Tag: Culture

Thief! Hold Him! Hit Him!

There was a lot of crime in the Melanesian country where I grew up. Much of this was the result of the breakdown of old tribal structures and community as locals moved to the cities and towns to find work, only to find themselves caught up in money problems and addictions. It’s a story that has played out all over the world as previously isolated tribal societies crash, head-on, into modernity.

This is not to say that their previous tribal isolation was better. On the contrary, there are few societies so dark and so stripped of common grace as a pre-Christian, animistic jungle tribe. The whole noble savage thing is a convenient fiction created by Westerners who apparently needed this fantasy to make sense of their own society’s continued brokenness. It is, to use a newer term, a luxury belief, one you can only afford if you yourself are not living in that kind of situation or truly friends with those who are.

The prevalence of robbery and armed assault, especially in the cities and towns, meant that foreigners and missionaries needed to be alert and intentional whenever heading to the market, the grocery store, or even just going for a walk. Men needed to be careful with their wallets and backpacks due to pickpockets (and presumably now phones as well). They needed to walk several paces behind any women with them in order to keep an eye out for any potential trouble.

Women or girls needed to dress modestly, usually in skirts and loose clothing, and to use purses or bags that they could strap across their torsos. The local woven bags with long straps that both men and women use in that culture were perfect for this. Wearing these bags of spun plant fibers, fur, or colorful yarn also signaled to locals a respect and appreciation for their culture that won friends when out in public and distinguished you from the cash-laden tourists.

In this kind of high-crime context, my mom was a stellar example of how knowing the local language and culture, and going everywhere with local friends, could lead to a surprising degree of freedom and favor. My mom is a short, petite woman, and for most of our years living in Melanesia, she was a young widow, an easy target. But she tended to experience far fewer security incidents than other foreign women because of the posture she struck with the locals. No matter the country, locals are able to pick up on which foreigners extend a humble, genuine friendship of equality. And not only does this mean you make lifelong (and sometimes eternal) friends. It also makes you far safer. Many of the MK girls in my school also did an admirable job of navigating these dynamics well, despite the many challenges.

But even the most careful or skillful sometimes get careless – or become a target even though they did everything ‘right.’ In case we were ever attacked, locals and adult missionaries taught us that we had options. In particular, other locals who were present would leap to our defense if you called out in the trade language, “Thief! Hold him! Hit him!!!” This is because even though crime was so prevalent, it was still despised in the local honor-shame culture. So, calling out this kind of phrase while an attack was happening could mean the sudden appearance of a crowd of local vigilantes eager to help you – and to teach the thief a good lesson with their fists.

I’d heard the stories. But I’d never seen it happen, nor been forced to use this defense mechanism myself. One part of me hoped I’d never have to. Another part of me was curious. Would a mob of friendly locals really materialize out of nowhere and rally to my defense if I remembered to yell the magic words?

One afternoon in my 11th or 12th grade year, my mom, I, and one of the girls in my class went into town together to do some errands. This girl was a close friend with whom I was in an on-again, off-again relationship. I believe when this incident took place, we were in another season of deciding to just stay good friends. I’m pretty sure there were some feelings still there, at least on my part. High school is a confusing time for the heart. But we were committed to navigating the confusion in such a way that we could preserve our friendship as fellow believers, for which I remain very thankful.

Regardless, there was enough trust there for her family to feel comfortable with her going into town with us, even though not having an adult man present was technically against mission policy. My family, for understandable reasons, was often granted an exception to this rule.

We had finished up our errands when we decided, on a whim, to stop into a little shop on Main Street to get some deep-fried snacks for the ride home. I loved (and still miss) the deep-fried flour balls made in that country called skon. Cheap, hot, and sprinkled with salt, I was always down to munch on a bag of skons on the way back from a town or river trip.

My mom chose to remain with the car out front (another one of those security practices that was commonplace) while I went into the snack shop with my friend. Because it was such a short stop, she left her shoulder bag in the car and just grabbed her little money pouch. It was small inside the shop, with a little greasy lobby area for customers and a huge glass display case full of fried snacks illuminated with a yellow-red light. I went up to the little window and put in an order while my friend waited by the wall a couple of meters behind me. The heavy aroma of fried goodness and grease wafted all around us.

I’m not sure what exactly caused me to turn around. But when I did, I saw something strange. My friend’s face had gone sheet white, her eyes wide and her mouth open in silent shock. She was locked in a quiet but panicked struggle with a short, muscled local man. I could only see him from behind. One hand, I could see, was desperately trying to rip my friend’s money pouch out of her hand. I couldn’t see his other hand.

You always wonder what you’ll do when faced with a situation that requires a split-second decision to act. I’m convinced you can never truly know until you’re in it. But it sure helps, for boys and men in particular, to have repeatedly made the decision ahead of time that, if at all possible, we will act. Stories of courage from the Bible, good books, and stories from my dad’s life helped me make these many small preparatory decisions. Even Bilbo Baggins played a role in growing my resolve to be courageous. But when the moment finally came, all I can say is that, by the grace of God, I acted.

I charged across the room and threw my arm around the assailant’s neck in a headlock to pull him off my friend. With a burst of strength that really surprised me, I jerked him out the door while yelling something at him in English. He was a much bigger guy than I was in terms of muscle mass, but in that moment, it seemed like he weighed nothing at all. In the couple of seconds it took for us to stumble out of the shop, he spun around and swung a small blade at my stomach. It passed a few inches from me, and I remember immediately registering the flash of metal and letting him go.

The assailant then started running down the sidewalk as I stood, blinking. Suddenly, I remembered the phrase I was supposed to yell.

“THIEF! HOLD HIM! HIT HIM!!!” I yelped, hoping someone would respond.

Would it actually work? As he rounded the corner, I saw a few bystanders start to take off after him. Then I went back into the shop to check on my friend.

She was, of course, very shaken up and barely able to respond to my questions. But it seemed she was okay. The man had pressed the blade against her stomach, but not cut her. She had locked up in panic, meaning that even though she wanted to, she could neither scream nor let go of her money pouch. I saw that coins were scattered all over the floor. Being myself in a pretty confused state of mind, I started shakily picking up the coins off the floor and asking the staff behind the counter if we could still get our order.

We waited for a minute or two, minds flooded with adrenaline and hands shaking, when a police vehicle screeched to a stop in front of the shop.

“We were parked around the corner,” the smiling officer said, “when we saw this man being chased by a big crowd right toward us. We got to him before the crowd could – lucky man. He’s in the back now. They said he attacked you. Is that true?”

I nodded yes.

“Follow us to the station, then.”

In a blur, the three of us drove down the street to the police station. Inside, we were ushered into a dirty and faded blue room with holes in the walls where the assailant was sitting in a chair, hands handcuffed behind his back.

The police officer was clearly enjoying the whole situation and continued smiling in a disconcerting way. Many of the police in that country are corrupt and heavy-handed in their tactics, demanding bribes on the highways and burning down whole villages in response to tribal warfare. The handful that we knew who were believers were markedly different. But this big man seemed to be of the more common, unregenerate variety.

“Is this the man who attacked you?” he asked, lifting up the attacker’s face.

“Yes,” I responded, “That’s him.”

Immediately, the officer swung hard and punched the man in the face. The man whimpered.

Trying to process what was going on, I continued to answer questions and to describe what happened.

“Did he have a weapon?”

“Yes, a small knife.”

“Where’s the knife!!!” he roared at the man, dealing another savage blow to the face. The man didn’t respond.

“Hahaha! You don’t see policing like this in America, do you?” the officer asked us, grinning like a villain.

He leaned over the man. “Where are you from?” he asked him softly.

“Okapa…” the man groaned.

“OKAPA!!!” the officer roared, kneeing the sitting man in the face. More cries of pain.

By now, there was a puddle of blood pooling on the floor from the man’s nose. The drips were spattering on my shoes. One look at my mom and my friend told me that this experience might be far more traumatizing than the actual assault itself.

“So, do you want to press charges?” the officer turned and asked us.

“No!” My mom and I said together. “No… no one was hurt. And he’s already gotten enough punishment.”

“Too bad – lucky man,” the officer said, shaking his head and sneering at the man in the chair.

We got out of there as fast as we could and drove back to the mission base in a daze.

I felt terrible for what had happened, thinking my friend’s parents would never allow her to go to town with us again. However, they were extremely kind and encouraging, telling me they were proud of me and they’d be happy for their daughter to go into town with me any time. As a young man, that was one of the kindest things they could have said.

Over the next year or so, my friends and I did continue going into town, though we never went back into that particular snack shop. Thankfully, there were no more big incidents like this one.

Over time, we continued to shudder at the attempted robbery and the whole police station scene. But there was one scene of the whole event that we were later able to laugh about.

And that scene was of a skinny white boy standing in the street and squawking, “Stilman! Holim em! Paitim em!!!” (Thief! Hold him! Hit him!) and the hapless robber being pursued around the corner by an angry mob.

It really did work, after all.

There are countries out there, sadly, where strangers will not come to one another’s aid when someone attacks. But that country in Melanesia is not one of them. No, if anything, you may want to be careful rallying the mob to your defense, unless absolutely necessary. The whole time, the police, even with everything they did, were acting like they had saved the man from an even worse fate.

