My wife and I are now many years into our journey of learning and using the delightful and difficult language of our Central Asian people group. Along the way, we have made some cringe-worthy and hilarious mistakes. I remember reading in CJ Mahaney’s book, Humility, that being able to laugh at yourself is a good way to grow in being less prideful. So in that vein, I present to you our list of epic language mistakes.
“Then Jesus sat down next to the canary and began to teach about the kingdom of God.” The words for shore and canary are extremely close! I said this while teaching in church.
“The squeegee is our peace!” I meant to say that Christ is our peace… again, squeegee and Christ are painfully close, hinging on a throaty “h” sound that is quite hard for us to pull off.
“Thanks so much for the monkeys!” When we were trying to say thanks so much for your hospitality.
“But where are the monkey’s people from? Where are the monkey’s people?!” I had not yet learned that asking where someone is from literally means asking where their people are, whereas another phrase is used for objects and animals.
“This is so tasteless!” I was trying to tell my friend’s mom how delicious her food was without yet understanding how an”ey” and “ah” prefix vowel reverses the meaning of an adjective.
“You are drunk!” When trying to say, “May your head be blessed!”
“My death.” Instead of “My husband.”
“I’d like the fat chicken, please.” Definitely meant to say the boiled chicken.
“We live behind the frogs of spring.” Actually lived behind Spring Apartments.
“How much Islamic Law should I fry for the rice?” Noodles, little noodles, not Islamic Law…
“Please turn to song sixty sixty.” The local believers never let me live this one down, snickering for the next year every time anyone in our group said sixty six.
(Singing) “I only want you, Tanya!” Who’s Tanya? And isn’t this supposed to be a worship song?
“How old is your donkey? May his years be long.” When trying to ask about the age of a man’s son…
In conclusion, please be merciful to those learning your language. And if you are learning another language, be sure to laugh. A lot.
P.S. If there are other language learners out there, please feel free to leave your own language bloopers in the comments for our mutual edification.
There I stood at the counter, like a tree kangaroo in the headlights. The fast food worker in his visor and apron was clearly a little perturbed.
“Wait, I get to choose what bread I want? Um… what kinds do you have?” I did my best to make sense of the various options I was given, nodding as if I had actually heard of them before. “Um… Italian!”
“Cheese,” the worker then mumbled.
“Oh no,” I thought to myself, I have to choose the cheese too?” So I asked again, “Uh, sorry, what kinds of cheese are there?”
The worker sighed and rattled off, “American, cheddar, provolone, pepper jack.”
“…Cheddar, I guess.”
“Veggies?”
What was with this place? Didn’t they know that they, as the ones who work at the restaurant, are the ones responsible for making these decisions, expertly putting together delicious flavor combinations so that I could just pick the one that looks the most delicious from its picture? Why were they asking me to do their job for them?
“Sauces? Toasted?” This guy was relentless! And I was getting nervous. I noticed one of my new classmates nearby was clearly enjoying this exchange. Time to bring in an interpreter.
I whispered, “Laura! Is this normal? Help!” Laura composed herself, graciously intervened, and helped me navigate the rest of the unnecessarily-complicated sandwich process.
I, a missionary kid from Melanesia, had now ordered my first Subway sandwich ever. It was a decent sandwich, but I have to admit I was a bit rattled. It took me a while before I was ready to brave the Subway sandwich interrogation line again. Perhaps this even played into my working later for the competition, Jimmy Johns.
The most daunting place for a missionary kid is their passport country, the country which is supposed to be their home. This is because Missionary kids (MKs, or Third-Culture Kids – TCKs) thrive in the role of the obvious outsider. They have grown up in countries and cultures where it’s clear that they are foreigners, and thus shouldn’t be expected to know the unwritten rules. Most cultures give a certain grace to outsiders, and MKs find themselves at ease in this kind of relationship. They are glad to play the respectful learner and guest. Many cultures also give a certain honor to those outsiders who have surprisingly assimilated, and MKs also thrive in playing this role. It’s just plain fun to be a foreign kid who is able to speak the local language, cook local food, and play local games.
