The sameness and differentness of people

The jumbo jet just pulled up to the gate and will soon unload it’s contents, and then in an hour or so, my group of humanity will stock this big bird full once again. What is infinitely entertaining is the variety of people that crowd this place. I wonder how many weeks (months?) of my life have been spent in airports?

I do not often get bored in airports, no matter how many weeks of my life I have lost in these centers for human transportation. I have been in big airports and tiny ones, busy ones and empty ones. I have even spent the night in one with 15 Mk’s when we were stuck because of bad weather (not an experience I am overly interested in repeating - see previous post about kids). These airports are a microcosmos of the greater world. Because airports are the focal point of multiple travel destinations, they are the funnel through which almost all of us must past to go anywhere, they make for wonderful people-watching places. After 12 years of doing this for a living, we have gotten fairly accomplished at guessing a person’s origins. Guessing a person’s destination is something only God can do, unless they are wearing bright beach shirts that proclaim Honolulu or bust or something along those lines.

The variety of humanity is breathtaking. No two people are the same . . . except . . . they all are going someplace. They are going places in the immediate sense in that they have come into this vast cattle chute (commonly called an airport) to go somewhere and arrive at a particular destination. But they are also going somewhere in an eternal sense, willingly or unwillingly. This is where is gets dicey for most of us. That God would allow such a terrible destiny . . . even for those who did not know the particulars about either the trip nor the final stop . . . is difficult for us to put our thoughts around. But His Word makes the truth of this abundantly clear . . . all the of the 150,000 people in this airport are going somewhere, immediately and eternally.

caring for the Family

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I have been thinking about the wider ramifications of my actions. One friend wrote yesterday that he had just been “challenged” about an issue that had occurred four years previously. Frankly the person doing the challenging should have never known about the four year old situation. When we write a letter (snail or E) and put to paper a situation, then it has gone beyond our control. Other people are going to read it and make opinions on it and perhaps take action based on it. Thus serious care is needed to protect folks.

These are difficult things. And what we do always has wider impact than we planned.For example, before we send an email response to a question about a child’s misbehavior, a depressed team member or a conflict with an organizational policy, we would do well to “think ethically.” We must pause and ask ourselves these questions:

—Who may be seeing our communications, now and in the future?
—Do the communication exchanges need to be encrypted?
—Am I responding informally as a colleague, “officially” on behalf of an organization or as some type of care worker?
—Do I have enough information to offer input?
—How accurate is the information I have?
—Should I consult with anyone about the situation?
—Which ethical guidelines are relevant?
—What may be the consequences of my response and/or advice?

I hope to be a person who thinks ethically about what I communicate and take great care with it.

a rotten core (mild warning - weak stomachs should avoid this blog)

Anthony Philpotts commented that, “There’s an inertia to ideas.” This torpor, lethargy, disinterest in ideas is confining. I have my entire life been a person who consistently searches for a new way to accomplish the task, a person seeking innovative solutions to the problem and an idea person. But I find that most people are moderately to highly resistant to new ideas.

This has always been an enigma to me because when change stops, death has arrived. Ideas and change are synonymous, in that one generally flows from the other. While I am no great missionary, I have large respect for missionaries because they must assimilate so many changes and so many new ideas. Some of them are foolish, like in Russia you were never allowed to shake hands over a threshold, or in Macedonian a draft of air can cause anything from pregnancy in men to facial hair in children (thus even when the temp is 100+ outside, the windows are all closed on the bus!). But some of those ideas and changes are earth-shattering, such as different ways of thinking, viewing history from another perspective, perceiving world events in completely non-western ways and new languages give you innovative and diverse ways to process (and also endless headaches).

Those who resist change and fight it in culture, society or the church, (especially those who want to have a first century christianity in the 21st century) strike me as having a rotten core. They look fine, even excellent on the outside, but when you get to the middle, it’s rotten. I had a Delicious Red that worked out that way this morning. Didn’t even know it was possible in a Delicious Red!

I got back from my biking this morning, was hungry and grabbed the last apple in the dish. It looked great and even tasted great, but when I got down to the core, it was rotting! It just went squish in my hand! It had no solidity to it at all, no structure nor form left. Needless to say, I almost hurled the recently eaten part back up when the middle collapsed in my hand like an overripe mellon.

Organizations today state that they value, seek, want, need idea people, entrepreneurs, risk takers, people who push the limits, who exegete their world and respond in a bold fashion. My experience in organizations is that we allow these people to play, and if they succeed then we value them. But if they play and don’t have successes, we begin to fault-find and marginalize their efforts and them as people. Shame on us -- that is a rotten core.

As a developer of people, and leaders in particular, I want to have and keep and maintain my belief in people. We say that the journey is more important than the destination and I want to live that out (and that is coming from a person with terminal destination disease!). One of the few things about myself that I genuinely and truly like, is that I cheerlead people on well. I am thrilled when they succeed and am exhilarated when they try, fail, and then keep on trying! You church planters there in the States, and missionaries around the world, you rock! Stay solid to the core.

men who are children

It must be a phenomenon of the modern world. My 36 year old neighbor is ripped at me. I still don’t know why, because he refuses to tell me. He deigned to inform me a couple of days ago that “I am very angry with you!” Since then he only turns his back to me, refuses to look at me, won’t answer me when I greet him. My lack of serious begging is probably not helping him recover from his anger . . . in fact is most likely contributing to his anger. Now this fellow is educated, wealthy, an engineer who owns his own business . . . is obnoxious, arrogant, full of himself, an expert in every subject, omniscient, more capable than all others, trusts no one and is childish beyond belief (a typical man for the most part).