Yikes.

We’ve got 17k of our 20k goal still to raise this summer. 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

Two Very Different Dialects of Respect

I continue to be struck by the many ways that Western culture and Central Asian culture differ in showing respect. One way to summarize these differences would be that Central Asian culture primarily respects a person by elevating them, while Western culture primarily respects a person by equalizing them.

When a Central Asian meets another Central Asian, both are trying hard to show that they feel the other person is higher than they are. They show this through the many respectful phrases and titles they drop, as well as their body language. Both are careful to formally and expressively show that they are lower, and the other is higher. This goes on for quite some time until one finally relents and, with much protest, receives the preferential treatment.

When two Americans meet, both are trying to show that they feel that the other person is their equal. They do this by doing away with titles and by acting in a relaxed, casual, relational manner. Their body language is not rigid and formal, but loose and friendly. Both are careful to demonstrate that “you know that I know that you don’t think you’re better than me,” and vice versa. This might take place with very few words spoken at all, or with something as casual as a silent chin nod.

When a Central Asian and a Westerner interact, the Westerner might come away feeling that the Central Asian was way over-the-top and uncomfortably verbose in their praise. Are they for real? Do they have an agenda? The Central Asian might come away feeling that the Westerner was strangely cold or even rude. Have I offended them? Do they think they’re that much better than me?

These differences have a lot to do with our different histories and cultural makeup. The West, especially North America, is deeply shaped by a historical reaction against the hierarchies and class system of the old world. Some of the deepest values of Western culture are tied to the dignity of the lone individual, regardless of their background or current social status. Central Asia is still very much an ancient patron-client system, where, in the absence of sound impersonal institutions, one must acquire honor and status by securing the patronage of those above you and the client services of those below you. In this kind of system, honor, respect, and reputation are central to everything – even survival.

These differences in showing respect get highlighted for us in funny ways as we navigate (sometimes daily) between Central Asian and Western cultures in Caravan City. The international church, with its global-Western hybrid culture, tells first-time guests that they don’t want to embarrass them, so they can just quickly raise their hand to receive a visitor card. They want to honor them but also to treat them as equals, and equals aren’t eager to be singled out for recognition. The Central Asian church they planted, however, asks first-time guests to stand up and introduce themselves, knowing that the chance to be visibly elevated like this in a meeting is a great honor, and one that guests will feel deeply. Both churches then clap to welcome the newcomers, and both have acted honorably according to their respective cultures.

When it comes to introducing someone speaking up front at a seminar, a Westerner will want to humanize them, to tell the audience about their personality and their hobbies, maybe a funny story. And the Western speaker will often want to connect with their audience by showing a picture of their kids or grandkids. But if a Central Asian is introducing a speaker, they’ll want to focus on their qualifications and achievements, the things that have elevated them enough to be an expert worth listening to. The Central Asian speaker will begin their talk, not by trying to humanize themselves, but by offering detailed thanks to all of the other respected figures present or not who have made it possible for them to come and speak.

Of course, Westerners do quietly enjoy being elevated. And Central Asians quietly enjoy being equalized. But neither culture can quite bring itself to lead with these things. No, they are supposed to happen indirectly, as a sort of open secret. Westerners know that the double PhD is there and is very significant, but it might embarrass the speaker if we focus on that too directly, just like it would embarrass the Central Asian speaker if we focus too much on his hobbies, spouse, or grandkids.

Having made many mistakes hopping from one culture to the other, I can say that understanding these primary dialects of respect can go a long way toward navigating such different cultures well – or at least toward navigating them functionally. You really can communicate genuine care for a Central Asian by being thoughtfully respectful and by constantly trying to elevate them. But when you’re with that Westerner, all that usually feels a bit much. Instead, be relaxed, treat them as a friend and peer, and keep the compliments select and low-key.

It is a curious thing that such different-seeming behaviors can grow from the same root virtue of honor or respect. Yet they do. And both can be a way to put on true Christian love, because both can be found in the gospel itself.

The gospel both equalizes and elevates us. In its pure and powerful light, we are all seen to be equally made in the image of God, and each also equally sinful. Those now in Christ are all equally little prophets, priests, and kings, and heirs of the resurrection. Yet each one of us is also elevated through the gospel, raised from one degree of glory to another, with differing honor and rewards bestowed in this age as well as in the age to come. Our particular tribe of Christianity will tend to focus more on one of these truths than the other, usually depending on what culture we’re in. But they’re both there in the Scriptures. “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom 12:10) goes hand in hand with “All are one in Christ” (Gal 3:28).

What happens when believers from both kinds of cultures mix in the same church? Well, every church must develop one primary corporate culture in order to function. There is no way around this. There’s nothing wrong if the culture your church has naturally landed on is more Western or more Central Asian, especially if this is a good reflection of your members and your community. But there’s lots of room in relationships and personal interactions to care for people by attempting to speak their dialect of respect, as it were. If you’ve got a pastor or visitor from a culture that elevates, use titles and use body language that shows you’re putting them ahead of yourself. If you’ve got a pastor or visitor from a culture that equalizes, stick to first names, and treat them like you’re old friends.

Finally, saturate it all in love and grace. There’s no world in which you learn to perfectly operate in a different culture’s dialect of respect. And others will fumble yours as well. But humble, loving, and gracious believers don’t get bent out of shape about this kind of thing. In fact, when they look carefully, they can even see that these very different words and actions stem from the very same posture of the new heart.

We’ve got 19k of our 20k goal still to raise this summer. 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

Ees Not for You!

Sometime in the middle of our first term, my wife and I went on a much-needed lunch date. Our neighborhood was built on a long hill, at the tallest end of which was a nice hotel. We decided that it would be nice to check out the hotel restaurant and see if it would be the kind of place both close enough and pleasant enough to become a regular date spot.

Like many of the nice hotels in Poet City, the restaurant was on one of the highest floors so that guests and patrons could enjoy the views of the surrounding mountains. We took the elevator up and entered the bright dining space. As we sat down, things were looking hopeful for a refreshing lunch date together.

At the time, we had a couple of energetic toddlers and we were in the thick of full-time language learning. Both my wife and I were laboring hard to build evangelistic relationships with locals and to also invest in the few scattered local believers that were around. I was working as an English teacher and taking seminary classes online. Our team was often engaged in conflict related to personality clashes as well as the sort of arguments a team easily falls into when the ministry is mostly hypothetical and there’s little actual church planting work yet to ground the discussions in reality. Electricity and water supply were also quite bad.

All of this meant I was really hoping this rare chance to go on a date would be a life-giving time for my wife. I was, by this point, waking up to the reality that it is exponentially more difficult to be a female missionary in Central Asia than to be a male missionary like me. I could see my wife slowly wilting under all the pressure.

Now, there are many things I appreciate about honor-shame, hierarchical cultures like that of our locals. But of course, there are also downsides. One of these downsides is an unfortunate bent toward the stuffy and pretentious in certain kinds of establishments. Picture old world class snobbery and you’ll get a sense of what I mean here. Often, it’s not even the VIPs themselves who act this way, but those who work for them. If you don’t send the right signals through your car or clothing or reputation or otherwise, it’s not uncommon to have receptionists, waiters, or others in contexts like this treating you with a sort of high-nosed stiffery that feels demeaning no matter what your cultural background. But it’s even more jarring in our context because it’s so different from the many daily honorable interactions with Central Asian neighbors or shop owners or even gas canister men. When the stranger on the street giving you directions refers to you as “Dearest older brother” and invites you on the spot to join his family for a meal, it makes you wonder what kind of radical code-switch has taken place such that the Central Asian staff in certain establishments are instead channeling Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Sometimes we experience this sort of treatment because my wife and I have dark enough hair and complexion that we can get mistaken for locals. We know that if we drop the fact that we’re actually Americans we would be quickly promoted to the VIP class treatment and everyone would scramble to be on their most honorable behavior. But occasionally it can be useful to hold that info close to our chest for a while, even if it’s just to see how our local friends get treated in these sorts of environments – or to simply quietly protest the silly partiality on display.

We must have looked like locals that day because when we came in the restaurant and sat down, we received no special attention. In fact, we received almost no attention at all. Even though the restaurant was largely empty, we sat for quite some time at our table, ignored by the wait staff. Eventually, we figured it must be up to us to initiate the service. We tried to catch the eye of the several staff stiffly standing or bustling around, but to no avail. But we did notice a lunch buffet table over on the far side of the room. Maybe we had misunderstood the lunch system here and it was a self-serve buffet?

My wife got up to go and inspect the table. And this, finally, got one of the waiters moving. He scurried across the room, not to assist my wife, but to tsk her.

“T-t-t-t-t,” he tongue clicked at her, wagging his finger and furrowing his brow. “Ees not forr you!“

My wife stopped in her tracks, eyebrows raised at this unexpected scolding.

“Okay,” she responded, “Well, do you have a menu then?”

The waiter exhaled loudly, seeming to be very inconvenienced by this burdensome request. And motioned for her to have a seat again.

She sat back down and we made faces at each other, sharing in the surprise and the absurdity of it all. I was reminded of my wife’s opinion that everyone who goes into ministry should first spend some time in food service, not only to learn to patiently bear with others who are treating you poorly, but also to reveal if you are able to humbly and consistently treat others well, even in a stressful environment. Let us hope that our waiter had no pretensions of someday entering the pastorate.

