She was in the "don't know file"

It was a strange day all considered. It was like a scene from the Twilight Zone (I guess that dates me pretty good). We were trying to take care of the millions of details related to getting a person registered in college for the first time, when we finally arrived at the medical office and discovered that they had no file for Heidi.

Now we had been discovering all day that Heidi was not easy to find in their records. She was falling through the cracks because she does not fit any of their categories in a nice and clean ways. She is technically registered as an International student because she had a foreign address. But she does not qualify as a foreign student because she had a US passport. So it was a confusing day from beginning to end.

But at least everyone had file for Heidi, confused or not. But the medical desk had no file at all for her. 3000 students on file, but no file on Heidi. We had the lady look over and over. She checked twice in every file, but no Heidi. Finally she snapped her fingers and said, "There is one other place it might be." She walked across the room and reached up on a shelf and took down a thin file. Opening it up, we could see one small file was inside . . . and there was Heidi's file! The lady said, "This is the 'I don't know" file."

Now Heidi was so far outside any category the medical department had, that they could not even find a way to file her! Long story short, we got her moved from the "I don't know file" to the "Aderholdt File" where she belonged.

Isn't that what Father does for us? He moves us from the "I don't know file" to the "This is my child" file. And let's face it, that rocks. Moving your kid into college is traumatic enough, without worrying about them losing your kid! Thank God we don't have to worry about that with our heavenly Father.

technological convolutions

I had the most amazing technological experience this morning. Surprisingly it was not in BestBuy or Circuit City not even on eBay. In fact it was the last place on earth that I would ever expect to have a technological experience. I consider myself fairly astute in techno-geekery, but this stuff was some of the best uses of technology that I have ever experienced. Believe or not I was at the dentist!

First of all, and most importantly, the high tech dental office has digital x-rays. This is too smooth because they utilize 90% less radiation than the older type of x-ray machines did. But better yet are the instant images which appear on the screen and those can be enhanced and enlarged at will.

In addition to that wonder of wonders, there are new technologies being employed at drill level, the brush level, the repair levels and so forth. It is one of the best applications of the modern technological advances that I have seen.

Now when are we going to play smart like this in the church? I think we have done well at the audio-visual level, but lag sorely in other areas. Of course you as a blogger and a reader of blogs, are not in the mainstream of the church. You are an early adopter. You are on the cutting edge. As missionaries Jeff Singfiel and I have been experimenting with podcasting and video-podcasting. I believe we are the only CMA missionaries to have done so thus far, though I believe many more will soon join the fray, because the technology to make it happen is amazingly simple and available to everyone.

What is flabbergasting to me is how few pastors have taken advantage of our efforts and shown these video-podcasts in their churches. I have had only two pastors utilize them to-date. This is not a complaint, but rather an observation that we Christians are rarely early adopters. Moreover we are distinctly unwilling to spend the money to be technologically on par . . . we feel it unnecessary and often I am told it is unspiritual.

Clearly I disagree. I have been blogging for over three years and I think that I reach more CMA people per week than most other folks. Mind you this is not a competition, but rather an opportunity to make modern knowledge work for the Kingdom. And I did not even mind the dentist today.

bring on the heat-wave!

Melting in the heat wave. I love how meteorologists have figured out a new way to express how really hot it is outside. They call it a heat index. It is some type of formula where the actual air temp, and the relative humidity are calculated together to reveal the precise effect, heat-wise, on your body. So although the air temp here today was only 96 F, the heat index said that the combined effect of the heat and humidity equalled 111 F.

The heat index has an opposite counterpart for the winter time which gives a rough approximate value called wind chill. It is air temp plus the effect of air movement, with the end result being once again, an evaluation of the precise effect cold-wise, on your body.

Clearly I have few skills as a meteorologist and little future in this business based on how challenged I am at explaining such simple effects. But while the weather is fascinating and relevant to our daily existence, I am more interested in the heat-index and wind-chill of my spiritual life.

I am appalled at how hot and/or cold my spiritual life can run, even in the same day! But more interesting than that, is that the apparent temp of my spiritual life and the actual heat-index or wind-chill of my spiritual life, while it is not visible on a thermometer, represents the actual effect of my spiritual experience.

Now to find a consistent way to grade that spiritual heat-index or wind-chill, and moreover, a way to pump the heat up up up. Unfortunately corporate or professional christianity seems to have an air-conditioning effect on me, I can’t really speak for you. While in the comfortable dry coolness of a modified temp environment, it seems that my spiritual life is way too comfortable and relaxed. To get a good spiritual heat-index score I clearly need to stay heat stressed . . . in other words, stay in the line of fire spiritually, be on the cutting edge, extend myself beyond what I can do in my own strength. I can feel the heat index rising already.

old times there are not forgot

Origins. Roots. History. All of us have these shapers in our lives. Some may be terrible, some may be wonderful and of course there are thousands of levels in between the two. But our beginnings often have the most powerful impact on both our journey in life and our destinations. As I am getting Heidi settled into college and we are visiting some of the places of my childhood, it brings back a rush of memories and remembrances of people and places long past . . . but I still feel and experience their influence in my life today.

There are larger questions here too; how much impact should the past be allowed to have . . . I guess the answer to that depends on the goals and hopes of today. Actually the largest question connected to this issue is this: how much will my life impact the young ones around me in their futures?

I do not often feel like Paul who said quite clearly, “Hey, be like me!” In fact I find myself opposed to that role for the most part! I do not want to be anyone’s hero. I do not wish to be in charge, control, in authority, responsible, fallible, in the spotlight, on a pedestal nor in the limelight. Unfortunately, leaders often must fill such roles.

So it seems that I can continue to be a leader, or I can go the route of hermithood (see previous post). It’s a decision we all make, because you and I both are influencing someone’s origins, roots and history. So lead! Or go hide.

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.