His mind is in his eyes
-Local oral tradition
I recently learned the above proverb from a local friend. “You know what our people are like,” he said, “His mind in his eyes and all that.”
The sense of the proverb was mostly clear to me, since we were speaking of a situation where appearances were prioritized over substance, but it was the first time I’d heard what is evidently a very common proverb of corporate self-critique among our people.
This prioritizing of aesthetics can have upsides. Our locals make great barbers, florists, photographers, and designers. Their homes and their wardrobes tend to be neat and spotlessly clean, even among those who are not particularly well-off. But there are downsides for sure, from the merely vain, such as incessant posing for and posting photos of themselves in any kind of situation that casts them in a good light – to the long-term disastrous, such as the measure of a good woman being how she, her home, and her husband look and not whether she is raising her children well. Likewise, in school, children are told over and over again to “sit beautifully” instead of being taught to enjoy learning and to think critically.
It confronts those in ministry as well, since the pressure from day one is to have church gatherings that look impressive on social media. This often puts locals in danger of taking shortcuts with foreign money to achieve the optics that they feel look beautiful and respectable instead of taking the longer and less impressive road to true spiritual growth. It’s not uncommon to have a local believer shoot an idea down simply because “it’s not beautiful,” as if no other reason were needed. It’s not hard to imagine then how this sort of posture interacts with something good but difficult like a church discipline process.
What a grace, then, that there is a local proverb that is self-aware enough to call out this deep weakness in the culture – and one that can link so easily to biblical truths that remind us that beauty is deceptive and vain, but the fear of the Lord leads to true honor (Prov 31:30).
This summer, we are looking to raise 20k, half for our family’s support needs and half for the cost of writing, translating, and printing solid resources for local believers. Would you consider supporting our work and the Church in Central Asia in this way? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Pastors are needed for international churches in our region and our kids’ TCK school is also in need of teachers for the 2026-2027 school year. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
Blogs are not set up well for finding older posts, so I’ve added an alphabetized index of all the story and essay posts I’ve written so far. You can peruse that here
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
Photo from Unsplash