When my wife pointed out something on the menu that looked promising, I siezed my opportunity to lean across the table with great self-import, and whisper,

“T-t-t, Ees not forr you!“

She gave me an unamused look over her menu, but then cracked a smile. By the time we had left that restaurant we had tsked and scolded each other several times in the style of our friendly waiter, and a new inside quote was thereby added to our family’s collection. To this day, you might catch us using it in situations where we need to playfully shoot something down or to make light of some request that’s been denied by others.

We never went back to that restaurant. It was, after all, the kind of place that seemed like they really didn’t want customers. For my part, I also remembered that in a season when my wife was in need of kindness and rest, she had been treated somewhat disrespectfully there. That doesn’t make a husband want to take his wife back there for a date.

It was almost a decade later when I learned that that same hotel and restaurant, of all places, had been ground zero for an all-night firefight, and blown to smithereens. See, Poet City is largely controlled by one political party that is itself controlled by one ruling family – sort of a tribe/mafia/militia/one-party fusion, as it were. The patriarch of this family died some years ago, which means his various sons and nephews have been jockeying for power ever since, and the whole patronage network of alliances has been re-shuffling. The nephew the patriarch had put in charge of the elite counter-terrorism forces owned the hotel where we had gone on our date. But a few years ago, he’d had a falling out with one of the patriarch’s sons, and had been confined to house arrest in his mansion on top of the hill, right next to the hotel. 

For several years, things stayed calm. The nephew and his loyal armed forces stayed confined to the top of the hill, while his cousin gradually consolidated power around himself. Then, suddenly, the son launched an all out assault late one night, with tanks and RPGs and small arms fire pounding the hotel where the nephew’s forces were mounting a desperate defense.

Friends of ours living nearby told us they were awakened in the middle of the night by what sounded like an all-out war. Not surprisingly, the son’s forces shot that hotel to pieces, and eventually the nephew and his soldiers surrendered.

News of this reached us in Caravan City the next day. I was talking about it with a teammate when my wife overheard us.

“Wait, isn’t that the hotel in our old neighborhood?”

“Yep, the one just a short walk from where we lived. It’s where went for that lunch date. You remember, Ees not forr you!“

My wife’s jaw dropped. “They blew up the Ees not forr you place?”

“They sure did. Apparently the whole building is shot to pieces with bullet holes and craters from tank shells.”

We were quiet for a moment as we took it all in. Our corner of Central Asia can seem so safe and stable. Then, all of the sudden, somebody’s blowing up their cousin’s hotel right in the middle of a well-to-do residential neighborhood.

“You know,” I said to our teammate. “I believe the justice of God is a perfect, detailed, and mysterious thing. Years ago, we went on a date to that hotel. And they were quite rude to my wife in a season where she was working so hard to be faithful amidst all kinds of hardships… I would not put it beyond God to factor even those small slights against his daughter into what happened to that hotel. ‘You’re going to treat my daughter that way? Tsk at her like that??? Well, I’ve taken note of that, and it will be accounted for.'”

My teammate and my wife looked at me somewhat incredulously.

“What?” I said, “Until we get to eternity, we simply don’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a couple of those bullets or tank shells were direct recompense for their conduct to her that day. You guys remember what happened to the Afghan monarchy because they destroyed that church building, right?”

They still didn’t look convinced.

Of course, there’s no way of knowing on this side of eternity. And often God’s justice is postponed until a much later date. But I am convinced that, every once in a while, if you are unusually rude to one of God’s beloved daughters, one of his ambassadors, he just may allow your hotel and restaurant to get blown to smithereens.

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization. 

One of the international churches in our region is looking for an associate pastor 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

The Glory of the Impossible and Sending False Dichotomies to Hell

False dichotomies are foolish, dangerous, deceptive things. Believers fall into their trap when they overreact to the emphases and excesses of a different camp or previous generation. Ironically, these pendulum-riding believers often themselves go on to become the inverse example of the very thing they are critiquing. 

Instead of this, the way of wisdom is to give both sides their biblical proper weight, to thread the needle right, even if that means we often must hold complex, nuanced positions, right alongside our bold, black and white hills to die on. To do this well, a deep knowledge of the Bible and church history is invaluable, as well as deep insight into our current culture, context, and age. 

Alas, the relationship of the Church to global missions is full of these false dichotomies. One of these days, I’ll write a post exploring which of them seem especially prominent in our circles. For now, I just want to highlight one way in which the pendulum is once again acting like a wrecking ball and out there smashing things up once again.

Here’s D.A. Carson reemphasizing for us just how harmful these false dichotomies are:

“So which shall we choose? “Experience or truth? The left wing of the airplane, or the right? Love or integrity? Study or service? Evangelism or discipleship? The front wheels of a car, or the rear? Subjective knowledge or objective knowledge? Faith or obedience? Damn all false antithesis to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings whose oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ”

Indeed. Send all false dichotomies to hell, where they belong, including a particular false dichotomy currently gaining steam that pits biblical localism against biblical missions. 

Biblical localism could be defined as the idea that God calls the majority of believers to put down roots, to build families, to work faithfully, to live a quiet life, to serve their local churches faithfully, and to seek to leaven their communities and broader society with the light of God’s word. This is a good, hard, biblical lifestyle (1 Thes 4:11-12, Eph 4:28). 

Biblical missions could be defined as the idea that God calls the Church to send a minority of believers to leave their home communities in order to take the gospel across geographic, political, cultural, and linguistic barriers in order to plant churches – churches that then go on to practice both faithful localism and faithful missions. This too is a good, hard, biblical lifestyle (Matt 28:18-20, Rom 15:20). 

These ideas go hand-in-hand in the scriptures. They are not against one another. Rather, they uniquely sharpen and empower one another. The goers need the stayers, and the stayers need the goers. Both have a unique role in spreading the gospel in this age and pointing forward to the resurrection coming in the next. Both are taking ground and fighting the Church’s battles against her ever-present enemies, even though the dynamics on the front lines will vary from place to place. 

But here’s what’s happened. My generation, the Millennials, went out to save the world. With the not-so-good confidence fostered by all the “You’re a unicorn who can do anything you set your mind to!” messaging we ingested growing up, alongside the good gospel fire in our bones stoked by Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life, Platt’s Radical, and the missionary biographies of Paton, Judson, Taylor, and Eliot, we answered the call and laid it all on the line. 

Not surprisingly, a lot of us burned out – and that was a full decade before the previous generation had. If Gen X was hitting burnout in their forties, it came for us in our early to mid-thirties, or even earlier. Perhaps it was the young and restless part of being young, restless, and reformed that meant many of us didn’t prioritize rest, health, and sustainable sacrifice the way we should have. Yes, some of the costs we incurred were simply part of the deal, the normal and even noble suffering that comes from the Christian life in general and some unique trials of the missionary life in particular. But many of the costs were undoubtedly also due to our own lack of wisdom in things like Sabbath, embodiment, community, and the fact that the kids are not the unflappably flexible and resilient little beings we had been told they were. 

When we look back at the missions emphasis of recent decades, a lot of good work was done. We need to be honest about that fact. But the reality of many young families returning from the mission field quite broken also coincided with big shifts in the American/Western zeitgeist, specifically, the rise of things like therapy culture, Gen Z, Christian nationalism, Christian localism, massive inflation and wage stagnation, and the foundering of the New Calvinism’s unity on the rocks of Trump, Covid-19, BLM, and ‘woke’ vs. ‘based’ everything. 

Early on, all this led to some healthy pushback, which included books like Reset and Refresh by David and Shona Murray and Ordinary by Michael Horton. Much of this pushback was good and helpful. It reminded the Church that we needed to get more biblical in prioritizing rest and sustainability, and in also celebrating the radical nature of Christians who stay and invest in their local church and community for decades on end. Praise God for wise men and women who help to balance the pendulum. 

But I’ve noticed something shifting in the last couple of years. Reformed evangelical leaders who have been convinced by robust and uber-confident ‘happy warrior’ forms of Christian localism are also beginning to turn against global missions. Here are a couple of quotes that surfaced in recent months on my social media feeds that illustrate this. I post them here simply to illustrate. I admit I’m not familiar with the broader body of these men’s work, so they may nuance these statements elsewhere. Both are SBTS grads who speak at conferences, and we share a lot of mutual friends, so I would hope they are more balanced than they appear here. However, notice how they are drawing a stark dichotomy between foreign missions and localism – and how different this kind of talk sounds from what has been the evangelical church’s posture since the late 1700s. 

There needs to be a new and more biblically faithful version of “Don’t Waste Your Life” for the next generation.

I know many Christians who were afraid of wasting their lives and ended up chasing glory in foreign countries. But they screwed up their marriages and kids as a result. That’s actually wasting your life.

The updated version we now need is to call people to do something truly radical. Live an ordinary, faithful life of Christian service. Get married, start a family, have lots of children, work with your hands, plug into a local community, and serve a local church.

