Dedications, again.

I have written about dedications of fuel pumps, phonetowers, houses and films. I have written about my struggles with ownership in a communal setting. These two themes came together for me when my tables and chairs arrived in the village, and helped me to better understand both the constant dedications and some of the local mindset of ownership.

During a recent village trip, I had ordered tables and chairs through another mission and was waiting for them to arrive. My translation team was pleased to be moving up in the world, and asked a few times when ‘our’ tables would arrive. I was thinking in terms of ‘mine’ and they were thinking in terms of ‘ours’. This did not bother me as much as other incidents, as the tables were for the translation work, so could easily be understood as ‘ours’.

 Testing the new table and chairs that had just arrived.

The tables were delivered and installed, along with a real mattress. (Oh, the luxury of a good night’s sleep in the village!) I was not around when the tables were first used, but when I got back, I was told that they had held a small dedication ceremony for the tables and chairs. They had prayed for them before they used them. I was a little surprised by this, which after all the dedications I’ve been to, I really shouldn’t have been.

On reflection, I realised that dedicating the tables and chairs to the translation work sets them apart from ordinary use, and hopefully protects them from going walkabout to other worthy causes. It is now known that these are the chairs set aside for the translation work, they are not for everyday things. We’ll see how that theory holds up in practice…

 Flopped on my new mattress and in danger
of falling asleep, it is so good!