But when MKs come back to their parents’ country, they are often expected to be cultural insiders. The fact is they are not cultural insiders. While their parents have passed on some aspects of their home culture, there are big gaps. MKs in their home culture can sense that there are unwritten rules functioning, things they’re expected to pick up on, but they’re not picking up on them. And no one has spelled them out. They can feel like they are in one of those dreams where it’s exam day, but somehow you showed up for the test without studying, and then you realize you’re not even wearing any pants. MKs are very adaptable, and might play it off like none of this is happening internally, but these dynamics are often present, especially from junior high through the college years. They aren’t as much of an issue for younger MKs, who are mostly free to enjoy the strange adventures of the motherland as a kinfolk-filled curiosity.
Why is it so hard for MKs to seamlessly pick up on the culture of their passport country? It probably has to do with the nature of culture itself, which is fluid and regularly changing, and with the way in which culture is typically learned – more by osmosis than by direct teaching. Learning culture just takes time, years of it. When I would share in my college years in the US that I grew up overseas, I would often get an “Oh, that makes sense!” response. It took quite a few years before the responses shifted to, “Oh, really? Wouldn’t have guessed it.” Over time, you assimilate, you “catch” things you were missing or someone just spells it out for you. “I was supposed to be tipping my barbers this whole time? Oh, no!”
If you get to spend time with MKs who are back in their home country on furlough/stateside or for school, there are ways you can help. You can offer to be a safe interpreter. Not all MKs are the same, of course, but for many it would be very kind and appropriate if you offered to field any and all questions they might have about their home country. Ask if there are things they find confusing or strange, or even difficult. Try to be observant of MKs in situations where they might be feeling out of place or unsure of what to do or say. Offer to go with them if they’re attempting something for the first time. If they get embarrassed, try to engage, ignore, or laugh with them as seems most kind for that particular person and situation. Like an employee in a retail store who asks if you need any help finding things, you might get rejected at first, but if you invite communication, you just may find your MK friend coming back to you later with some good questions.
We MKs and TCKs are a complicated bunch, but just like anyone else, we need good friends who will take the time to talk and listen and process… and occasionally help us order sandwiches.
To support our family as we head back to the field, click here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8 ESV)
In the summer of 2017, I hosted an experimental English poetry group in my living room. I’ve written previously about how my Central Asian students were asked to wrestle with the messages of Herbert and Henley, among other famous English poets. Some students showed up for the English practice, but dramatically bemoaned the fact that we had to study poems. One older man came primarily to demonstrate his skill at pulling secret and hidden meanings out of poems, like so many rabbits out of a hat. When this happened, the rest of us were typically left scratching our heads and trying to graciously move the discussion on.
But one student in particular continuously responded well to the poems and questions that drove at biblical themes. His name was Aaron*, and by the end of the summer, I knew if I followed up with any of my students, it should be this guy. He showed a resonance with the humility of Herbert’s Love III, the mortality of Shelley’s Ozymandias, and the questions of missed opportunities and fate raised by Frost’s The Road Not Taken. But after our poetry group disbanded and normal English classes began again, Aaron disappeared. Still, I waited and wondered what might come of the stirrings I thought I saw in his eyes when we had discussed poems like The Universe As Primal Scream. Could the Spirit be working in his heart, preparing him to keep following these themes into a study of the Bible?
One year later, Aaron unexpectedly reappeared. He was a student in one of my colleague’s classes, but he mentioned how much he had enjoyed the poetry cohort the year before. He invited me to spend time with him and his group of friends. Eager to see if my sense of Aaron’s spiritual sensitivity was accurate, I readily agreed on the plan. I wondered if he had been chewing on some of the topics we had discussed in the months that had passed since our poetry group disbanded.
Not long into the visit, however, I was disappointed. Aaron and his two college friends were very kind and hospitable, but just didn’t seem to want to take the conversation in more serious directions whenever I tried to do so. The conversation was fun and pleasant, but not what I was hoping it would be. I wondered if we were just hanging out so that they could sharpen their English skills, nothing more. As I had done so many times before, I prayed. “Lord, if you will turn the conversation and open the door, I will step through it.” The evening hours passed, we grilled chicken, ate sunflower seeds, and enjoyed the cool air of Aaron’s family’s picnic house (nestled into a cooler neighboring valley). But the conversation about spiritual things wasn’t happening.
I had already given up the evening as lost regarding gospel conversation when we transitioned inside because the night was getting chilly. Some nights, you just trust in the sovereignty of God that the relationship-building will somehow be a part of eventual fruit, even if you didn’t get to share much truth. Then, out of nowhere, sometime around 12:30 a.m., Aaron’s friends started talking about the things in Islam that really frustrated them. Aaron joined in, though not as enthusiastically as his friends. They asked me my opinion about the topics they were discussing and what exactly it was that I believed. I quickly tried to rally my thoughts. Here, unexpectedly, was the open door.