-Michael Clary on X

Notice the claims made here. 1) The book, Don’t Waste Your Life, was unbiblical, period. No mention of its context, intended audience, or what it got right. Suburban baby boomer retirement mindset, anyone? 2) Those who went overseas were only chasing glory. Is there no longer a biblical category of holy ambition that applies to taking great risks like this for the sake of the unreached, or does holy ambition only apply to those who stay and build? To say that it’s wrong to seek glory is to be out of step with both the Bible and the historic church (Rom 2:7). It’s how you seek glory that matters. 3) The costs to marriages and kids mean you’re the one who wasted your life. But what about the costs to families that come simply as part of faithful service? Is there no category for that in your theology? Or does tragic cost always equal unfaithfulness? 4) What is truly radical is marriage, kids, work, community investment, and long-term local church service. I guess Jesus, Paul, Patrick, Lull, and Paton weren’t good examples of Christian radicals? 

Here’s a response to the above post, but taking it even further:

Imagine disguising adventurism and avoidance of duty as the ideal, super spiritual thing. That is a great deal of the last few generations of evangelicalism in America and what was sold to young men and women. And we wonder why so few are married and have children.

Going to a foreign country (at other’s expense no less) – wow, you are so spiritual. You will get special services and a Sunday a month where we extol you and folks will especially pray for you… Working hard to take on a wife and have a large family and be productive and fruitful where you are and start a business that employs folks in your church? Oh, meh… unless we want more of your money.

Adopt kids from far flung nations? We will write entire books and have conferences about it… special services and recognition. Care for your actual neighbors and help their kids? Meh… yawn.

The problem? It’s been primarily rot and rubbish for a hundred years. Promoted primarily by people who don’t practice at all what they preach. I despise it so much at this point and the poison it is and has been to our nation and communities.

-John Moody on FB

This post claims 1) Missions is adventurism and avoidance of duty, and is the reason so few are having children. Is there no category for holy ambition or the faithful fulfilment of the Great Commission as the duty of the Christian? What about the fact that evangelical missionaries have far more children on average than evangelicals who stay planted in the West? 2) Going to a foreign country at others’ expense does not warrant special recognition or prayer. Those things should be for those who stay and build. Wait, must we choose one or the other? Who says so? What about 3rd John 1:6? 3) Missions has been promoted by those who don’t practice what they preach, and it is essentially poison to the American and evangelical community. I recognize the brother here is probably speaking from emotion, so, in turn, I would invite him to visit the graves of countless faithful missionaries scattered all over the world, including that of my own father in Melanesia and that of a good friend here in Central Asia. Would you say they didn’t practice what they preached when they were faithful unto death? How about their families that continue to grieve and trust God with their deaths? Are their examples of dying for Jesus poison for the American church? 

Here’s the thing. Both of these men I’ve quoted are truly onto something. There has been an underemphasis on faithful Christian localism in recent decades. And a lot of young evangelical families have come back broken from the mission field. Both of these things have been tremendously costly. We need to hear these points loud and clear. 

But we need to do so while avoiding the error they’re falling into – pitting localism against missions. To fall into this trap is to be captive by a spirit of the age that hasn’t been very prominent in about 300 years, but which seems to be staging an aggressive comeback. That wrongheaded spirit misses the fundamental point that missions exists in part because there can be no Christian localism in places where there are not yet any Christians.

One of the reasons people like me do what we do is because we dream of the day when our unreached people groups are filled with healthy churches that are transforming their society from the inside out. We long to see churches filled to the brim with faithful local Christians who settle down, get married, have kids, start businesses, influence their neighbors and government, and yes, support their own missionaries who go on to expand the kingdom across new frontiers. 

Further, we live every day knowing that our family can only do what we do because there are a hundred faithful families who sacrifice by staying. That is an honor and a duty that we do not take lightly. But this is the way the kingdom has always worked, and it is what it will take to see faithful Christian localism expressed in every corner of the earth. We risk, we suffer, we accept this glorious and frustrating nomadic lifestyle for the sake of those who will one day be able to put down roots. If our families are broken in the pursuit of that vision, then weep with us, help us get wiser, and help us untangle which parts of our suffering were wrongheaded and which parts were noble and good and honor Jesus. 

But don’t so rashly throw out the very thing that has made your calls to Christian localism possible in the first place. After all, if not for the radical, adventurous missionaries of the past, there would be no Christian West to try to save or recover. As our Central Asian locals say, “Don’t cast stones into the spring from which you drink.” A little bit of historic self-awareness would serve the new Christian localists well. Pioneer missionaries are, in fact, those who take the beachheads that one day lead to the establishment of a healthy Christian localism in those contexts.

Friends, the pendulum is swinging hard. The conversation is shifting. And many are in danger of drifting away from the biblical emphasis on missions, risk, and losing everything for the sake of the gospel. Many young men no longer desire to become leaders, and many young families and singles coming to the field are so concerned with mental health and work-life balance that they no longer understand the logic of sacrifice. I find myself longing more and more for older, stranger voices, like that of Samuel Zwemer, to wake us back up to some of these historic but out-of-fashion truths. Yes, men like Zwemer were unbalanced in their own ways, but perhaps hearing from them again is actually what we need to respond to these new challenges – and actually thread the needle right. 

If you’ve never read Zwemer’s address, The Glory of the Impossible, it’s a stirring challenge from a very different era. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here is an excerpt as well:

The unoccupied fields, therefore, are a challenge to all whose lives are unoccupied by that which is highest and best; whose lives are occupied only with the weak things or the base things that do not count. There are eyes that have never been illumined by a great vision, minds that have never been gripped by an unselfish thought, hearts that have never thrilled with passion for another’s wrong, and hands that have never grown weary or strong in lifting a great burden. To such the knowledge of these Christless millions in lands yet unoccupied should come like a new call from Macedonia, and a startling vision of God’s will for them. As Bishop Brent remarks, “We never know what measure of moral capacity is at our disposal until we try to express it in action. An adventure of some proportions is not uncommonly all that a young man needs to determine and fix his manhood’s powers.” Is there a more heroic test for the powers of manhood than pioneer work in the mission field? Here is opportunity for those who at home may never find elbow-room for their latent capacities, who may never find adequate scope elsewhere for all the powers of their minds and their souls. There are hundreds of Christian college men who expect to spend life in practicing law or in some trade for a livelihood, yet who have strength and talent enough to enter these unoccupied fields. There are young doctors who might gather around them in some new mission station thousands of those who “suffer the horrors of heathenism and Islam,” and lift their burden of pain, but who now confine their efforts to some “pent-up Utica” where the healing art is subject to the law of competition and is measured too often merely in terms of a cash-book and ledger. They are making a living; they might be making a life.

Bishop Phillips Brooks once threw down the challenge of a big task in these words: “Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle.” He could not have chosen words more applicable if he had spoken of the evangelization of the unoccupied fields of the world with all their baffling difficulties and their glorious impossibilities. God can give us power for the task. He was sufficient for those who went out in the past, and is sufficient for those who go out today.

Face to face with these millions in darkness and degradation, knowing the condition of their lives on the unimpeachable testimony of those who have visited these countries, this great unfinished task, this unattempted task, calls today for those who are willing to endure and suffer in accomplishing it.

-Zwemer, The Glory of the Impossible

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization. 

One of the international churches in our region is looking for an associate pastor 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

Guests Mean God Cares for You

I’ve long wondered how our Central Asian people group fuels such energy and excitement for hospitality. Most households are genuinely excited when guests show up, even when they turn up unannounced. The household springs into action with warm machine-gun-fire blessings of welcome proclaimed and standing handshakes, hands on hearts, or kisses on cheeks all around. Quickly and energetically, guests are ushered into the hosting room, where they are given the best seats, quickly offered cold water, hot chai, snacks, and – if the hosts can succeed in their persuasion – an elaborate meal. And the hosts will then keep pushing to see just how far they can convince their guests to accept even more hospitality. They’ll offer showers, naps, follow-up meals, and even spending the night – offering their own pajamas to shut down our attempts to excuse ourselves by saying that we didn’t pack for the night. 

Now, I’ve been watching our focus people group closely for many years. The overwhelming majority of these offers are genuine. Every once in a while, I’ll catch an acquaintance making an honorable but hypothetical offer, and I can tell his heart isn’t in it. But the vast majority of the time, the offers are made with what is honestly a perplexing depth of delight. Yes, all cultures know that, in the end, it is rewarding to host others well. But this level of hospitality takes a lot of work and money. It’s costly and tiring and, frankly, unsustainable unless you’ve got relatives around to help out. So, how is it possible for humans to be this motivated to show hospitality? 

For a long time, it has seemed that there’s been something going on beneath the surface that could explain this incredible hosting energy. At last, I think we’ve found it. 

Turns out our local friends are raised to believe that guests are concrete evidence that God cares for you. There’s a local proverb that states, “Guests are God’s guests.” This means that guests are, in fact, blessings sent to a home by God himself – and evidence that more blessings lie in store. Local culture from ancient times has taught that guests are proof that God remembers you, cares for you, and wants to bless you. By sacrificing to show lavish hospitality, a family responds to God’s gift and puts itself even more in the way of God’s blessings, as it were. 

Locals believe that extravagant hospitality is a sort of spiritual investment. It is God giving them an opportunity to pour themselves out for others. And if they are found faithful to care for others as if they were more important than themselves, then God will see, remember them, and provide for their needs. This is why they light up when you tell them you’re coming to visit them. You’ve just told them that God remembers them – and wants to bless them. 

