Christmas all around the world

We were sent this video from one of our partner churches in Asia, showing a children's artistic presentation of the Christmas story. Even though the language isn't one I know, the story they are telling is very well known and clear. They do a good job. Merry Christmas to all!

My "salad bowl" neighborhood

I am pleased that we now live in a part of the US that is multi-… : multi-racial, multi-national, multi-colored, multi-cultural, etc. Our house is on a small circle of 15 homes. Our neighbors are of Polish, African-American, and Mexican origin as well as traditional white. In the neighborhood across the street are a couple of Pakistani families. There are probably many other nationality origins that I haven’t yet met.

It has been fun to meet up with these “salad bowl” Americans as we have moved around over the past two years: the dealer we bought our car from was Iranian, the workers in our aunt’s nursing home were Haitian, the mattress salesman was Pakistani, the donut shop was run by a Chinese family, the restaurant hostess in the hotel was Thai, our movers were Bosnian, and so it goes. Unfortunately, these people, although Americans and very numerous, are invisible in the “public face” of America. Few of their representatives are television news reporters or seen in tv ads or shows, and almost none of them are among the politicians who publicly “speak for Americans”. How inappropriate.

In the weekly packet of ads that arrive in the mailbox is one for a Hispanic supermarket a couple of miles away. This week they had some special prices on things I usually buy, so I stopped by there yesterday. It was one of those delicious cross-cultural experiences that reminded me of so many similar excursions in other countries --- a few intrigued glances (what is she doing here?), some special attention “to make sure I could find what I was looking for”, my disorientation at shelves filled with so many unfamiliar products, and some wonderful surprises. Who would have thought I’d find the best freshly-baked French bread outside of France in a Hispanic supermarket in the Western suburbs of Chicago!?! There is now a new store on my shopping circuit.

My shopping trip is a kind of parable for cross-cultural contact. I had to take the initiative. It involved a certain degree of initial discomfort that I must be prepared to accept. But, it ends up being great fun and most rewarding, in both the short and long terms.

Full circle

There has been a huge pause in postings because we are in the middle of moving into the first home in the US that is actually ours. The mover deposited our boxes in the house a week and a half ago. Since we have so very little furniture, actually getting the boxes emptied and the contents stored away is going to take a while as we gradually accumulate the appropriate stocking places.

Just a couple of days before moving, Bill and I celebrated our 43rd wedding anniversary. We met at Wheaton College in the fall of 1964. Now, we have bought a home 5 miles from where we first met -- one of the last places we ever expected to live! In the meantime, we have literally traveled all the way around the world. So we really have come "full circle".

It has been quite a ride! And the past year has been the most surprising and stimulating part of it. There is a certain exhilarating feeling in living out of a suitcase, unattached to a lot of "things", and always ready to hop on another airplane. But, it is again time to settle down and get integrated into a community and a church family. Now we learn whether or not we are as adept at "settling" as we were at moving around. The Bible shows us frequently that migrants are more likely to depend on God and answer His call than sedentary folks are. We just don't want our settling-in to take the edge off of that alertness to service.

But, we again have a place that we can call "home".

Anglo-Other cooperation

We attended an ethnic church in South Philadelphia yesterday. This is an interesting situation where a historic stone church with stained glass windows is still surviving amid the continual melting-pot stirring of an ever-changing mixed-race neighborhood. A remnant of an Anglo congregation still meets here, but they have had the graciousness (or courage) to open their building to multiple ethnic congregations representing the surrounding community. Presently, a Hispanic congregation, a Cambodian congregation, and a Laotian/Nepali congregation all share their facility.

Our contact is with the Laotian/Nepali congregation. The Laotian man serving as pastor has taken courses at our denominational seminary here in the Philadelphia area. When Bill first visited them in January, the group was mainly Laotian, with a few Nepalese. Since then, word has spread in the Nepali community, and they are now overwhelmingly the majority group. This mixture resulted in a very interesting trilingual service, with everything being translated into English, Laotian, and Nepali and songs in all three languages. The children sang a special song for Father’s Day – in Nepali and English. We were told that the children all learned English in refugee camps before arriving. A young person from the host church organized a children’s church (in English) for the kids. Those attending the service were really pleased to see the short video we presented of Bill’s time in Nepal in March.