His current anger seems to stem from a tiny incident that happened last week, when the National Church president of the Macedonian Evangelical churches came over with his wife for supper. As usual there was a shortage of parking, so I told him to park his Toyota between our house and the house of my man/child neighbor. And in typical macedonian style, the prez pulls the Yoda right up on the sidewalk . . . and man/child went ballistic. Now before you get all in a snit about the prez parking on the sidewalk, you need to know that the WHOLE COUNTRY parks on the sidewalk! People walk in the streets here, because cars are parked on the sidewalks. This is the normal course of life here. There is no place in this entire country where you can freely walk on the sidewalks, because they are packed full with cars. This is normal for Macedonia. So man/child’s ballistic reaction is not rooted in any form of reality. In fact, he is the same person who called the chinese guys down the street those “stinking yellow chinese” last week (see previous post), all because they too park on the sidewalk . . . as does the entire country.

This is the sum total of my interaction with the man/child for the last two weeks, except when he told me he was very angry with me a couple of days ago. Now every time I try to muster a serious response to his anger I crack up, because it is so much like dealing with one of my children when they were like 3-4 years old and got angry with me and said, “Daddy, I am not talking to you any more.” This situation has less substance than that. And so it is difficult to be serious about his squabble with me.

I have been dealing with this man/child for the last two years, and this is the first time I have been able to enjoy my balcony without being instructed about how I paid too much for firewood, or how untrustworthy the neighbors are, or how bread is 1 cent cheaper if I would drive all the way across town, or how everyone is corrupt, or how I need to buy this certain brand of coffee, or how I need to tell my landlord this or that -- all yelled out in English (sort of) across the hedges that separate the two properties, while everyone in the neighborhood listens carefully. You can understand Mecken’s comment after two years of this - “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

So I have to admit the silence is golden . . . so much so I almost don’t want him to get over his snit with me, because then I (and everyone who visits us) will have to listen to his patronizing overbearing pompous diatribes again. I won’t be able to grill in peace! But then again, someone has to be adult in this situation and find out why man/child is upset, and then do whatever is necessary to make it right again (in his eyes). Right?

I don’t know. That certainly is the “American Christian” thing to do, but here . . . I wonder if that will diminish me in the eyes of the rest of the neighborhood (with whom we have excellent friendships and relationships), because they can’t stand this guy much either. As much as possible, be at peace with your fellow man Paul tells us. The way that is phrased in English never gives us a clue when enough is enough, even when you did nothing wrong in the first place. I think I will do some research before I grovel or some christian thingy like that.

the pain of kids and life

Now don't get me wrong, I love my kids. But I have to admit that I generally can't abide anyone else's. I don’t hate other people's kids, its more that I just don't like other people's kids. Of course now that I am writing this, I can think of a few exceptions, but I won't tell you which kids those happen to be because all the other parents will get really upset with me.

But those other kids, the one's that I don't like, can't cause me any significant pain. They can irritate me to the point where I would like to assist their parents in getting rid of them, but they can't hurt me. There are moments I would like to throw them off the balcony, but they don't mean the same to me as my own kids do. Sorry if this bothers you. From now on you know that when I am nice to your kid, it's generally work for me, and you know for certain that I am not a nice person.

But having my own kids is painful. Not because they are not perfect, because they certainly were never meant to be perfect. They cause me great pain not because they physically abuse me, they can't. They cause me pain in two ways; when they aren't here which is practically all the time between boarding school and college, and when they make poor choices that rob them of some potential good that is within their grasp. Usually that takes the form of disobedience -- of me, or some other authority. I can't believe how much it hurts sometimes.

Then I find myself sitting in my office thinking, "Why am I here, and my children are in Germany or the States?" What is there here that warrants this level of pain? Well to continue in this vein of honesty . . . . . . . not much some days. It makes for some pretty sad days. But once in a while, you see that you are making a difference in the world and in some people’s lives and it feels like it is worth it.

I imagine that we will find out the true value of our decisions when we stand before Christ . . . but some days it certainly does not feel like the sacrifices of life are worth the pain. But I have a sneaky suspicion that what causes me pain with my own kids, causes God pain with me: when I am not with Him (in spirit and in action) and when I am disobedient. As I sit here today writing messages in Macedonian for a teen camp (yes I see the irony) coming up soon, I am struck by how much pain I cause God, and conversely how much potential joy I can bring Him as well. Ok David, just do it!