What a glorious instinct to have at the center of a fallen culture. How merciful of God to allow this kind of hospitality to still burn bright, even after centuries of Islam choking out so many other areas of common grace. 

This is not how Western culture has raised most of us, even those of us from hospitable families. But what has struck me is that this is how many mature believers in the West come to feel about giving sacrificially of their money. As Christians learn to give generously to the local church and to the poor, believing that God is indeed a great rewarder, we give lavishly of our finances, even beyond what others consider wise. We learn from experience and by testing God’s promises that this kind of giving is a surefire way to deeper joys and experiences of God’s provision. Opportunities to give are, in a sense, evidence that God cares for us, that he wants to fill our lives with his joy and provision – and with eternal rewards to boot. Western Christianity has its weaknesses, yes, but when it comes to generosity, it is often exemplary. If you doubt me on this, ask believers from other parts of the world. 

However, the Central Asian church is, to put it mildly, anemic when it comes to giving. Believers will often give a small token amount to save face, but balk at suggestions that they should risk something as radical as ten percent or even more of their income. No, they believe, it’s the job of the Western church to fund the churches and believers here with their endless flow of funds. This unfortunate sort of entitlement mindset is often present. And it has meant that there are no self-supporting local churches that I know of in our country of service at all. 

I firmly believe that until our local friends learn how to give sacrificially to the church, they will be lacking certain kinds of spiritual power and joy. Why does our people group seem so hardened, so good at killing church plants? Why do the churches that exist seem so riven with gossip and division? Perhaps because most believers refuse to risk trusting God with their money. The Christian life is full of asymmetrical causes and effects like this. Obedience in one area unlocks joy and grace for obedience in other areas, even if at first glance they seem unrelated. If we want to see this land flooded with the light of the gospel, the locals are going to have to learn how to give. 

Much is at stake. So what is to be done to help local believers understand the positively stunning promises of God’s word when it comes to giving generously? Having now better understood their motivations that empower radical hospitality, I think we should start drawing on these same motivations to also empower giving. Essentially, the category for sacrificial giving already exists, and deeply so, within local culture. For believers, then, who are empowered by even deeper gospel motivations, it just needs to be expanded to include supporting the local church and missions financially. This might mean shifting how we talk about giving, such that we use more hospitality-specific vocabulary. It certainly means using the ‘guests are God’s guests’ mindset as an illustration of how God is calling believers to trust and obey when it comes to giving away their family’s funds. 

Tim Keller used to call this kind of thing floating the B doctrines on the A doctrines. Locally, giving money to the church is a B doctrine, something that our Central Asians don’t naturally resonate with. In fact, some find it a bit offensive, given how hard their lives are. But sacrificial Christian hospitality is an A doctrine, something local believers can yes and amen with incredible gusto and experience. By connecting them and showing how the one empowers the other, we ‘float’ the offensive one on the one that already deeply resonates. By doing so, we can help unlock new areas of obedience or belief that were previously no-go zones because of a given culture’s particular brokenness. 

While we’re at it, some of this should probably flow the other way as well. We from the Western church could use a renovation of our motivations for hospitality. As I just read this morning, God really does take care of the Shunammite woman in response to her hospitality toward Elisha (2 Kings 4, 8). This woman leaped at the chance to host God’s prophet, seemingly trusting that this guest was an opportunity to put herself in the way of God’s blessing. In response, God graciously gave her a son, and later, her land back. Even more than this, Christ assures us that if we even offer a cup of cold water to another believer, it’s like we’re offering a cup of cold water to Christ himself – an act that will not be forgotten by the great rewarder (Matt 10:42).

I had to remind myself of these things this week, as a single brother struggling with a recent breakup asked to come spend the night with us again. I was already tired, and I knew saying yes would mean a late night of listening and trying to give comfort and counsel. However, I was helped to say yes more from the heart by remembering that this was, in fact, God showing his care for me, that he was giving me an opportunity to serve, and thereby to know more of his joy and provision. It’s more blessed to give than to receive, right? 

In this area, we can learn a great deal from our Central Asian friends. Guests really are evidence that God cares for us, that he will take care of us. And now in Christ, more so than we could ever imagine. 

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization. 

One of the international churches in our region is looking for an associate pastor 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.

*Names have been changed for security

Photo from Unsplash

My Sun – A Poem by a Local Believer

My Sun
by Shepherd H

They ask why I’m a Christian, ‘What for you has this Christ done?
Has he taken from your shoulders some heavy life burden?’
So I told them, just for once, to open hearts and open eyes
Said I, ‘Read a few verses from the Gospel of the Christ
Then yourselves you’ll sacrifice with both your soul and spirit 
And then from all deeds past embrace repentance and regret’
For Jesus Christ is living God of power without end 
And everything in heaven and the earth is in his hand
My idol worship thrown away, and my true God I found 
I know he is my God, without wav’ring, question, doubt 
Now, I’ve comfort worry-free, and Christ, light of my days 
The shining strength of Jesus is my sun, my wall, my shade

This is another poem by the late Shepherd H, Central Asian believer and elderly poet-turned-Christian. This poem focuses on how Christ has become the powerful center of Shepherd’s life, its very light and sun. When asked why he’s a Christian, Shepherd points his questioners to Bible, where he claims reading even a few verses is enough to cause radical repentance and self-sacrifice.

My Sun is another poem that exults in Jesus using some very Central Asian imagery. The sun is a major symbol of our people group, something that probably has roots in ancient Zoroastrianism, but which now is mainly expressive of the hope of freedom. What I’ve translated as ‘wall’ in this poem is a garden barrier referring more to privacy, beauty, and rest than to protection from enemies. And although the sun is a beloved symbol here, so is the shade. Our dry, high desert climate means you come to really appreciate the shade and how stepping into it during the summer can provide such instant relief. So much so that I’ve heard locals rank trees according to the quality of shade that they provide.

By calling the shining strength of Jesus his sun, wall, and shade, Shepherd is proclaiming that Jesus is his light, his hope for freedom, his rest, his covering, his beauty, his relief, and his deliverance.

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization. 

Praise God, one of the international churches in our region got a pastor! But there’s still another church looking for an associate pastor and our kids’ TCK school is also in need of teachers for the 2026-2027 schoolyear. 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.

*Names have been changed for security

Photo from Unsplash

The Good Gift of Intercultural Humor

“Three men walk into a cave: An American, a Japanese man, and a Wermahi.*

The American calls out, “Hello!” 

And the cave answers back, “‘elloo, ‘elloo, ‘elloo!” 

The Japanese man calls out, “Konnichiwa!” 

And the cave answers back, “‘ichiwaa, ‘ichiwaa, ‘ichiwaa!” 

The Wermahi man calls out, “Khawneshi!”* 

And the cave answers back, “Whaaaat????”

This joke was recently shared, to great effect, with a group of local men in my living room. What made it even better was that the one telling the joke was himself ethnically Wermahi*, a member of one of our minority language groups. The joke is, of course, so funny to other locals because the Wermahi language is so different and unintelligible to the other language groups around it, even though they all consider themselves members of the same regional ethnicity. 

This great difference between the nearby Wermahi language and the language spoken in Poet City* and Caravan City* is simply an amusing fact of life for people here, something for members of both communities to laugh about. As it should be. God has unexpectedly brought about many good things through the original scattering of languages (and the resulting cultures) that happened at Babel. Undoubtedly, one of those good gifts is the existence of intercultural humor. 

I recently reread the first book in C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, and was struck by Dr. Ransom’s observations about when the three intelligent species of the planet Malacandra got together. This kind of mixing of the species seemed especially to draw out the humor of each one. It’s as if there was something about the contrast between the different, yet equal species and their distinct kinds of humor that somehow resulted in more joy and laughter when they mixed than when each species was merely living among its own people. 

This reminded me about how downright hilarious intercultural differences can be. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, pick up a copy of Daniel Nayeri’s memoir Everything Sad Is Untrue, and you’ll quickly see what I mean. Some of the funniest writers and comedians out there are third culture kids, those who have grown up in the midst of multiple cultures, and so have a particular ability to both understand and play with the differences of each. Even when the cultural differences are as slight as those between Americans and Canadians, these differences can be leveraged to hilarious effect, as when Jim Gaffigan does a standup routine about the Canadian map. 

It seems that God has designed us to simply find certain kinds of differences funny. And while this can often be twisted by sin and used to laugh at others not like us, the core experience itself must be good, something that can be redeemed so that we are laughing with one another about our differences. My Wermahi friend was a good example of this, as was a Peruvian brother who preached this past week at our international church and illustrated his sermon with a story about time differences. 

“I arrived at the meeting the Germans invited me to ten minutes after the start time. For my culture, I was doing great! I was early! But when I arrived, I was shocked to find out the devotional had already finished. Apparently, Germans expect you to arrive ten minutes before the meeting time so that they can start exactly on time. But my Central Asian friends? When I ask them what time I should expect them for dinner, they look at me strange! Like, ‘Why do you need to know a time?’ Because in this culture, it’s always the right time to receive a guest.” 

The congregation when this brother preached was made up of attendees from about twenty-five different countries, including locals, all laughing good-naturedly at these true and genuinely funny time differences between cultures. Once again, this is as it should be. 

