It claims its fame from being an objective Constant. But its pliant, yielding nature, often fools me to believe it is more protean than stable.
Back home, it is a dictator with an iron fist, training us to be contortionists who can bend backwards to fit ourselves within its confines. Here in Africa, it is a motherly matron, endlessly understanding, with arms expanding wide to accommodate mishaps and delays.
How Time wears many faces, in different places.
Seven months have passed, and within less than 5 months, we would be back in Singapore.
What fruit would we have borne, what lives would we have changed?
Unlike back home where Time leaps forward and beckons one to propel oneself at breakneck speed, Time here loves to laugh, chortle and enjoy a talk over tea and samosas. Most missionaries know, that a year in the mission field, is but like a brief breath.
Time hides itself in packing, moving, resettling, and making new friends. It cloaks itself under cross-cultural adjustments and masquerades itself as a dawdling crawler. But take a wink, and you’ll see just how much has flown by.
Seven months have gone by- what have we done? What lives have we transformed?
Shortly after we arrived in Uganda, we received a thoughtful gift of an avocado seedling from one of the villagers studying at our small Bible School. Since then, it has been a source of prophetic encouragement, reminding us of lessons along our journey.
When we first received it, we were told, “Ah, within a year, you shall have a big tree with lots of avocados.”
A year, really meant four to five years. Just like how the avocado seedling took a couple of weeks before it entered a growth spurt, we, too, took a while to resettle before our various ministries took flight.
Half a year later, the seedling is still far from a tree. But it has almost doubled in height, its leaves reach proudly to the skies, beaming with potential. While one may be eager to taste its fruit, Time makes no haste. It only smiles upon it, laughing at the days to come.
While watering our seedling one day, we received a revelation: that though we may not see the full fruition of what we have sowed during our time here in Uganda, we can certainly rejoice at the growth we have seen in the lives we have touched.
The truth is- while it takes no time to run a 3-day conference, weekend carnival or feed the poor in a day, it takes weeks, months, and years to speak into hearts, restore dignity, and empower lives.
Today, while spending time with our group of village ladies at our weekly sewing and beading ministries, one of the ladies, Eve, asked me, “Wai, could you continue to give your weekly sharings this year? They have encouraged us so much.”
“Really?” I asked, wondering if she was merely being polite.
I had often wondered if those 15-minute snippets I shared each week on life skills, such as saving regularly, were of any use. I had been told by other missionaries that saving, simply is not a culture in Africa. It would take years to change people’s habits. Wasn’t I a little naïve to think I could make a difference?
Eve, a single mother of 3 young girls, turned to me and laughed, “Do you know, I gave saving a try, saving a coin a day in a metal tin. I paid my landlord on time last month! And I even had money to pay for my children’s stationary and books for school at the start of 2015. It is because I saved!”
Eve and I, with a book given to her through me, from a lovely missionary friend of ours here
It reminded me of what Cliff did each day for our avocado seedling, watering it faithfully and putting compost around it. Though it seemed like a meagre investment in time, the consistency of his efforts nourished our plant, causing it to grow.
“I also want to share,” said Peruth, another young lady in her early twenties. “Since I learnt about saving, I saved about 500 to 2000 shillings (20 to 80 cents) every day. I’ve now saved 150’000 shillings, and I’m going to town this week to buy more hair materials for my small salon.” Here in Africa, village and city women alike love to weave plaited hair wigs into their wiry, curly African hair. With her savings, Peruth could buy more of those for her humble streetside business.
“Me too,” said Takka.
Takka is a young, frail, thin woman, married at a young age of 15 years, so emaciated that she often falls ill. She never had the chance to enter High school. Married to a construction painter with an adopted son, she supplements her husband’s humble income by buying and selling a few articles of clothes in town, when she can garner the strength to.
One day, when we visited her dark and dank one-room home, my heart broke for her as I prayed for God to give her an opportunity to live a better life.
Takka beamed at me, “You know, since I started saving, I saved a little every day. Then one day I found out I saved 120’000 shillings ($50)! So I rented a small space to start a Chapatti shop. Now I’ve hired a boy to sell Chapattis for me, and I earn 10’000 shillings ($4) a day from him.”
That’s $120 USD a month, a life-changing sum in the African village context.
The women beamed with pride, having earned their own keep, and having fanned into flame their buried enterprise. Dignity now crowns their heads.
Sure enough, I have not seen nor tasted the fruit we so often talk about.Over spilled beads and laughter on a dirt floor, the village ladies would pour out their hearts to one another about their dreams of buying a better home, bigger than their tiny one-roomed homes. They would speak of owning their own craft shops, buying their own acres of land, being their own bosses, supervising other impoverished village ladies to give them an income.
I have not seen those new homes, lands filled with rich crops nor large craft shops making good money in the city. Time has not allowed me to- it beckons me to return home to Singapore to serve another year of my employment bond.
What Time has allowed, however, is for me to see the hearts of these ladies changed, to see the spark of enterprise within them grow, and to see them gain new skills, acquire new habits, break old traditions to start saving- for themselves and for their families. They are heroes in their own communities.
Susan and Jessica, sisters who have mastered the art of making beaded bags
An example of a kid’s dress made by our village ladies
So while Time cheekily winks at me, as it slinks away to work its magic, I remember our avocado seedling, and marvel.
We may not harvest nor taste its fruit here and now, but seeing it grow steadily, to greater and greater heights, has brought us joy and contentment.
I am learning, that even this growth, is worth celebrating.
For all the Time we have spent here in the Pearl of Africa, however much it may seem in our earthly, worldly lives, and however little it is in light of eternity, perhaps we can rejoice that it is, nonetheless, Time that was time well spent.
Walk in wisdom toward outsiders,
making the best use of the time.
– Colossians 4:5