I remember sharing with Aaron and his friends in detail about the difference between gospel and religion, a major theme when I find myself sharing with Muslims. Whereas Islam and all other religions promise salvation if you’ve done good enough and your good has outweighed your bad, the good news of Jesus promises salvation based on what Jesus has already accomplished for us in his death and resurrection. It is the contrast of a paycheck vs. a gift, a contract vs. a covenant, an employee vs. a son, a conditional salvation vs. a salvation safe and guaranteed by God’s own promise of pardon.
As I dug into these topics, I noticed that Aaron wasn’t really interested. Maybe I had misjudged what was going on in his heart – it would certainly not be the first time that had happened. Aaron’s second friend, by this point, had actually fallen asleep. Too much chicken and not enough chai. But the other young man, Darius*, was sitting, mouth wide open and eyes transfixed. He was tracking every single word I said. I started focusing more on Darius, sharing more and more aspects of the gospel and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. He had very few questions, but it was clear the wheels of his mind were turning. Later, Darius shared with me that he knew that evening that his search was over. God had confirmed in his heart that whatever this following Jesus thing meant, he needed to do it.
We hung out several times more, but Aaron and the second friend slowly drifted away, while Darius kept coming back for more and more conversation. He started visiting our fledgling church plant and again sat mouth agape, stunned by this small circle of locals and foreigners worshiping Jesus together and studying the Word.
Trying to discern how the Holy Spirit is moving is a tricky business, not unlike trying to see the wind. The man I was so convinced was the one being drawn was actually not interested at the end of the day. But his best friend was. At some point around 1 a.m., at a picnic house in the mountains, the Holy Spirit landed in power and arrested Darius where he sat, munching on sunflower seeds. I’m not sure at what point exactly he came to faith, but a few months later, it was crystal clear. Darius was a new creation. God saved the guy next to the guy that I was focused on. Maybe the whole poetry group a year before was just so that I would get the chance to meet Darius. How strange and wonderful.
Darius continues to grow in his faith to this day.
In my senior year of high school some friends and I accidentally climbed a mountain without the necessary tribal permissions. We were summarily chased out of the area by a group of tribesmen armed with bows and arrows and machetes. Thankfully, a long flatbed Mazda truck came along just in time for us to hitch a ride out of the offended tribal area and toward the capitol of the province, where we lived. We had made it out and we relaxed, thinking the excitement was over. These flatbed trucks were ubiquitous in the highlands of the Melanesian country I grew up in. They were perfect for transporting sacks of coffee beans or groups of villagers to and from the town markets. The one we had caught was loaded up with maybe twenty villagers, a few sacks of produce, and one piglet. For some reason the piglet’s devoted villager “mama” (pigs are a valuable and often much-loved commodity in this country) decided that it was time for this little piggy to take its first trip to the market.
The ride started out pleasant enough. The thrill of a near-escape, the sun shining down, the tribal melodic chanting rising and falling in ancestral rhythm as we wound down the dirt mountain roads. But then the little piglet started feeling carsick. Unfortunately for me, the piglet and his mama were sitting right next to me, our backs to the metal sidewall of the truck bed and our legs crossed or squatting on the worn wooden planks of the floor. Soon the little pig couldn’t take it any more and promptly vomited his lunch onto the floor of the truck bed. Immediately villagers and missionary kids all grimaced in unison at the foul little clumpy puddle now in front of us. Even with the fresh breeze from the moving truck, the smell was overpowering. Who knew such a small swine-ling could cough up something so horrifically potent? The piglet’s mama, sensing the need to do something, grabbed an empty plastic rice sack and started smearing the vomit in concentric circles on the floor, in a vain attempt to try to clean it up. The rice sack was the kind made from weaving small strands of plastic together, which meant it was basically worthless for soaking up any of the vomit. In fact, this effort likely made things worse, the vomit being merely rubbed into the wooden planks.