managing my own morale

Depression lurks in most of the corners of my life. Let’s face it, I can't afford a depression caused by my own negative input. You gotta try to develop your sense of humor or at least see the humor in life wherever you may find it. Yet humor is in short supply many days . . . what do you?
Well there are endless ways of entertaining oneself . . . books, music, movies or the internet. But none of us get paid to watch comedies all day on the comedy channel (which doesn’t make it all the way to Eastern Europe anyways). No we get paid to produce. God is calling us to build and create and have productive lives that are measurable and countable, right? Well that certainly is the current Western Evangelical paradigm . . . but I find people are always interrupting my planned production. They just show up and take up the whole day. They call and talk for an hour without taking a breath or placing an audible period in their diatribe. They email me, they Skype me, they complain that my cell phone is never on (hello!), and in general ruin all my planned production and measurable goals.
So this must mean that I am bad person because I want to produce the stuff that the higher ups say I should be producing, but these people keep getting in the way! In fact it so persistently happens that I am starting to think that my job is more about people than any thing else. Imagine that! And that is what has depression lurking in all the corners of my life. I don’t even like people! They cause all sorts of emotional responses in me that does funny things with my blood pressure. People cause me to break out into hives. You think I jest?
Ask my mother. She will tell you that for most of my growing up years, I had only one profession in mind for when I grew up - to be a hermit. I was (and sometimes still am) fascinated with hermits and hermithood. To be alone . . . sounded magnificent to me . . . like the ultimate escape. In my most honest moments, I think I became a pastor so that I could stay in my office and study . . . by myself! No one every told me that ministry was a people job! I thought it was a theology job. So I have found the humor in this life situation, that he who wished to become a hermit, has a production job that is about people . . . I wonder if that means I am confused? Regardless, morale is high -- go away depression!

those stinking yellow chinese!

. . . was my neighbors virulent accusation. Ethnic tensions are everywhere. And in the course of this evening I heard railing against the chinese, Americans, albanians and spineless macedonians. Even when we are not overly prejudiced, why do we state our frustrations in negative-ethnic terms? Even the spiritually mature still, in this part of the world struggle with ethnic issues.

Americans are proud of the fact that we are a pluralistic society that embraces every race and culture, right? Not hardly. Look at the immigration bills being bounced around today. But lets go beyond that and look at all the conflicts happening in the world today . . . In Nigeria, Somalia, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, DRC, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Cyprus, Bosnia, Spain, Myanmar, Colombia, Chechniya, Syria, Kashmir region, Philippines, Nepal, Sudan, Uganda, Papua New Guinea, Chad, CAR, Bangladesh, Laos, Indonesia, Korea, Kurds and on and on I could go.

Lets not stop there. What about our prejudices? Don't you think we have some? We are most prejudiced against those who practice a homosexual lifestyle. But we are also prejudiced against divorced people, single parents, women and lets face it, we are prejudiced against the very ethnic groups of the world that we missionally say we are trying to reach, but when they come to our doorstep, we reject them. You disagree? Do you think that our perrcentage of ethnic churches is reflected in an equal number of ethnic leaders at the district and national levels? I know they have their own districts . . . but have you stopped to consider why?

It is a problem that is common to all humanity and even Christians. I think one of the signs of a mature faith is true color-blindness . . . and I rarely find it, not in my neighbors and not in me.

gas-prices around the world

As you can see from the gas graph below, the cheapest gas in the world today (7/19/06) only costs .12 cents a gallon (yes you can still buy gas for .12 cents a gallon), while the other extreme is $6.99 per gallon. I think I am going to move to the .12 cent a gallon country. Here in Macedonia diesel was $4.43 a gallon today. That is quite enough thank you very much!



I think we can expect the prices to only go up up up. There is no end in sight . . . no end in sight for the Afghan and Iraq struggles, no end in sight for the Israeli struggles. I think we can safely plan on paying more and more for fuel. Or as people here are doing even more than usual, hoofing it or cycling wherever they are heading. On the other hand, if you live in a rural area, it is more difficult to go without a car. Since we live in the capital city, we almost never use a car unless the trip is at least several miles of travel. I think far more of us could do without constant car travel with some creative thinking on our part. And I long since discovered that I can get around town just as fast (if not faster!) on my bike than crawling through car traffic.

While I am no tree hugger, it is only logical to understand that crude oil is a non-renewable resource. That means that there is an end to it, and it may be closer than we think. I live in a high pollution part of the world. OSHA is just a fantasy here. I for one will be thankful for the reduction in air pollution when people drive less, but I will miss the quick international travel that we have today.

On the cuspid of a dental stop

It was hysterical to hear the class try to make the difference the TH in THird versus broTHer. One is voiced and the other isn't. One is aspirated and one isn't. I gotta tell you there was no one in the class dissing on my Macedonian skills, I can tell you that!

Language is the achilles tendon of cross-cultural communications. I hate language study. Don't think for a moment that it ever ends, because it does not, ever. This is the bane of my existence, because no matter how well I speak, the tasks I am trying to accomplish are ever more complex -- and thus language needs to increase in it's complexity as well. There is quite a bit of difference between buying tomatoes and teaching a class on missiology.

And slang may very well cause me to commit suicide. Colloquial phrases are not as hard, because they are generally stable. You learn the phrase and use it. But slang is different with every second person you meet on the street. Slang for the college kids is totally different than the slang you would use with there parents. Slang that you use with their parents is wholly other than what you would use with their parents, and so forth.

Add to that a Yugoslavian phenomena of city accents and dialects and chaos results for my small brain and foreigner phonetics. The mission should send only pure linguists to this area of the world. Fortunately my wife is such a person. She loves and learns languages as naturally as mothering her children. I would rather have the hair on my body ripped out by the roots one hair at a time than learn another language. But I certainly felt tons of sympathy for the English students in my wife's class, but I snickered a few times too :-)

god was returning

In the middle of Brenda's sermonette, i was certain that God was returning. There have not been many times in my life when I thought that the second coming was happening in this present moment, but Sunday evening in a new church we had never attended, I indeed thought that Jesus was coming from the East with all the angels of heaven . . . but in the end it was only a train.