Strange things are afoot in Western culture these days. The pendulum seems to be swinging hard away from some of the self-censoring and self-righteous political correctness and back into territory where joking about our cultural differences is not so taboo anymore, even for majority-culture White folk. I welcome the healthy parts of this, even as I know that some will take it too far, back to the kinds of jokes that communicate that differences imply inferiority. But as with food or alcohol, so with intercultural humor. “Men can go wrong with wine and women,” Luther famously said. “Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?” The potential for abuse is no reason to ban a good gift. Rather, the key is for Christians to model how that good gift can be properly enjoyed for God’s glory. 

How can we be sure that our intercultural humor is healthy and helpful, an enjoyment of a good gift, rather than a sneaky dig at someone we feel we’re superior to? Well, can you tell that same joke in the presence of those from that culture and have them laughing as well? If you’re not sure, you’re probably better off not sharing it. Here, as in so many things, genuine friendship with those from other cultures makes all the difference. There are things I have learned that Central Asians find funny about themselves, such as their traditional giant parachute pants. Then there are other things they are aware of, but not yet ready to joke about, like their penchant for incessant selfie-taking. We’ve learned it’s best to follow their lead on what aspects of culture they’re ready to offer up as the butt of good jokes. 

Individuals are like this, too, and as is so often the case, culture is functioning here a lot like group personality, including the same kind of foibles and inconsistencies. Why can a man laugh at a joke about his belly but get embarrassed by a joke about his hair? Why do Americans get slightly offended by a joke about how much unhealthy food we eat, but can laugh at a joke about our comparative unwillingness to learn other languages? (What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One language? American!). These inconsistencies are a bit odd, but they are real. We do well to watch out for them. 

One other warning when it comes to intercultural humor. In general, keep the jokes nice and clear. Humor is hard to translate, as a rule. But sarcasm? Not only hard to translate, but often downright unintelligible or offensive. Saying the opposite of what you mean for some kind of comedic effect is hard to pull off well in your own language and culture, let alone in someone else’s. Slapstick humor about things like fridges falling out of the sky tends to do well. Jokes dependent on wordplay or sarcasm usually end up as duds, at best. As my wife recently pointed out regarding sarcasm in texts, humor is dependent on shared context. You either need to tell translated jokes that have relatively universal content, or you need to know enough about the local context in order to play with its realities and quirkiness. 

As with all humor, believers need to run it through the filter of Ephesians 4:29: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Is the intent of that intercultural joke to build the other person up, to share something fit for the occasion, to give the hearer grace through the good gift of laughter? If so, then fire away. But still pay attention because the effect of the joke may still end up an intercultural dumpster fire even if the intent of it was good and Christian at the start. 

As with the fictional alien species of Malacandra, so with the different peoples of the real world. There is something about when we mix that does and should lead to lots of good shared laughter. It seems that Babel not only gave us thousands of languages with which to eternally praise God, but also thousands of humorous differences from one another as well. And if these make great fodder for jokes now, just imagine what we’ll get to do with them in eternity. 

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization. 

Praise God, one of the international churches in our region got a pastor! But there’s still another church looking for an associate pastor and our kids’ TCK school is also in need of teachers for the 2026-2027 schoolyear. 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.

*Names have been changed for security

Photo from Unsplash

Even Their Poets Are Preachers

This week, I witnessed a part of the local culture I had never seen before. A poetry battle. 

About twelve of us were sitting around a campfire on a mountainside that overlooked the distant lights of Caravan City. It was coming toward the end of the evening. We had grilled and eaten skewered pieces of chicken, munched on sunflower seeds, and drunk our chai and Nescafé. Already, some of the men, thinking of work in the morning, were asking if it would be time to go soon. 

A request by one of the men present to swap riddles and jokes had ultimately foundered upon the rocks of attempted translation from one language to another, something this particular group of guys keeps trying, even though the results are usually rather anticlimactic. Nothing like dropping what you think is a strong punchline only to be met with blank or confused looks, silence, or worse, a few polite chuckles. 

I did make one successful joke in the course of the evening, when the men had started up a hearty rendition of a favorite childhood song here, which goes something like, 

I’m a pig; you’re a pig; hey, all of us are pigs!

I told them to hold on and start over because I wanted to record the song for the sake of ‘the future generations.’ This caused a surprising outburst of laughter among all the men. 

“For the sake of future generations! That’s a good one! Hahahaha!’ 

Alas, my funniest joke of the evening wasn’t even one I was really attempting to make. But when the proverbial blind squirrel finds a nut, he is proud of himself nevertheless. 

Shortly after this, one man, a young journalist, told us he’d like to read us a poem he’d written. 

He pulled it up on his phone as the rest of the circle of men quieted down and leaned in. Unlike much of Western culture, our Central Asian locals are still very awake to the beauty and power of poetry, especially the men. But what I was about to witness highlighted this for me in a whole new way. 

Still seated, our cookout poet sat up as straight as he could in his camping chair and puffed out his chest. With one hand holding his phone out so he could read it and the other hand partially lifted in front of him, he began dropping rhythmic lines about his people’s history and long struggle for freedom. His raised hand moved up and down to emphasize the rhyming end of each line, a gesture that was followed by growing affirmations from the circle of men, a sort of ‘amening’ of each statement made. 

The intensity, emotion, and volume of the poem and the affirmations grew as the poem progressed, finishing with a climactic final rhyme and chorus of applause. Even though I had only gotten half of the meaning of the poem, it was easy to feel the powerful effect of this kind of poetic oratory. 

But it wasn’t over. Another man on the other side of the circle cleared his throat and shifted in his camping chair, 

“Friends,” he announced, “I have an answer to that!” 

What proceeded from those present was the sort of noises men in all cultures make when a challenger is announced, plus more applause. 

Apparently, the first poem had not only been patriotic, but also colored with loyalty to one of the two dominant political parties/families of our region. This other man was loyal to the other party/family and was about to drop some partisan lines of his own. 

His poem progressed much the way the first one had. Similar authoritative body language. Similar expressions of approval after particularly good rhythms and rhymes, and a climactic crash of louder verse and applause at the end. 

The two of them went back and forth like this four or five times. Like a rap battle, the volume of the crowd’s response to each poem seemed to be the gauge of which one was winning. In the end, to me, it looked like a draw. 

The atmosphere of our little campfire was now more alive than it had been all evening, and the rest of us now had the opportunity to share any favorite lines of verse that we had either written or memorized. I was thankful that one of the local believers bravely shared some lines of Christian poetry he’d recently written, since many of those present were not believers. I shared the one verse of local poetry I’ve ever memorized, one I’d once learned back in Poet City from a taxi driver. 

A wish for the days of homemade naan
In a thousand homes, a pilgrim only one
Now for all, "pilgrimmy pilgrim" is claimed
But pilgrims they're not, nor their bread e'en homemade

Once again, the applause I received for this very small segment of a poem against Islamic pharasaism was very warm, and probably much more than my lackluster delivery deserved. 

As we drove home, I asked one of the local believers with us about the poetry exchange we had witnessed that night. I told him that was the first time I’d seen it. 

“Oh yes,” he said, “We have that in our culture, though we don’t do it as much anymore. Poetry battles. We also have proverb battles. And song battles too.” 

I had once seen some YouTube videos of some local song battles, but I found it curious that, after almost a decade living in this culture, I had never seen a poetry battle like this before. I asked the other foreigner who was with us that night, and he hadn’t either. It seemed to be yet another gap in our knowledge of the local culture. 

Over the last number of months, I’ve continued to chew on how most missionaries here think that preaching, monologues by leaders, and skillful, authoritative oratory are foreign, Western things. As I’ve written before, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Our local culture has great respect for and takes great pleasure in skillful public oratory of all kinds. Yet this great disconnect persists, somehow, and the majority of missionaries remain convinced that informal group discussions are the thing that is truly local and contextual, and preaching and an old-fashioned and ineffective Western form. 

I mused on this as we drove down the mountain at midnight. As it turns out, locals recite even their poems as if they’re preaching. No, recite is the wrong verb. What I saw during the poetry battle was not recitation, it was proclamation. Each poet was aiming to persuade the minds and hearts of his hearers of the truth and beauty of his message. The tone and posture of these poets were that of crafted conviction. Or, as Martin Lloyd Jones once said of preaching – logic on fire. 

Through local eyes, it makes the way we Westerners casually lead our Bible discussions look limp, spineless, like we don’t really believe what we’re saying. Why do we missionaries persist in presenting the word of God like we do when locals present even their private poems with so much more authority and conviction? 

So much for preaching being a foreign thing. No, once again, I must conclude that, here in Central Asia, preaching is everywhere. After all, even their poets are preachers. 

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization. 

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, and our kids’ TCK school is also in need of teachers for the 2026-2027 schoolyear. 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

When to Put Salt in the Guest’s Shoes

“Guests are like fish. After three days, they begin to stink.” 

I’m not sure when I first heard this saying, but it sheds light on an experience that seems to take place in every society. Sometimes guests come to stay. And then end up overstaying. Every culture has these sorts of guests who stay, and stay, and stay. And every culture, at some point, develops strategies to try and get rid of them. I’ve heard that some villages in our corner of Central Asia would secretly put a little bit of salt in the shoes of overstaying guests. Allegedly, the salt would somehow trigger a desire in the visitors to depart back to where they had come from. I didn’t know about this practice back when we had a local friend unexpectedly move in with us for nine days. But had I known of it, I just may have tried it. 