It wasn’t long before the little piglet started feeling sick again. Desperate to prevent another throw-up puddle, the piglet’s mama firmly latched her hand around the pig’s little snout, determined to keep it shut. The piglet, alarmed by this development, started screaming and thrashing its head back and forth, and proceeded to vomit into its mouth. Instead of a new puddle on the floor of the truck bed, those of us close by were hit with a spray of flying vomit, machine-gunned across our torsos. Shock and dismay ensued. To make things worse we drove into a rainstorm, which meant the villagers pulled out the customary blue tarp which we held over our heads as a makeshift roof, effectively creating a blue sauna of colorful odors – piglet vomit being the preeminent flavor.
I’ll never forget that scene – there under the blue light of the tarpaulin, the rain pounding on plastic, the piglet’s mama still scrubbing away fruitlessly.
It’s a scene that comes to mind when I read Colossians 2:20-23:
[20] If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—[21] “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” [22] (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? [23] These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (ESV)
It is utterly futile to fight the flesh with religious human rules (“Do not handle, taste, touch”), just like a village mama vainly trying to clean pig vomit with a scrunched-up plastic bag. It simply won’t work, and will likely make things worse as the uncleanness gets spread to new areas. No, to fight the flesh we must fight it with a new heart, made alive through faith in Jesus. And once we have that new heart we must fight by continuing to daily “put on” Christ, remembering his promises, believing them, and acting based on them. Only when we persevere in this gospel-powered battle against the flesh will we see lasting victory against the indulgence of the flesh.
[1] If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. [2] Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. [3] For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. [4] When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. [5] Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. [6] On account of these the wrath of God is coming. [7] In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. [8] But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. [9] Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices [10] and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. [11] Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Col 3:1-11 ESV)
As I listen to the pagan pundits of Western culture, I am also reminded of this futility. The new Western morality continues to be built, law upon law, in an effort to stamp out certain evils. Thus, Westerners are told that they must not be racists, they must not be sexists, they must not be -phobes of any stripe, etc., etc. And some of these line up admirably with biblical morality, depending on the definitions. The problem is that there is no actual power in our pagan Western morality to change the human heart or the flesh’s addiction to indulgence. The flesh loves to indulge in hating others, among other things, but the culture continues to declare more and more segments of humanity off-limits for hate. Yet the culture provides no internal power strong enough to change the source and roots of the hate itself. Thus the only possible outcome is that the hate is smeared around, like so much pig vomit on the floor, and forced to find another outlet, another channel for release.
I believe this is one reason why westerners hate the figures of the past so much. In a world of ever-more specific subcultures that will “cancel” you if you say something that could possibly be interpreted against them, the dead present an easy target. After all, the dead don’t speak, and they certainly can’t shame you on twitter and get you fired. But whereas some might hesitate to dehumanize a contemporary, breathing human, most find it easy to dehumanize the humans who are already six feet under. Moreover, the humans of past ages lived when the popular morality differed significantly from ours. So we can feel morally superior and downplay our own sins under the cover of denunciations for the dead’s blindspots. It’s a massive game of hypocrisy. Everything we are told not to do to our contemporaries we are cheered on for doing against our great-grandparents’ generation.
Scratch a legalist, and you will find hidden and gross immorality. This saying is trustworthy (I may have first heard it from a Paul Washer sermon). Scratch a contemporary Westerner, with all their anti-hate rhetoric, and you will find hidden and gross hatred, especially for the humans of the past. Humans who were just like us, with their own blindspots, their own failings, their own progress. A humanity no more mixed than ours, full of pharisees and lawbreakers and those from both camps who were born again and working hard to advance the kingdom of God. In short, a humanity that can only be understood in light of a biblical anthropology, where all humans have dignity because we are made in the image of God, yet we are broken and capable of horrific evil because of our sinful nature and actions. We are, in the name of the Civil War novel, truly Killer Angels. This Biblical anthropology means Christians can have heroes from the past and openly acknowledge their grievous blindspots. It means we don’t have to take part in some kind of Maoist cultural revolution where we purge society of the memory of anyone associated with certain grievous sins like slavery. It means Christians can be model historians, showing our culture how to hold respect and lament for the actions of our dead heroes in tension. Not white-washing, not demonizing, just honest history that faces the good, the bad, and the ugly, and is open about what we owe our broken forebears.