Mind you a train whose tracks ran RIGHT BESIDE the church! I almost had a heart attack. Clearly no one else was impressed, so one can safely assume that this was a typical occurrence for the church regulars. In fact when the train came back from the West some 10 minutes later, I noticed that the person speaking at that time simply stopped and waited for the train and trumpeting roar to subside.

I was/am looking forward to the return of Christ, though I found myself anxious about the actual experience. You would think after living in four different countries, in 12 different cities that new experiences would not faze me at all. While I have enough self confidence to fill Noah's Ark, there are still regular knee-knocking moments in life. Even speaking before people still makes me shake a bit - although I have been doing it professionally for 25 years. Go figure.

I wonder what the key is to having this knee-knocking excitement about God and His stuff? Confession is in order that often my spiritual life is centered more in discipline rather than excitement. It is comfortable more than discomforting. It is quiet more than energizing. And it is far too often personal rather than public.

Something has gone haywire with a Faith that is no longer earth-shattering. Can such a Faith save anyone? I think we need to feel the earth move under our feet, and the heavens open up and rain down the presence of the Living God. It's good to be reminded that God is indeed coming back and then I (and you) will face the consequences of this life. I'm excited!

Six sheep heads for 300 denars

While at my local butcher shop this morning, I noticed the above advertisement, six sheep heads for 300 denars, you buy five and get one for free. This frequently offered delicacy keeps this particular butcher hopping. I was tempted to try it myself for about 3.1 seconds and grill them out alongside the pork chops tonight but in the end I passed. No one in our family likes mutton unless the Turks are preparing it.

There are instead of the luscious sheep heads, 15 pork chops spread out on the dining room table marinading prior to their date with the grill. In addition to the chops, I will be grilling sweet paprika peppers which then will be peeled and covered in garlic and oil. Combine that with Brenda’s potato salad and we will be rocking on all fronts.

But I digress from my sheep heads. Sheep heads today on sale at the butcher shop for some unfathomable reason stuck me as a solid analogy to people who under the guise of caring for you or the work that you are doing, obligate you. Let’s face it, there is not much meat on a sheep head, delicacy or not. It is akin to eating chicken feet in a Dim Sum restaurant. All you can do is gnaw on it and suck off a bit of flavor, but substance you will not find.

I have, like all missionaries I know, sheep heads in my life. These are often the people who apparently care the most, give the most, carry on the most . . . and they actually may indeed be wonderfully guilty of said crimes, but they also keep a pressure on to do something in return. Now you do not have to have a 3 digit IQ to come to the conclusion that in a sense they do deserve something in return. No one is arguing that fact. But when you multiple such relationships several hundred times over, the corporate pressure is no small thing, its a tsunami!

They could quickly and accurately detail for you all the various things they have done for us over the years, and I do not doubt their accounting one whit. It is the fact that they are keeping count which nullifies all that they purportedly are so selflessly accomplishing on our behalf. They are weighing us and we are found wanting. They are keeping count, no matter how generously they may be giving, and the scales (to which generally only they know the balance) are never balanced. It is a doomed dance . . . because I know not the song that they are moving to, nor can I dance with 400 partners at the same time. These supporters say not to write when in fact they expect you to. They say not to call or come by but you better. They say all manner of things that they simply do not mean and thus it is a game that the receiver (us) can never win. We cannot possibly bear the emotional weight alone of so many relationships, no matter how special or important this one may be.

But still we try, because we need their prayers and resources far more than we dare admit. This is in my estimation the dark side of partnerships. Now I recently wrote an entire doctoral thesis on partnerships and I am, needless to say, generally very positive about partnerships. Partnerships are key to ministry. Frankly ministry very well may grind to a complete halt without such folks. But this aspect of it stills feels like a sale of sheep heads.

Wedding invitations to the dead

This inviting of the dead relatives to the wedding is a tradition practiced in Galichnik, Macedonia. They place goblets of wine and horderves in the cemetery for them. I wonder what would happen if one of these dead spirits expressed a physical presence at the wedding? I imagine the room would empty out in record time.

This pagan practice is lauded by the Macedonians. (Russians did similar things at Easter) We were invited to such a wedding ceremony this past week. Fortunately or unfortunately, we had guests coming so we could not attend, but it was supposedly a great honor to be invited. Here in Macedonia not only are the dead relatives invited to the weddings, but people regularly light candles for the dead and those who pray, pray for the dead.

I pray about really foolish things too. I pray for health and happiness about 80% of the time. That is about as important as praying for the dead. Yet a large portion of my prayer energy is focused on these selfish matters -- for me and mine. You know that scripture that says, "When you pray, pray for yourself." Right? Not hardly.

You probably starting reading this thinking it was going to be some good story about some pagan practices in far away lands. Well its more about some pagan practices in your life, and my life. Here people do not pray because the priests tell them that they 1. don’t know how to pray, 2. are not qualified to pray, and 3. it wouldn’t do any good anyways.

As Westerners we don't pray because we don’t believe anyone is listening. If we did, we would pray far more, and for far more significant things. We would not pray the standard wish-list of my happiness and my health, neither of which have a whit of eternal value. I will never forget that the most challenging assignment I had in my doctoral studies was to be still and quiet for 15 minutes a day for three months, in an exercise of strengthening our prayer muscles. I discovered, to my deep shame, that 15 minutes of focused prayer, alone, in deep silence, was almost beyond me. It wasn’t the silence as much as the stillness that was so difficult. My world is marked by frenetic activity. My life is far too much like exercise wheel in a hamsters cage. Whatever happened to “Be still and know that I am God.”? Can I only know that He is God if I stop all this frantic activity and be still?