Jonathan* was a quirky believer who lived several hours to the south of Poet City*. He had come to faith while a university student in Poet City, and I had gotten to know him during my gap year on the field back when I was a single 20-year-old. To his great credit, Jonathan persevered in his faith when he moved back to his conservative desert city, even though there wasn’t even so much as a secret house gathering there for believers. To this day, there still isn’t. Instead, for his encouragement, Jonathan would travel up to Poet City every few months to worship with believers, to hang out with friends from his college days, and to ask around about jobs that might allow him to move. Understandably, Jonathan hoped to one day live in the more progressive Poet City and to escape the stifling heat and even more stifling Islamic culture of his hometown. 

So, during our first year on the field, when Jonathan contacted me, told me he was coming to town, and asked if he could spend the night at our house, I quickly agreed. Locals in our area are traditionally expected to extend honorable hospitality at the drop of a hat. We weren’t set up super well for hosting overnight guests in our open-concept two-bedroom flat, but we could figure something out for a night or two. After all, we thought, this would be a good cultural experience for us as a new family on the field. 

What I didn’t think to ask myself was why Jonathan was asking for help from us, of all people, brand new foreigners, when he had a decent network of college friends and believers that he already knew in the city. Was there some reason others were not willing to host this seemingly kind and respectable man? No, we didn’t think to ask these questions that more experienced missionaries might bring up. My wife and I simply wanted to try to do what we thought was the honorable contextual thing and host a friend who asked to stay with us. 

On the first evening, I picked Jonathan up from where he was hanging out at a popular row of teahouses and brought him back to our place for supper. Our meal together went well. Jonathan was peculiar in personality, oddly swinging between being very polite and being somewhat blunt. Yet overall, he was a kind and enjoyable dinner guest. 

After supper, Jonathan asked me if I could take him out to buy some peanut butter. At the time, this Western grocery item was only present in the bigger cities, and not where Jonathan lived. But apparently, Jonathan really loved him some peanut butter. So, we went peanut butter hunting and then went out to drink some tea with some of his college friends. 

Jonathan had come to town during the peak of the summer heat. We only had one air conditioner that could work at night on our 10 amps of neighborhood generator electricity. This was the unit in our master bedroom. Because of this, we made the summer nights more manageable for our little family by setting up a fan to blow the cooler air from our room into the kids’ room that was directly next to ours, the air-conditioned air being pushed from room to room through the open doors that met at a corner. 

That first night, we set Jonathan up in our living room as best we could, apologizing that all we could offer him for the night heat in that more private part of the house was a fan. However, since Jonathan was from a city far to the south of us that is much hotter than Poet City, we thought he should pass the night comfortably. We said goodnight and all turned in for the night. So far, so good. We went to bed feeling like decent hosts.

However, it wasn’t long before we heard some loud noises that sounded like porcelain being knocked around. My wife and I sat up in bed and looked questioningly at one another. What was that sound? I crept out of our room to find Jonathan, one leg stretched high, pant legs rolled up, washing his socks and a foot in the porcelain sink outside our little toilet and shower rooms – the same sink where we washed our hands and brushed our teeth. He was doing this so aggressively that the little sink was rocking back and forth on its porcelain stand. This, of course, was what was causing all the midnight racket. 

I thought this was odd. My wife thought it was downright gross.

“Tell him he can wash his feet in the shower room!” She whispered to me urgently when I told her what was happening.  

“Tomorrow. I’ll tell him tomorrow,” I assured her, still trying to make sense of the odd midnight scene I had just witnessed.

We settled back in to try to get to sleep when we were again woken up by the loud clanging of our roof door opening. It appeared that Jonathan had gone up to the flat roof to smoke a late-night cigarette. Smoking is still very common in this part of the world, even among believers, so we didn’t think too much of it. But as the hours passed, we noticed that he seemed to go up to the roof many times for many more late-night cigarettes. He also made what seemed like dozens of trips to the bathroom, which was right next to our bedroom. Eventually, sometime in the early hours of the morning, he at last settled down.  

The next the morning, we asked Jonathan how he had slept. 

“I slept very poorly, due to the heat.” 

Huh, I thought to myself, that’s a little more blunt than I was expecting. And strange that it affected him so much, given how locals are more comfortable in the heat than we are.

“Sorry about that, brother. We heard you up in the night a lot and wondered if it might be because of the heat.” 

“I was also feeling some indigestion, however, from the dinner you served me last night.” 

Wow, I thought to myself again, blunt again. Even in the non-hospitality-oriented West, most guests would at least state this indirectly and let the hosts put the pieces together. 

“Sorry again, our food is maybe a little different from what your stomach is used to.”

I shot a glance at my wife, who was doing her best to wrangle our toddlers and their breakfast demands while also laying out a generous spread of breakfast foods for our guest. Jonathan didn’t seem upset necessarily, just direct and a little condescending. Not unlike a teacher who felt it his duty to correct his students when they gave an incorrect answer. He was a teacher, in fact, newly hired at a private language institute in his hometown.

“Jonathan, would you like yogurt, or eggs, maybe an omelet?” My wife graciously offered. 

“No thanks, just peanut butter, thank you.” 

I saw my wife’s shoulders droop just a little as she realized her generous breakfast spread was all for naught.

After his quick breakfast of peanut butter and a little bit of local bread, Jonathan went outside for another smoke. 

“Well… that was a little rougher than I was expecting,” I said to my wife. 

“It’s okay,” my wife said. “Glad we could host him. Do you know what time he’s heading back to his city today?” 

“No idea, but I’ll try to find out indirectly when I drop him off in the bazaar.” 

To ask Jonathan directly, of course, would imply that we were not happy to host him as long as necessary, and would be very shameful. 

So, when Jonathan and I were close to the market, I tried to get the relevant info out of him. 

“So, what are your plans for today?” 

“Well, I have some shopping to do in the bazaar, then I’ll be meeting up with some friends. Could you pick me up for dinner tonight? 

“Um, yes… yes I can. So, will you be staying longer in Poet City?”

“Oh yes, yes, of course, I don’t want to go back home yet. I am looking for a job. Is it alright if I stay with you again tonight?” 

“Of course it is!” I answered, trying my best to play the honorable and generous host. But something in my stomach told me that we might have gotten a bit more than we’d bargained for in agreeing to host Jonathan in the first place. 

We went out to eat that night and paid for Jonathan’s meal. Strangely, he didn’t argue with me to pay for the bill, as would be customary when friends go out to eat together. I took note, but mostly wrote this off as some dynamic of hosting that we hadn’t learned about yet. 

When we got back to our place, we offered to set Jonathan up in our kids’ room so that he could have the cold air from the one AC unit blown in via our fan setup. Our two-year-old and four-year-old would sleep on floor mattresses in our room. This would mean closer quarters all around, but our family and Jonathan would still have at least a little bit of privacy since we were in different rooms. I was also sure to point out the shower room foot washing options for Jonathan.

However, just after we had gone to bed, Jonathan soon began his same sink foot washing, rooftop smoking, and bathroom routine. After what seemed like hours of this, we finally drifted off, praying for God’s help to be gracious hosts. 

At some point in the middle of the night, my wife shook me awake and pointed. There, on the floor and poking into our bedroom door, was Jonathan’s head, fast asleep and snoring. It took me a minute to realize what I was looking at. Even though the kids’ room was almost as cool as ours, Jonathan must have decided that he needed to be as close as possible to the coolest air, so he moved his sleeping pallet so that he was sleeping with the bottom half of his body in the kids’ room, his upper half just outside the doorframes, and his head stuck just inside our room. He was definitely asleep, but it was a bit unnerving nonetheless to have his head, well, just there, poking into our bedroom. 

The next morning, however, Jonathan seemed downright chipper. We, on the other hand, were starting to feel the toll of hosting. Still, we managed to have a pleasant (simple this time) breakfast together and to get some helpful advice from Jonathan about the local language. 

Second day, same routine. My wife asked me to find out Jonathan’s plans. I tried to do so indirectly. Jonathan ended up asking to stay with us another night. He continued his peculiar nighttime habits, including sleeping with his head just inside our door. My wife and I slept fitfully and woke feeling worse than the day before. 

This went on for nine nights.

Nine. Long. Nights. 

My wife and I soldiered on, but soon began to feel not unlike like Gandalf after his deadly battle with the Balrog.

“Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time…”

Eventually, even Jonathan began to pick up on the fact that we were struggling to remain energetic and joyful hosts. 

On day eight, at breakfast, he went into teacher mode again.

“You know, in my culture, it’s very important that you reassure a guest over and over that they are not causing any trouble to you. Otherwise, they may begin to feel insecure about the warmth of their welcome.” 

My wife, fearing her emotions might be displayed a little too obviously on her face, made a quick about-turn for the kitchen.

I took a deep breath and tried to answer in some way that was still kind, but which perhaps hinted at the fact that Jonathan’s welcome was indeed no longer as warm as it once was. 