I am a Baptist by creed, which means that some of my heroes (such as the Protestant reformers), may have wanted to have me drowned in a lake as they drowned the Anabaptists, “like so many puppies.” Does this mean I shouldn’t read and respect Zwingli and Calvin for what they got right? Augustine might have wanted to use the power of the Roman state to arrest me if I were to preach in public. Should I burn The Confessions? The founders of my alma mater may have found me an intolerable Yankee abolitionist. Should I demand we erase their names from campus buildings when every student, white or black, benefits financially from the endowment they fought so hard to establish, not to mention their theological legacy?
Instead of hating the figures of the past for their failings, Christians can model a better way, one which seeks to honor the complexity of fallen humanity soberly, giving honor where honor is due and yes, even adjusting public displays as appropriate. But there is a world of difference between putting a statue in a museum and cutting its head off. A Western culture that demands cleansing of public spaces of problematic names is a culture trying to cleanse pig vomit with a plastic bag. It’s not going to work. The hatred will not be cleansed and satisfied. It will merely be smeared around.
I’ve written previously on *Hama’s dream about Jesus and first time taking communion. This is the story of how I met Hama, my first friend in Central Asia. It is frankly amazing how eternity can hinge on something as small as a guitar peg.
I met Hama on November 26th, 2007. I was nineteen. I had only been in Central Asia for about two weeks and was hoping and praying to find a local friend. Since I could sort of play “the four golden chords” of evangelical worship songs (G, D, Em, C), my team asked me if I would be willing to play guitar for our weekly worship time. They managed to find a beater guitar from somewhere which was short one plastic peg to hold in one of its strings. So, I decided to trudge off to the bazaar to try and find one. My language was very limited at the time and since I didn’t even know the correct term in English, I had a really difficult time trying to explain to the shopkeepers just what it was that I was looking for. I was butchering phrases in the local language in a small dark shop with violins, sitars, and Central Asian tambourines hanging on the walls, when someone called in a tall smiling man, maybe thirty years old.
“What ya ‘on about, man?”
Hama proceeded to ask me in his thick street-British accent (quite the unexpected juxtaposition in our corner of Central Asia) who I was and just what it was I was looking for.
I explained my quest to him and we set off to the various music shops to find this guitar peg. The shop that had them was closed for a little while for the afternoon lull, so Hama invited me to one of the local tea houses. We ordered some chai and started talking and I found out that Hama had been a refugee in the UK for six years, in Leeds, England, which was where he got his thick accent from. “I learnt English from the violence people,” is what he kept on telling me, referring to the Leeds drinking crowd, meaning that his English was regularly interspersed with four-letter words, especially when he was very angry or very happy.
As we sipped our piping hot tea from minuscule glass teacups, and I tried not to burn my American tongue, Hama turned to me.
“Bleepin’ bleep, man! I’m so bleepin’ happy we met!”
I smiled at Hama through the cigarette haze and crashing noises of domino games in the tea house, hoping he wouldn’t see that, yes, my eyes were watering because I had indeed burnt my tongue on the tea. I didn’t know it at the time, but Hama was going through some intense reverse culture shock after returning to his homeland in order to get married. Rough as England was for him, he deeply missed having western friends.
It looked very different than I had expected, but God had also answered my prayer and brought me a friend. We had no idea the ride we were in for.
A few summers ago I hosted a summer poetry class for interested Central Asian students. Poetry is notorious as the hardest expression of any language to understand, but a brave crew of students made it through the summer. Together we surveyed some of the most famous and impactful poems of the English language. In each session we first worked through the basic meaning of the lines, then we would spend some time debating the message of the poem, and finally whether or not the students agreed or disagreed with that message. I finished the summer with these two poems, whose moral posture couldn’t be more contradictory. When asked whether my Muslim Central Asian students resonated with Henley or with Herbert, a fascinating discussion ensued, one which gave hints about which students might be experiencing initial conviction of sin.
What about you? Do you resonate with Henley or with Herbert? To allude to yet another famous poem, Henly and Herbert could be represented as two roads that diverge in a yellow wood. And you can’t take them both.
Invictus, William Earnest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
Love III, George Herbert
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
Props to poetryfoundation.org for the access to these poems
We recently moved cities and left our previous team. It was hard to leave because after three years of teaming together, things were good. Now, we had certainly had our seasons of team storming and conflict. Some of them were quite intense. Sometimes we wanted to pull out our hair in frustration at yet another miscommunication or disagreement over next steps. But as we left in preparation to come alongside a different team in a new city, it was hard because we were leaving more than teammates, we were leaving our friends.