OK I don’t know for sure and I gotta hit the road for my next meeting.

a proper human being

Americans are terminally unique. It is the axis of our lives, our centrifugal force. Hofstede and Hall both showed that Americans rank the highest of all cultures in individualism. This is an expression of our orientation to ourselves. In fact all Western countries rank in the highest levels of individualistic scales, whereas the majority population centers of the world rank consistently more collective rather than individualistic. In Hofstede’s studies, the former Yugoslavia region of the world ranks in the very lowest regions for individualism.

Since ministry is all about communication, what factors does individualism bring to the communication quotient?

Individualists value:
Being Unique
Expressing one’s self
Avoiding social obligations
Realizing internal potential
Promoting one’s own goals
Being direct: “say what you think”
Facing and resolving conflicts openly

Collectivist value:
Belonging, fitting in
Occupying one’s proper place
Sustaining social obligations
Acting appropriately
Promoting other’s goals
Being indirect: “read other’s minds”
Keeping conflicts hidden, resolve indirectly

(You can find such charts in Hall, Hofstede texts as well as others)

With a bit of imagination, you could quickly see a 1000 ways this cultural phenomenon affects communication every day. (Just imagine a loud brash short term team from America on the town square in a village in Macedonia!) I could write on this subject indefinitely and so I won’t since both of us have other tasks that must be completed today. But suffice it to say that since individualists have so few intimate relationships, they almost always use direct forms of communication. That is to say that we do not generally have relationships that are intimate enough to utilize indirect forms of communication. I have found that many times I need to coach those from the West that what “Mr. Popovski” said, they did not really mean, because the question you asked was direct and there is no possible way for a collective culture to deflect a direct question. Thus they “lie”. Not really, but that is the typical understanding of Westerners. They did not lie, they just had to agree with you since you put them in a culturally impossible situation. It works much like “saving face” does in Asian cultures.

There is another element to individualistic culture that drives wedges into our presence and communication here. The terminal uniqueness of Americans, where successes are pinned up like taxidermy, failures are felt like cerebral hemorrhages, and people who talk about being “real” all the time, seem to be disguising immense falsity. They are caught up in a never-ending quest for something real. But the “real” is impossibly elusive and impossible to catch. And so we see group after group of people come through, chasing one experience after another experience trying to find something “real”. When you hear their testimonies, it is beyond frightening, because many of these testimonies detail the destruction they were doing to their lives. It is self-annihilation disguised as fine art.

Lest you think this a missionary challenge, remember how global our world is rapidly becoming, and this includes your neighborhood. Don’t let your ministry and communication become yet another shipwreck that happens because communication lines get crossed and misunderstandings blow up and out of proportion. To be a proper human being means one thing if you are in an individualistic culture, and quite something else if you are in a collective culture. Lord help me to be a proper human being for where I am today.

time keeps on slipping slipping slipping . . .

Monochronic or polychronic? No this is not a post about eyesight or music. It is a post about time. Evangelicals view "time" in very pecular ways. We see time as a limited commodity. We hear our whole lives that we need to save time, spend it wisely, not waste it, not lose it, and never kill it. Instead if we are good boys and girls, we should be redeeming it or multiplying it. We think of time as a "ribbon or road that can only be sliced in one way." Hall called this a monochronic way of perceiving time.

People can respect us (really our understanding of time) by showing up "on time" for appointments, doing long term planning and even short term planning - in fact the whole idea of planning may be monochronic! Bob Biehl would be disappointed in me. And of course we all value "my time" and generally it is a rare Westerner who enjoys interruptions. We always want to make the best use of time and be efficient with the time that we think we have in life. We are obsessed with time . . . I think it controls more of my life and thinking than any other aspect of my culture.

The opposite understanding of time, Hall refers to as polychronic. Time is a point rather than a ribbon. This point of view does not devalue time, only expresses that value in a very different way. In fact almost the opposite way. In polychronic cultures, promptness is defined by the relationship, not the clock, e.g. the more intimate the relationship the less value placed on clock time. I am proud to say that our record so far is 2 hours and 40 minutes. That is how late one of our leaders showed up for dinner at our house! It was a great honor. Now it did not feel like a great honor, but it was. I am still shooting for that relationship that is so good and intimate, that the person shows up three hours late and acts as if that is perfectly normal.

This is one of the best tests of a person’s adjustment to their new culture -- does not starting something on time (according to the clock and the Western way of thinking) bother the individual or not. In fact, the acid test is can the Westerner show up “late” according to his culture and not be sweating bullets?

Don’t get me wrong, I get plenty frustrated by polychronics. The thoughts I was thinking two days ago while getting my car serviced, would make my mother blush . . . I did not appreciate waiting in a hot uncomfortable room for eight hours while my car sat outside for a 40 minute job to be done. On the other hand, my mechanic views me as one of his real friends. He calls me on the phone to talk, regardless if he is working on my car or not. He calls me by my first name and I know his, and his kid’s. So that I waited eight hours was not a time issue for him, but rather a testimony of our relationship. Western values says that because we are friends, he would move me to the front of the line. Balkan values says that because we friends, I will wait because these other people will cause problems for him if he does not quickly repair their cars first. He knows that I will not cause him problems. But inside, I still fumed and swore in three languages. I guess than means I have enough control to not express my genuine feelings and frustration, but at the same time I am certainly no polychronic at the core.

