Giff Johnson - Dont Ever Whisper

Why speak when you can sing? Why walk when you can dance? Why not make education fun for the people youre serving? These are the questions Darlene Keju asked as she launched her renowned Youth to Youth in Health Program in the Marshall Islands. But the questions didnt end there.

Why let the young watch from the sidelines when you can bring them along for the ride? So she did, fashioning a group of Marshallese educators from an age group who would have been cautioned to keep their eyes open and their mouths closed. After all, they didnt have the respect that age brings in their culture.

Why inhabit one world when you can be a citizen of two? To garner the support she needed for her program, Darlene had to undergo a personal transformation from a schoolgirl who sat in the back row hoping she wouldnt be shamed in class to an ambassador for her culture and her program on the international stage.

Why settle for being a spectator when you might be able to change the world? Or at least one small piece of it? This book is a story of a personal transformation of a young lady who once knew little English to an advocate for her people, the victims of the weapons of war. Then the further transformation to educational innovator, whose program had far-reaching effects throughout her island nation.

As she lived and worked, Darlene didnt just touch lives, she molded them, as the personal testimony in this book makes clear. She began to transform her own society as well. Somehow she persuaded island people to overcome strong cultural inhibitions so they could address the sexual matters that were doing damage to young lives.

Not only that, but she gave young people the wherewithal to disarm the censorious with song and laughter. As she did, she was also helping the young find the confidence, and the voice, to do all this in public. Sometimes this kind of magic can only be worked with an ukulele or guitar in hand.

This book is more than a biography. Its a love story, written by a man who idolized the woman he married. But its also the tale of a woman who loved her people, seeing them as so much more than victims of nuclear irradiation and colonial despoilment. For those of us who have cheered on island Micronesia through the years, its a welcome change to read a tribute to someone who is home grown. Although no saint or flag-waver, Darlene shared with Mother Theresa and Greg Mortenson (of Three Cups of Tea fame) the courage to dream daringly along with the commitment and patience to settle for one step one family, one atoll at a time.

Darlene left her work unfinished upon her early death. But then again, if she had lived to ninety it still would be unfinished. But her legacy was a can do spirit and an insistence from the very beginning that its up to her people to take the work a few steps further. You cant just sit in the back row and watch whats happening. Get up and dance, she kept urging. You can help remake the world. Que sera sera is not ebwe (enough) passive acceptance just wont cut it.

Francis X. Hezel, SJ