“Yes… um… thank you for the advice. That’s good to know… Will you be needing a ride to the bazaar today?”  

By this point, we were getting desperate. We needed to find an honorable way out of this situation – and fast. Our little family was at the end of our rope. Our kids were exhausted from sleeping on the floor of our room. My wife and I were exhausted from having them in our room every night – not to mention the nightly presence of Jonathan’s head. We were burning through our meager finances with all of the extra food costs we were incurring. And Jonathan continued to not offer to help with any of these costs, despite regularly asking to eat out together. 

Our guest also showed no indication that he was planning on going back home anytime soon. He kept saying that he was hoping to find a job, but he was not doing any actual job searching. It slowly became clear that he was, in fact, waiting for me to find him a job and a place to rent. Until that happened, it seemed his plan was to just extend his stay with us. 

Clearly, whatever Jonathan’s assumptions were about this whole arrangement, they were wildly different from ours. We just thought we were hosting a believer for a couple of nights. But somehow, we had unwittingly become some kind of patrons now responsible for finding work and housing for our peculiar house guest. We were all for helping a brother out in reasonable ways, but we were in no position to find him long-term work and housing.

Jonathan didn’t seem to be picking up on the many ways we were trying to indirectly and honorably communicate that even though we were hypothetically ready to host him as long as needed, we were not actually able to host him any longer. Even when our indirect communication started becoming more and more direct, he still wasn’t getting it. No, we realized, we’d need to find some way to kick our guest out and still save some face for all parties involved. 

The answer came through a teammate. They were shocked to learn that a local had actually stayed with us for over a week. This was not normal, even for locals hosting other locals. Something was off. This teammate suggested that our family take a trip out of town, and thereby force our guest to figure out different lodging. Thankfully, we did have a trip we had been needing to take to a different city for some government business. By bumping it up a little, we had found a way out. In our local culture, having guests is the kind of thing you can use to get out of almost anything. But if you need to get out of having guests, apparently, having a trip is the magic escape key.

Jonathan did not take the news of our departure very well, seeming at last to understand that we really weren’t holding out on him and we really couldn’t help him in the way he had hoped. He told me that he didn’t have enough money to afford more than a couple of nights at a cheap bazaar hotel and that none of his friends were willing to host him. So, we helped him pay for a night or two at a little hole-in-the-wall hotel. 

As I dropped him off late at night, I felt bad for Jonathan. He seemed pretty down. Things were still respectful between us overall, which I was thankful for. Jonathan still vacillated in his speech between a strange bluntness and an odd propriety. But he did, in the end, say the things he was supposed to say as a guest. We also did our best to tell him how honored we were to host him – even if we were by that point on the verge of tears of utter exhaustion. 

That night, in the absence of feet in the sink, 3 am smoke breaks, and snoring heads poking in the door, my family slept like the dead. 

Looking back, I’m still not exactly sure what to make of Jonathan’s stay with us that summer. Perhaps he was simply wired to miss the normal social cues governing most local hospitality? Perhaps we were sending the wrong signals? It was hard to say, but the fact that he couldn’t find any local friends to host him was an indicator that it wasn’t just us. It seems that Jonathan had overstayed his welcome with others before as well. That meant that he was either of the type who had learned to abuse the local culture of hospitality, or that perhaps something else was going on that meant that, even though he was a local, he didn’t really know (or sense) the rules.

Believe it or not, we did have Jonathan stay with us a couple more times after all of this. But I had learned my lesson and was clear to tell him a certain number of nights we could host, one or two, and to set expectations accordingly. This sort of approach seemed to go much better.

And I think we would still host him if he ever came to Caravan City, albeit with some fear and trepidation. And boundaries. Very clear boundaries.

In all this, we learned that in a culture that extends lavish offers of (often unsustainable) hospitality, there will always be people who, wittingly or unwittingly, take advantage of this. Finding kind and honorable ways out of this is therefore a top priority for all who attempt to extend these offers that most take hypothetically. Because some will take you literally.

When that happens, you just might have to put some salt in their shoes. Or, in case that doesn’t work (and it probably won’t), you can always do as we did – and make an honorable run for it.

*Names changed for security

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization. 

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. 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.com

Stop Worrying About the Percentage of Foreigners

Sometimes the missionary community is very concerned about something that, in the end, is simply not that big of a deal. I’m becoming more and more convinced that the foreigners-to-locals ratio in church plants and ministry groups on the mission field is one of these things being given undue weight.

The logic of this concern initially makes a lot of sense. The idea is that if locals are outnumbered by foreigners, then locals will sense that this gathering does not really belong to them, and they will not take the ownership needed for true long-term indigeneity. If too many foreigners are there, the thinking goes, it will somehow contaminate or undermine even the spiritual power of a particular gathering.

Hence, missionaries (at least in our corner of Central Asia) bring up this ratio quite often when discussing whether or not they or others should be a part of a particular church service or Bible study. Just this week, I had a friend tell me he’d like to come to an evangelistic discussion we’ve started hosting at our home, but only if there weren’t already too many foreigners.

But here’s the issue with this assumption about ratios. Too many foreigners only seems to be a problem if those foreigners present keep on using English and letting Western culture dictate the rules of the gathering. Yes, of course, if that is happening, then many locals will intuit that this gathering is a foreign thing, and it will likely only serve the minority of locals who already want to put on Western culture and use English. This may be a fine start for an international, English-speaking church. But this sort of gathering will, in all likelihood, fail to be very effective with the majority of locals and fail to ever transition to a truly indigenous group.

But what happens when the foreigners in a gathering like this are committed to using the local language and following the local culture as much as possible? And if they constantly vision cast for a day when that church or gathering will be majority-local and local-led? In that case, a large ratio of foreigners doesn’t seem to negatively affect a long-term trajectory toward indigeneity. In fact, it may even be a help toward this end.

Our church plant in Poet City had a foreign majority at most of its gatherings for the first five years or so of its existence. This was true even though, from the very beginning, we were all committed to learning the local language and culture and seeking to model faithfulness to Jesus within these local expressions. For years, we were somewhat disheartened and concerned about the fact that so many church meetings had more Americans in the room than Central Asians.

What we didn’t realize was that we were simply providing the needed core around which local believers would eventually be able to stabilize and mature. Then, a couple of years ago, some kind of threshold was passed, perhaps related to a large enough contingent of mature local members and our first local elder. Now, the locals in every service easily outnumber the foreigners by a large majority.

Because of the serious spiritual instability of our locals who come to faith out of a Muslim background, as well as their deep need to see faithfulness concretely modeled over the long term, I might even go as far as to say it was an advantage to have our previous church plant be majority-foreigner for so long. This seemingly less-likely path toward indigeneity has, in the end, gotten closer to its goal than other attempts that tried to protect indigeneity by not allowing other foreigners to take part.

Many missionaries would have looked at that church five or six years ago and doubted that it was really on its way toward becoming an indigenous church. There were simply too many foreigners present. But visit one of their services today, and it becomes clear that this body has matured to the point where it will keep faithfully humming along, even if no foreigners are present anymore. In fact, this summer, that very thing took place.

Is this merely anecdotal evidence? Well, I find it curious that instead of focusing on ethnic ratios, the Bible seems more concerned about the use of a common language (and translation when needed) when it comes to church plant order and health (1 Cor 14). Nowhere are we commanded to make sure that Jews remain a small minority, for example, in the churches in Gentile regions, or vice versa. Instead, believers are pointed to Paul’s example of becoming all things to all men (1 Cor 9:19-23), instructed to love one another in similar ways (1 Cor 13), and told to make sure everyone in the service can understand what is going on (1 Cor 14). Our assumption that the ethnic optics of the room are what really matter seems to be out of touch with the New Testament here. We should ask ourselves where these beliefs about the visuals are coming from.

Who cares if the room looks majority White Westerner for a while? Are locals being edified in their mother tongue? Are they coming to faith and growing in spiritual maturity? Are the foreigners seeking to model and mentor how to navigate the local culture as Christians, and pursuing genuine spiritual friendships with the local believers? These are the kinds of factors that make the difference, not policing some kind of optics ratio.

Is there wisdom in gauging whether a majority of foreign Christians is undermining future indigeneity? Yes, of course. But I would contend that the real issue is not the mere presence of foreigners, but rather what kind of posture those missionaries are taking. Our locals say, “You can’t block out the sun with a sieve.” Faithful spiritual work will, in time, bear good fruit, even if that work is done by those who are visually different from the locals. The superficial optics of a room where there are more foreigners than locals might feel quite significant, but in the end, it’s more like a thin sieve. The light will get through.

Friends, let’s stop worrying so much about the percentage of foreigners in local church plants and ministries on the mission field. This is a concern that is given far too much weight in our missionary conversations about strategy and tactics. Instead, let’s focus on all foreigners involved serving the locals by putting on the local language and culture. Let’s strive to model biblical faithfulness, authority, and friendship, and see, in the end, what might grow from this.

It may look odd, or even awkward, for a while. “Why are we all operating in the local language and culture when only two locals came today?” However, let’s not forget that all of us mature adults were once awkward and gangly teenagers. We know that looking or feeling odd for a season is no indicator that maturity isn’t coming.

In fact, it’s a sign that maturity is on its way.

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can give here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization. 

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. 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 Wikimedia Commons