I consider this the most damaging baggage I carry from the West, that me, my stuff, my time, my agenda is more important than people and relationships. What might Jesus do? Well I think He would probably shuck off that ole’ Western attitude of planning and time that breaks so many potential friendships and salvations. I think that maybe today, I was more like Him, in that I sat and listened to my landlord rant and rave about war and politics and the mafia for two unplanned hours. Maybe I will be more like Him if I take off my Swatch and relegate it to the desk drawer? But for now, I gotta hurry and post this before I am late for an appointment.

Missionary families are from Jupiter

There may be no genre of people more misunderstood than missionary families. How society views us falls sharply on one side of a great triangular divide or another. Complete idiots. That is what the first group thinks of us. I remember when we were first going to Russia, I had a family member threaten to take us to court so that we would not be able to take our three small children to “that pagan land.” Now lest you think my aunt a wicked person who has no understanding of God, mission and eternal destinies, I can truthfully say that I have found her views to be present everywhere -- even in our Alliance churches.

In fact, I recall one of our required field-wide meetings on one of the two fields we have served, where we came together for a few days to meet, relax and make some decisions as a corporate group. We always have a special speaker come. This particular year, our speaker brought his wife. I will never forget what this woman said to us. “How can you people send your children away to school like that!?” It gets my blood rolling again, even after all these years when I think of how painful that statement was. At that time in the CMA, not a single one of us had a choice, our children all automatically went to boarding school. Now do not think this person was new to the CMA and did not understand the situation. She understood. Her husband is on the BOD. Today we have many options for educating MK’s that were not permissible a few years ago. (In fact Phil Skellie has written an excellent article on MK education that just appeared in this quarter’s EMQ)

Another side of this misunderstanding of missionary families are those who see us as heroes. These are the pedestal pushers, who want the missionary to be high and lifted up as an example to all, and they generally get angry when we won’t. These are the folks who think that we are building some generational legacy of faith that will secure us a place on the peaks of spiritual legend-hood, and that no harm will ever come to us or our offspring. According to these well-meaning people, we are not fools nor are we irresponsible, no, we are only giants of faith working on the front-lines of the great cosmic spiritual battle and all our sacrifices will be compensated for by crowns and blessings given to us by God Himself.

There is yet a third group of folks who misunderstand missionary families, and those the people we work with and live near. Everything we do is an enigma to them. They will not even allow us to live in a neighborhood that reflects our true financial status, e.g. we have to live in the ritzy neighborhood, and frankly all of my neighbors make more money than I do. They are offended when I let my kids choose boarding school, because they take this to mean that their local schools are substandard. They believe us to have endless wealth (at least several Swiss bank accounts one man suggested), they see what TV tells them they should see when discussing a foreigner. The reality is that we experience relative wealth here and relative poverty when on Home Assignment.

None of these perspectives sum up a missionary family. We are much more and much less than these folks would believe. We have no home, we have cut our roots, we have engaged a task of enormous proportions, and we usually feel like we have begun to dig a tunnel through the center of the earth with only six hours and a toothpick with which to accomplish it. We fit nowhere, and we miss all kinds of cultural clues and fads and fashions of North America. There no longer exists a safe place to be us, without some misguided expectations placed all around like the minefields here in the former Yugoslavia.

Think not that this is a soliloquy of complaint nor depression nor even weariness. It is merely a description of what is missionary reality. Remember men are from Mars and women are from Venus and missionaries are from Jupiter.

to the churches that sent us

Wholeness. No this is not a blog about the delicate nature of missionaries, nor their lack of durability. And never would I ever suggest that missionaries are special or unusual, anyone who has ever heard me preach knows that for certain. The challenge of maintaining wholeness is precisely in the nature of missionary work - that we are the most ordinary of ordinary people working in pressure cookers that are far beyond the realm of ordinary.

It is this exact tension that creates the difficulty of maintaining wholeness. And one of the primary ways family, ministry, bodies, souls and minds get out of kilter in missionaries is spiritual warfare. Our brothers and sisters in North America are slow to recognize this battle, but we missionaries ourselves are resistant to assign appropriate measure to the spiritual forces pulsing around us and the resulting firestorm buffeting our lives. No task reigns higher on Satan's to-do list than to distract, disable and disarm the spiritual arms and legs of Jehovah God. And while I cannot speak for you, I can certainly testify for myself that little else distracts, disables and disarms me as when my body, soul, mind and family is out of kilter.

Gary Corwin suggests that 20-50% (precise figures are difficult to get) of missionaries do not even return for their second term. He lists three elements as the primary culprits: overwork, undersupport and prolonged exposure to the pressure of living and working cross-culturally. These are the issues that erode wholeness in a missionary.

There are clearly a number of ways that maintaining wholeness can be address. Missionaries themselves must take a more active role and start living with sane schedules. As Bob Biehl states, "Busyness is a result of scheduling and scheduling is your responsibility." This sounds almost too pat even to my own ears, but urgency of the tasks has too long impacted the longevity of the worker bees.

And of course the Mission itself bears some responsibility in providing margin, assistance and pastoral help. After 12 years with International Ministries, I find that the Mission is as challenged to address this process of maintaining wholeness as the missionaries themselves. And why would they be any different? The vast majority of them are former missionaries too. Unfortunately we often are forced to do "caring interventions" late in the process, rather than taking the initiative and doing something preventative upfront.