There were many things that God was doing in us and in spite of us to keep our team together through those difficult years of seeing a small church planted in our previous city up in the mountains. Some would be unique to us and not reproducible. But there would be a few things that could be implemented by other teams of believers who have a vision to grow towards being a healthy team. Today I want to mention one eminently practical piece of team unity – the humble kabob. Well, not just the kabob, but the idea of regularly eating together as a normal part of team life and culture. As my former team leader put it, at the end of the day, we always enjoyed eating together. We ate together regularly as a team, even if we were just coming from a meeting full of intense debate, even when it was hard to make eye contact with the person you had just upset in the last discussion. We had a favorite local restaurant where we could always go and get a big plate of local spicy kabob and flatbread for around $3. Always followed by hot, sugary Central Asian chai. So yes, that definitely helped.
This principle of eating food regularly together is not rocket science, nor is it a novel idea. But when you dig into the theological significance of breaking bread together, you are wading in deep waters. Consider that the tree of life bore fruit, a meal which when eaten, gave eternal life. The fall into sin came by a meal shared at the other tree, that of the knowledge of good and evil. God enacted covenants with his people through meals, such as that at Sinai with the seventy elders of Israel, and he reminded his people of their covenant relationship through divinely-ordained feasts. God fed his people in the wilderness with miraculous bread from heaven and later we find out that Jesus is the true bread come down from heaven, the bread of life. Did you know that the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle repeated in all four gospels? Then we are given the Lord’s Supper as a meal to remember Jesus and to look forward to his return, when history will be consummated with the marriage supper of the lamb. And this is just scratching the surface. You could even say that food is at the center of our very salvation, key to our reconciliation to God and to one another. So it makes sense that it would be an important part of team unity.
This kind of advice could be easily dismissed because of how simple it is. Yet I know from experience that some teams do not have a regular time where they are eating together. And they are worse off for it. I cannot parse exactly what is going on spiritually and relationally when we eat in one another’s presence, but it has to do with trust, peace, friendship, service, respect, and even joy. The mutual enjoyment of sustenance perhaps provides tangible common ground that can complement spiritual common ground, which can make all the difference when the relational side of things is feeling frayed. I find myself recalling a pastor from a more liturgical tradition once waving his hand in a service and saying, “This too is a mystery.” Indeed, a delicious mystery.
Is your team scheduled to regularly eat together? If not, why not? Why not use the restart which emerging from Covid-19 provides us to build in this kind of practice? Experiment. I’ll bet you some kabob that you will be a happier team because of it.
It was 1:00 am in Richmond, VA, 2015. I was sitting next to a young Middle Eastern immigrant, reminiscing about what we missed about his native region. This young man was in an enviable situation, one which many are in fact dying to achieve as they freeze to death in refrigerated lorries or drown in the waters of the Aegean. My friend had legal residency in the USA, was going to a good university, and had a steady job at his uncle’s Mediterranean restaurant. As we talked and sipped black tea (loaded with egregious amounts of sugar), the topic of ISIS came up. At that point they still controlled an area of the Middle East comparable to the size of many countries. While we spoke, this young man confessed to me that he watched ISIS propaganda videos and followed some of their accounts. And, in spite of everything, his heart was stirred. He still insisted that their violence did not represent true Islam, but it was clear that there was a powerful resonance in their message, one which at the very least caused some measure of internal doubt and wavering for a young Muslim with a promising future in the West.
There’s a good reason young men (and women) from all over the world joined ISIS, and continue to join it and similar groups. It has nothing to do with them being uneducated or from impoverished backgrounds, as is sometimes reported in the media. In fact, most who volunteer for jihadist groups are actually well-educated and from middle class or upper class families. Instead, many join because of a powerful understanding of history that goes like this: creation, fall, redemption, restoration.
