

Speaking of friends in Malta, we haven't shared with you the cool way we've gotten to know more people here.  Dave was watching soccer a month or so ago, and he started up a conversation with a soccer dad named Joe.  Eventually, they realized their common interest in jogging, so they arranged to run together in the mornings.   

Last week, they were jogging and Dave was sharing with Joe something about “blessings” and Joe asked if Dave was “spiritual.”  Dave said, “Well, sure.”  Joe said something about his daughter having found spirituality, and that she attends prayer meetings near our flat on Wednesday evenings.  He asked if we'd be interested in that sort of thing.  Dave said, “Sure.  My wife would especially love to go meet some Maltese Christians.”  So that night, Joe dropped his daughter, 22 year-old, Tara, off at our place, and we got to know her a little before heading off to “church.”  Meeting Tara was so refreshing, as she's just a beautiful young gal, with an amazing light shining through her. 

The place she took DeDe to is a little chapel called, “River of Love.”  She introduced DeDe to the pastor, a young Maltese man, who shouted, “Praise the Lord!” when he was told DeDe was from the US.  He's a lively young man, with a happy spirit.  DeDe enjoyed meeting many of the people there, and the worship and teaching was great.  In the middle of the service, the pastor, Gordon, shared that he  lived in Milwaukee for 12 years!  That he was in the ballet.  That he traveled all over the US.  And he said, “DeDe, you are not here on a holiday.  You are here on divine appointment.” 

Well, DeDe has spent many hours wondering to the Lord why they're here.  All along, she's wondered, even before they left the USA.  What are they doing hauling these kids to Malta??  There had to be a higher purpose, because the odds against them being here are just too huge.  She's prayed about it, and she finally, recently, asked God to show her where He was at work here.  He promptly answered that prayer, by leading them to a tiny church up the hill last Sunday.  We enjoyed meeting Joe and Jenny, the pastor and his wife.  They're from Detroit, and have wonderful hearts.  We felt like we'd come across family when we met them!   We find it so easy to encourage each other, it's not hard to imagine God “lined the stars” for us to meet these precious people.   

We aren't sure why we're here, yet, but we do have our hearts open to serve God.  We can only hope that we'd be an answer to prayer and a special blessing to someone while on this little island.   

We imagine we'll meet more people this weekend as well, as we are both registered to run the BMW Malta Half-Marathon!  The race starts Sunday, at 10 AM in the “Silent City” of Mdina.  We'll be leaving three boys with Joanna and Maura (US Embassy friends).  Tara is coming here to sit with Rachel, Nathan and Bobby.  Rachel really wants to see the end of the race, so weather-permitting, they'll walk down to the Sliema seafront and see us at the finish! 

Dave has done a better job of actually training for this than DeDe.  She's not sure how much her brief, but seriously intense, soccer matches with the kids will prepare her for 13.1 miles of pounding on pavement!  She's tried to stretch, do her lunges down the hallway, take the stairs hard, and make the most out of every opportunity to get her legs ready.  She's sure she'll be largely unable to walk on Monday, but it's a good thing she really doesn't have to go anywhere!  Cardio-vascularly, she's largely untrained, but most of these folks have been breathing diesel dust for years, so she's feeling she's got a jump on them in the lung capacity area.

This is one opportunity for DeDe and Dave to enjoy some uninterrupted conversation!  Something that is difficult to have when you have six children, this will be a real treat.  Sad, they have to sign up for long-distance runs to get any significant time to talk. 

We're hoping this will open other doors to meet more people.  There is a record number of entrants in the race this year.  The organizer told DeDe they have 35 Americans in the races (full and half), which is amazing, as they only had 8 last year!  There are around 1,000 participants, in the two races.  We'll likely have a complete blog on the race experience, so stay-tuned.

 Send us an email about this post!  dgibbs at uwsp dot edu  or  dedegibbs at gmail dot com