I think the the third essential element in maintaining wholeness is related to the churches that sent us here in the first place. I was commenting to our Field Director two nights ago while watching the World Cup final match, that Brenda and I are reaching the "mid-term-forgotten-stage" meaning that we are half way through our third term and as generally happens, most of the churches that were strongly behind us early in the term because we had recently been in their churches, are fading fast. This is very understandable and happens each term Few people can retain a sense of connectedness and intimacy with someone they have not seen for going on three years. Alot of life happens in three years. The most terrible result of this, is the ripping tearing sense of being disconnected that this leaves in the missionary. The feeling of being alone can be overpowering . . . and it generally grows as the term progresses because of this mid-term-forgotten-stage process.

I do not think most missionaries can maintain wholeness without some input and effort from all three responsible parties. Wholeness is not just another goal, it is the primary tool for survival. According to William Taylor 5% of the missionary force leaves the Field permanently every year, and 71% of the time, for preventable reasons! I can say honestly that I have have my own struggles in this area and I often feel powerless to address these feelings. But I am working at gaining and maintaining wholeness.

bridge diving?

Last week I saw a man jump off a bridge . . . .in fact I videoed the whole thing with my digital camera! No he was not trying to commit suicide, nor was he totally out of his head. In fact he was just doing his everyday normal go-to-work routine, because diving off the bridge is how he makes his living. I know, this does not sound like a legitimate job, but in the former Yugoslavia, you gotta make a living any way you can.

If you click this link, it will take you directly to the video, for some reason Jake and I could never figure out how to embed it in this blog. http://homepage.mac.com/daderholdt/iMovieTheater6.html

There are many ways to live out our existence here on this planet, but this has to be one of the most unique one's I have ever seen. No great spiritual lessons or anything like that today, I will post a "heavy" tomorrow. Today I am just enjoying a guy who jumps off bridges for a living. In contrast, my work is down right boring. Till tomorrow.

I am going to die soon!

That was the word from my 13 year old daughter. Then my oldest daughter pipes up, "yeah my days are numbered too." They were being pretty serious. We were discussing the first command in the bible with a promise, that one should honor their father and mother. What is so fascinating about this conversation is that my kids do honor us; they actually even like us! They tell us that this is not the case often with their peers. Interestingly enough I felt the same way that my daughters do when I was their age. I guess it is always easier to see where you fail rather than where you succeed.

Here is a photo of the two of them together!


What is it about how we see ourselves and our actions that is often super critical? Then at other key moments in life it is as it we can’t see ourselves accurately at all! To know thyself seems to be a significant challenge that takes an entire lifetime . . . or at least I haven’t completely got a total grip on me yet. I just need to make sure I keep as a filter, that I am a child of the living God, and I think I do. But that filter seems to have two effects, one is that it reminds me constantly that I no mere mortal locked into an existence of 75 years. Two though, is that my Father is so high and far beyond me that I cannot measure up. Even the fact that He knows this and forgives me already does not help my feelings of unworthiness.

It seems that the power of sin is in its secret life. And as Ray Anderson points out the church is often an accomplice in this secret by affirming only those who appear to be righteous. Let’s face it, the very very last place on earth that a struggling Christian can confess that struggle is with brothers and sisters in the church. The problem is this, we all struggle at some level. So today I confess, to whomever may read my words, I struggle. There I said it. No super Christians here.

I should have bought a lottery ticket

There would have been a very very high chance of winning. Much better than the statistics of what happened this morning. Heidi is on her way to an MK re-entry seminar in California, and soon I will be on my way to settle her in for college. Unfortunately for both of us, our beginning ticket is with a highly irregular carrier known as Cirrus Airlines. Mind you, they were not all that irregular when we bought the tickets months and months ago. In fact I have successfully flown with them about a dozen times. But now, they generally leave 3-6 hours LATE everyday,(when they do not cancel the flight entirely), causing virtually everyone to miss their connections to somewhere else in the world from Frankfurt.

So being the careful planners that we are as Westerners, and not wanting my college freshman daughter to be stuck in Frankfurt for 24 hours in the airport, we went and had some talks with Cirrus and Lufthansa on Friday and got Heidi switched to a day later flight out of Frankfurt, with Lufthansa picking up the tab for a hotel for her to overnight., because everyone agreed, there was no way that she was going to make her connection in Frankfurt . . . yet . . . the flight left on time.

I should have bought a lottery ticket. The chances were greater that I would win a million Euros, than that this flight would leave on time. Both Cirrus and Lufthansa agreed . . . they gave Heidi a new day to fly and a hotel room without a whimper, because there was no chance in heaven or hades that this flight would leave in time for her to make her connection . . . yet it did. Only the second time in 34 days that it left on time, but it did.

Who would have thought? Now I do not know if she is in the hotel in Frankfurt, or if she is actually on the plane to LAX. Hopefully I will hear something later today and know, but as of right at this moment, I have no idea.

Not many things are dependable in this world, the airlines least of all. At least God doesn’t change His mind, character or promises. That we can hold on to with a firm grip. But I still should have bought a lottery ticket . . . it would have been a large boost to the GCF.

minarets and independence day

Today Heidi and I climbed to the top of a minaret on the Muslim side of the city. The mosque was beautiful and peaceful. Although this was true, the climb up into the minaret was difficult. It of course had a circular staircase (no elevator) that went on for what seemed like forever. My legs were pumping with blood by the time I got to the top.