No, I’m not speaking of that redemptive history, which begins with God’s creation of a good world, which then falls into a curse through man’s sin, a world that is redeemed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is now restoring all things, culminating in a new creation. That’s the original and true metanarrative, wonderfully fleshed out in the recent wave of biblical theology texts and children’s story book bibles. I am instead speaking of a diabolical hijacking of that story. It goes something like this. Creation: Long ago there was a united and just society, the Islamic Ummah. This society, established by God and led by the caliph, ruled a huge empire and ushered in an unprecedented age of justice and enlightenment. Fall: Sadly, this world was undermined by the scheming of pagan Western nations, who finally divided the Islamic Ummah and ended the caliphate at the close of WWI. The Muslims of the world have been under the curse of foreign domination and internal division ever since. They have strayed far from the teachings and lifestyle of Mohammad. Redemption: This tragic situation can be redeemed if faithful Muslims from all over the world are willing to sacrificially return to the true teachings and lifestyle of early Islam, spilling their blood in noble jihad to restore the caliphate once again. Restoration: The blood of the martyrs will lead to victory and a renewed caliphate, which will once again rule the world in righteousness and usher in the day of judgment and the resurrection of the dead. Cue the epic music and visuals and you have a very moving propaganda video, especially for those who have felt any sense of inferiority as Muslims.
What exactly does the secular West have to combat a powerful metanarrative like this? Be true to yourself? Follow your heart? YOLO? Human rights because… Nazis are bad? Story after story of Western converts to Islam contain the same line, “I found my partying and my secularism to be empty. In Islam I found meaning and purpose.” Many young Muslims, like people everywhere, want to be part of something greater than themselves. When an individualistic pursuit of pleasure or success comes up empty (and it always does), when a community experiences oppression (real or perceived), the metanarratives beckon, promising purpose, redemption, and eternal life. This is bad news for a Western world too jaded to believe in metanarratives anymore. The West pumps trillions of dollars into stopping Islamic extremism and yet only succeeds in tripling the global number of jihadist fighters. Sure, the West has better physical weaponry, but when it comes to ideology, they’ve brought their Beyonce CDs to a gun fight – at least when it comes to the radical minority that is awake to the desire for glory, honor, and immortality (Rom 2:7).
Once or twice I have tongue-in-cheek explained my job as taking potential ISIS recruits and turning them instead into Southern Baptists. No, this is not exactly what is going on, but there is a grain of truth to this playful distortion. The scriptures reveal to us the one true account of redemptive history, the authentic story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. We have access to the only metanarrative that can cut deeper to the heart of a young radicalized Muslim than the sermons of the late Al-Baghdadi. Sadly, as things currently stand many will never hear this true account, but only the hijacked version. As much as it is up to us, then, let us resolve that every potential jihadi recruit has the chance to hear the gospel in a language he can understand, and from the mouth of a believing friend.
“So, you go to seminary school. What’s that all about?”
There it was, the opening I had been seeking for months. Handed to me out of nowhere while I did the dishes at the restaurant sink. I blinked, then stammered, and went for it.
While in college, I had gotten a job as a delivery driver for a local branch of Jimmy Johns, the sandwich shop chain that prides itself on “freaky fast” delivery. I didn’t know how much of a cross-cultural experience I was in for. Because the area of our restaurant was full of hip bars and nightclubs, I worked mainly the nightshift, delivering sandwiches to famished partiers at the bar or those having just returned home, as long as they didn’t pass out before I made it to them. There were many quiet hospital staff deliveries as well, but also the runs where inebriated twenty-somethings requested that I toss the sandwich through their second story window and they throw the cash down. They were too drunk to make it down the stairs. My manager kept our shop temperature at near-freezing to deal with the recurring problem of the intoxicated coming in to buy a sandwich and falling asleep at one of our tables. The freezing temperature trick was actually quite effective. But I, as the only Christian working in that restaurant, did not feel very effective.
My American coworkers were all unchurched or post-Christian, most were drug users, some were alcoholics, others were LGBTQ or living with their partner. On more than one occasion, coworkers were arrested for drug possession. I, on the other hand, was a missionary kid who grew up in Melanesia, spent time in the Middle East, and was now going to the undergrad of a Southern Baptist seminary. I hung out with refugees and believers from many cultures, but I had the hardest time knowing how to connect with the younger, unchurched crowd from my “own” culture. There were many times I wished for my dad’s counsel, who had passed away many years before. He had grown up an unchurched American, was radically saved, yet never forgot how to connect with the partiers for the sake of the gospel. When I hung out with internationals, bridges to spiritual conversation seemed to overflow like the facial hair of an Assyrian monarch on an ancient stone relief. But when the topics of conversations were about parties, sleeping around, slasher movies, and hiphop artists I had never heard of, I just found myself at a loss.
Discouraged, I returned to the kinds of prayers I had lifed up many times in settings where I was insecure in my identity and didn’t know how to get to gospel conversation.