As I was sitting toward the back of the group during the Sunday School and church services watching this ballet, I was asking myself: what kind of relationship can our American churches have with these rapidly multiplying ethnic churches in our towns and neighborhoods? How can we all work together to demonstrate the Oneness of the Body of Christ?

The answers need to be more than spiritual theory or lovey-dovey feelings. These are some ideas for concrete cooperation that came into my head:

1- Offer them a place to meet. It is unrealistic to think that first-generation immigrants and refugees can always just automatically integrate our services. We do things SO differently than what they are used to! And they do need to be able to express their faith and their concerns in their heart language. Besides, when you are half-a-world away from your culture, it is important to be able to meet with those who know and understand who you are and not have to always be on your guard about doing things the way the host culture expects. There is really no way they could ever acquire property for a separate church meeting place. So, being given access to a recognizable church building is important for them.

2- Establish a genuine pastor-to-pastor/leader relationship. I think this is important whether or not the ethnic group has a formally-trained pastor. Whoever is leading it is going to have to handle pastoral needs and concerns, and contact with the pastor of the host church as well as with other pastors in the area provides an essential network for support and accountability. For instance, the pastor of the host church came in at the end of the service yesterday to participate in special prayer offered for the military son of the Laotian pastor who is leaving this week for Iraq. I think working on this point is the key to carrying out numbers 3 and 4, below.

3- Ask them what they need. Perhaps it is English classes for adults, or tutoring for school children, or clothing and household goods for newly-arrived families, or information on local healthcare and social services. Immigrants often don’t know “how things work here”, so they need someone to whom they can talk safely and ask questions which they might be afraid “sound dumb”. We can help in many ways to let them feel more comfortable among us.

4- Find out if their pastors/leaders, children’s workers, and other volunteers would like training. There are so many resources available here that they do not have in their home countries. Most of this training could easily be provided by local pastors and people in our churches. It doesn’t have to be terribly formal. It can be just one-on-one.

5- Accept their invitations and their gifts. They have much to offer, and they are very pleased when we accept it with gratitude. In this way, you can participate in some really fun festivities and eat some really good food! It is also a very down-to-earth way of showing respect, acknowledgement, and acceptance for other brothers and sisters in Christ.

Will you friend me?

One thing we have learned in moving around the world is that being a Christian can provide you with an automatic list of people who welcome you and quickly become your friends. No matter how strange the situation or the culture, we have had the privilege of being cared for and helped by other believers. When you feel like you have “lost control” because you have no idea how to evaluate what is happening around you in a new and strange place, it is reassuring to be in the company of national believers that you trust, who know the “code”, and can guide you around.

Is that always true? Recent conversations have led me to realize that is not always the case. When I was helping in the language school in Cambodia, one of the students was a Korean woman who was trying to learn English. She was moving to California in a few weeks and was very nervous about living there. I was flabbergasted to learn that she had previously lived in the US for 6 years and had not learned English during that time. When I tried to find out how that had happened, she replied: “I tried to talk to Americans, but they didn’t want to talk to me, so I just stayed with my Korean friends.” She was not a pushy person, very timid, and was easily discouraged when rebuffed.

The other conversation was with a young European who has lived in the US for several years. He speaks English fluently so I was surprised when he looked straight at me and asked, “How do you make friends in America? “ When I suggested he look up American students who had some overseas study experience, he replied, “It is well known that American students are more interested in texting their friends back home than in talking with the people around them.” Since living here, he has tried various ways to make friends but has been frustrated by the lack of interest of Americans his age in actually connecting with someone “different”, albeit in rather minor ways. He also feels rebuffed.

Sadly, both of these people are Christians who have not found companionship in Christian communities in the US. In one case there was a language barrier, in the other case a cultural perception difference. It is not EASY to reach out to those from other lands who are among us, but it is important. The leading pastors of the churches we worked with in both Cambodia and Nepal became Christians because a family member had found the Lord while living in the US. Someone here did go to the trouble of reaching out to a foreigner and the results are being multiplied hundreds of times over.