Here is a photo I took from the top of the minaret.


The most interesting thing on top of the minaret was the huge loudspeaker, which calls the faithful to prayer five times a day. Yesterday was Independence day. There is not much independence in the Muslim faith it seems, and at the same time too much in the Christian faith. Islam seems to control every aspect of a "good" Muslim's life. But according to the statistics that I have seen, the church and the those outside of the church, have the same exact challenges. I wonder why Christianity has evolved into a Faith that allows one to do almost anything in the name of freedom? I wonder why we are just amazed that Muslims pray five times a day; don't you? And many days far more than five times a day.

Our independence from rules and regulations is a great gift from God, but it is to allow us more of everything with Him, not less with Him. I need to remember that everyday.

stuck in a beautiful place right?

We were driving through a most beautiful place. We were amazed at how green the water was. There are few places in the world which have such green rivers. And then it happened, we came into a line of standstill traffic that stretched as far as the eye could see. And if you have to be stuck somewhere in the world, at least be stuck in a beautiful place, or perhaps it would be better to say, you should find beauty wherever you find yourself stuck?



Life is too short to be stuck somewhere ugly in life. This applies to every kind of stuck, in life. Regardless if you are stuck in a job you can't stand. Regardless if you are caught in a relationship you cannot abide. Regardless if you are stuck in an impossible situation, you had better find some beauty there, or you are gonna crash and burn. I know, I have been stuck in some of those kinds of places.

Now where I am typing this blog from is just naturally breathtaking. Unfortunately it seems few places in life where you get stuck are like this. Most of the time, even the word stuck implies ugliness. But you have got to find some beauty or your soul will crumble. You will find that which makes you you will begin to shrivel. Paul says in Philippians 4:12 that he learned the secret of being content. Contenment is a big subject, but at least one aspect for me is finding beauty wherever I get stuck in life.

flattered, fleeced and fished

Yes this happens most every week. It happens when you are the rich person in a poor society. People are always angling for your perceived resources. They flatter you hoping for some money to fall out of your pocket. They will fleece you mercilessly at the first possible opportunity. They will constantly fish you, trying to find out what you have and how accessible it might be. My great question is how to be a prudent generous person?

Prudence is required because money is power and power is generally a weapon. Yet generosity is a natural result of thankfulness and a healthy spiritual life. I am always wondering how the two mesh in any way. "You cannot have power for good without having power for evil. "Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heros." - Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara

Most of the time, I just feel resentment that I am being FFFed rather than thankfulness that I have enough to be the recipient of such behavior. What a sad tale that reveals about the true condition of my heart. "In an ego-centered culture, wants become needs (maybe even duties), and self replaces the soul, and human life degenerates into the clamor of competing autobiographies." - Cornelius Plantinga. Madeleine L'Engle suggests that the very meaning of the word integrity is slowly starting to mean self-centeredness. In other words, half the time when someone suggests that they cannot do such and such and "keep their integrity" what they truly mean is that simply do not want to do whatever is under discussion.

These are deeper waters than I usually travel, but I think Plantinga and L'Engle have hit my nail on the head . . . I cannot be generous because I have spiritualized both the condition of my wallet, and the needs of the person asking, so that in the end, I feel fully justified in sending them on their way. That is no thankful heart.

rest, relaxing and revving up

am practicing at resting. It is not something I do well. I do not know how to stop working. I do not know how disconnect and quit at the end of the day. I do not know how to rest. Thus I am practicing. I am practicing at having a whole day where I do not work at all, not one tiny bit . . . we are sharing an American holiday with friends in Mostar Bosnia. Not working is surely hard work!

This shows that I am far far too task oriented and that I take myself and my work way to seriously. I need to lighten up and have more fun. But what if work is fun? How is that different than fun fun? And what exactly is fun anyways?

Is fun being frivolous? Is fun being silly? Is fun being distracted? Perhaps fun is that which brings mindless feelings of happiness? Maybe fun is that which you want to do rather than what you have to do? Perhaps fun is just a tempo change in life? Fun might be that which requires no effort or no thought? Frankly I don't know. But everyone tells me I need to have more, so I am practicing at resting . . . at having fun. Maybe I will run another marathon.

A cross in the forehead

Not only did the ancient crone have a small Cross tattooed into her forehead right above the eyebrows and running down into the nose, she also had her mother's name tattooed onto her left wrist, and her father's name tattooed onto her right wrists. She was 90 if she was day, maybe more, honestly. And the story behind the tattoos was amazing.

She is the only person we have met here in the former Yugoslavia who was born in the era of the Ottoman Empire. And it seems the Turks had a penchant for taking young children away and whisking them off to Turkey. The way that one people group here began to combat the child-taking was by tattooing the Cross into their foreheads and the names of the parents on each arm. That way the parents and the child would forever know to whom the child genuinely belonged. And to this day, this ancient Vloch woman clearly has a cross tattooed into the middle of her forehead.

I think perhaps we should start this tradition once again . . . in the church . . . where we who say we are Jehovah's children would make the strongest declaration of that fact, a Cross tattooed into our foreheads, and several names of God tattooed onto each wrist. Isn't that the kind of declaration of possession, faith and commitment He is longing for from us? Isn't that the type of irreversible binder we should place on our lives? Why wouldn't we do that? Oh . . . the answer to that question is all too revealing.