Lord, you know I want to share the gospel with my coworkers. But, I just don’t know how. I don’t know how to find a door in the conversation. But if you make one, I will step through it. I could force one, but somehow that doesn’t feel right. Would you turn the conversation? Would you help me?
I can’t remember how many times I prayed this prayer while I did the dishes, mopped the bathroom floor, or returned from another 3 a.m delivery in my beat up ’95 Honda Civic. How could I share the gospel with Middle Eastern Muslims and yet be so clueless when it came to people my own age in my own country? I kept on praying, tried to work hard, reported all my tips (much to the confusion of my supervisors), and tried to listen well. Sooner or later a door would open.
Then late one night, a slower shift than usual as I recall, a kind lesbian coworker asked me about seminary school. God had opened the door. I don’t remember much of the conversation that followed, but I know that I got a chance to speak of my faith in Jesus and my motivations for studying the Bible. My coworker must have spread the news of our strange conversation around, because it wasn’t long until some kind of switch flipped and all my coworkers started asking not only about seminary, but also about why I didn’t under-report my tips, and (scandalous!) why I was waiting until marriage to sleep with my fiancée. This final topic evoked quite a bit of interest, not unlike a team of anthropologists encountering a member of an unknown tribe for the very first time.
God had graciously opened the door, and then he kept on opening it. I got to share the gospel many times with my coworkers. They wanted to know what the Bible really said about being gay and about drugs and they even wanted to know about my experiences sharing the gospel in the Middle East. Coworkers started talking amongst themselves about their beliefs and their upbringings, even when I wasn’t involved in the conversation. They started joking that my presence alone caused everyone to start talking on cue about God and Jesus, “like some kind of #!@/ reverend of Jimmy Johns!” Through these conversations and friendships that developed we even got to set up a meeting between my pastors and a local chapter of the Gay-Straight Alliance where we were able to share extensive gospel truth.
Truth be told, I don’t know if any of my coworkers have come to faith from that strange season of sandwich delivery. My hope is that some of the seeds planted will one day sprout to life. I don’t even know that I learned much about how to connect well with my unchurched American peers. But I saw yet again how gracious God is to us when we approach him as needy evangelists, full of desire and yet just not sure how to share the gospel effectively. I still find myself often praying that prayer, most recently while meeting with a local teacher in the middle of the month of Ramadan, as we sat together in a shady green garden. He wanted to talk about politics and culture. Somehow the conversation spiraled in to rich gospel content. Just like Jimmy Johns, God had done it again.
Lord, if you will turn the conversation, if you will open the door, I will step through it...
p.s. If anyone living in areas with a strong bar scene wants to start up an evangelistic ministry, there is a great opportunity to be had once the bars close early in the morning. People are hungry, lonely, need caffeine, and want someone to talk to. I’ve heard of this kind of outreach happening in N. Ireland, where booths are set up to offer tea, coffee, food, and conversation, but not heard of anything like this yet in other countries. Once the ‘Rona dies down, could be a promising field for ministry. I’ve never felt so alone as a believer as I did in the middle of the night in the bar district. So many needy people, yet all the faithful were asleep.
This week I heard more fully about Hamid*, a friend from our former city whom I thought had fallen away from the faith. Three years ago he left our fledgling church plant, furious that we insisted on Jesus being the only way to God and that true believers must also hold to this truth. His mother was very sick at the time, which added personal fuel to the fire. Hamid’s departure, full of anger and insults and personal attacks, was so extreme that I thought he was gone for good. Or at least that he had demonstrated his faith to be a farce. But I kept praying for him over the last three years, helped by the example of George Mueller and his simple, persistent records of prayer requests and answers. Nevertheless, I was shocked and then excited this week to hear that Hamid had not only started coming back to the church again, but had actually repented to my teammate in tears for his conduct and words three years ago. He confessed that since then, God’s hand has been heavy on him. This is a stunning confession. In our context, it almost seems harder for a professing believer to repent of his sin and reconcile than it seems for someone to come to faith. Hamid’s remarkable about-face has encouraged me afresh to keep on praying for my friends who have fallen away or flamed out. As John Piper has said, we always resist the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is powerful to overcome that resistance anytime he pleases. May the Spirit continue to be pleased to overcome Hamid’s resistance – indeed, my own resistance – to his glorious work.
Entrusted to the Dirt 