We recently read that 80% of the foreign students who come to the US for schooling return to their country without ever having seen the inside of an American home!! This is a chasm that Christians – every local church -- could be rushing into with world-changing results. I realize that it isn’t EASY to voluntarily move out of our comfort zone and invite those who are not like us, but it is vital.

So you don’t know what you would talk about with someone from a different background? Just ask them to tell you about themselves, their families, their homeland, their studies, their travels, their questions about American life, their goals… All you really have to do is be welcoming and listen. If you would like some ideas, zip us an email and Bill and I would be glad to give suggestions. For us, it would be a very small payback for all the care that other Christians around the world have generously bestowed on us.

Who is living in your town right now and needs to have you friend them?

Alive!

One of the advantages of our present situation is that we get to visit lots of different churches, and we can actually sit together to worship because Bill doesn’t have to preach all the time. That is something special for a pastoral couple.

This weekend brought a meaningful worship experience for me. I deeply appreciate the sensible, step-by-step approach to seeing ourselves in God’s light afforded by a thoughtful liturgy. Yesterday, when the liturgy brought us to the confession of sins, the pastor gave a time for silent confession before the General Confession. I sharply felt the acuteness of having a sin nature and the impossibility of escaping those sins that cling to my basic personality. I envisioned this like being encased in a hard plastic bubble where you can see what it would be like to be on the outside, but you can never get there. I prayed that God would continue to shrink and soften the hardness of it.

Then the sermon was on the meaning of Christ’s resurrection as explained in the first 14 verses of Romans 8. I have lots of “favorite” Bible passages, but if I were forced to choose one that stands out from all the others, it would probably be Romans chapter 8. My heart throbs with the awesomeness of salvation every time I read it.

This time the emphasis was on the fact that when Jesus died, he was really, totally dead and could do nothing for himself. But, verse 11 says that the Spirit raised him from the dead and THAT SAME SPIRIT is given to those who trust him. The Spirit who guarantees our salvation “gives life to our mortal bodies”. Wow! That was quite a reminder that even the hard plastic bubble was pierced (shattered?) from the outside when God took the initiative and put his Spirit in me, and that the Spirit of Christ is working in me, even as I struggle with what remains of the bubble. That gives both life and hope.

How lovely that the liturgy then leads us to raise our voices all together in the words of Scripture as we glorify the author of our salvation and our sure hope. Praised be the Lord!

Transitions in olive oil

Today I emptied the last few drops of olive oil out of the bottle that had come back with us in our shipment from France. As I did, it became a symbol of so many things that have “run out” and been replaced by new forms since our arrival back in the States 20 months ago. In those first months, the period of mourning for all we had left that was near and dear, I treasured every bit of French life I had brought back with me. During that time I desperately needed to lean on that normality. But, the void of what was left behind has little by little started being replaced by other new experiences, ones that would not have been possible if we had never moved. In that way, Germany and Eastern Europe, West Africa and Southeast Asia have not only been useful extensions of our ministry, but they have given the time and space needed to heal our souls and give us a new direction.

Whether it is a deep cut in the skin or a deep hurt in the heart, healing is a process that needs time. Just as the hurt came from being torn away from so many close Christian friends and colleagues, the healing has been provided by dozens of gracious, competent, and dedicated new Christian friends that we have had the privilege of meeting and working with on 3 continents. After all these months, I can now see that our heart bonds have not been reduced because we left France but have actually expanded and increased.

So, just as a mother’s capacity to love is expanded by each child she brings into her family, so our capacity to “feel at home” has stretched to include many new places around the world. Of course, France will always hold an exceptionally special place in our hearts because it was, after all, the French who made this all possible through their acceptance and love.

During this process it was also great fun to discover how closely linked the worldwide Christian family really is. In every place we ministered we met people who already knew some of our friends in either France or the US! I like the French expression which calls such experiences a “clin d’œil de Dieu” (a wink from God). He really does demonstrate his love in very personal down-to-earth ways.

So, today I opened a new bottle of olive oil. The label says that this one was bottled in the US using oil imported from Tunisia, Spain, Turkey, Italy, and Argentina. An appropriately eclectic mixture, it seems. Hmm, I’ve already visited Spain and Italy. Maybe someday I can get to each of those other countries, too!