This week was a pretty standard week, nothing really out of the ordinary except for the foreign staff retreat. We left on Thursday morning and arrived that afternoon at a resort in the town of Jinja near the Nile River. It’s the seem place I went to about a month or so ago to go rafting. It was a time for all of the Western staff members and their families to get away and relax a bit, as well as to discuss difficulties and issues that face westerners in a unique way. I was asked to come along and lead our worship times, but the time there proved to be profoundly informative for me. The rest of this entry will consist of some reflections based on things I took away from this time.

In my head I have a list of things it will cost to serve God’s cause overseas in missions. Yes, you have to leave your land, friends, comforts, etc. One thing on that list is culture. I had previously not thought of this as a very big deal, but after this retreat I am realizing that it is probably the hardest thing to deal with on the mission field. You are forced to give up a lot of your culture and adjust to another culture. I don’t think I really yet understand this from an experiential perspective, but having heard these missionaries express some of their difficulties in this area I feel I have a better grasp on the matter. But why is this so hard? What are the difficulties that attend living in a different culture? I think the answer will be different depending on which culture you are leaving and to which culture you are going. But going from an American/British cultural to a third-world culture like the Ugandan bush, the clash of cultures is pronounced. Let me give some examples. Some of these I have experienced, and others can only be experienced by living here with a family for a more exteneded period of time.

The other day I was taking a nap on a hot afternoon, a siesta if you will. I heard a knock at the door. I thought in my head, “If I don’t answer, they will go away. I’m NOT HERE right now…I’m taking a nap, and it can wait.” In the States, if you knock and no one answers, you assume that they are either not home, or are busy and are choosing not to answer. Either way, you just leave and try again later. But this is not the States. The next thing I know the front door opens, and a stranger to me walks right into the room where I’m trying to sleep! He acted surprised, and asked me if Matthew(roomate) was here. He’s just walked through the house, so he knows he’s not there. But I said no, he’s off doing something else right now. He said thanks, and left. I was a bit shocked at this. I asked Matthew about it later, and he said that it was a fairly normal thing for good friends, whom this guy was to Matthew, a college classmate.

In America, when someone knocks on the door and you answer, you ask them what they have come for. Often you may invite them in, but usually they have some business with you if they show up for an unplanned, unannounced visit. They will not assume that you will invite them in. In fact, you don’t want to bother people, because they may have been busy, or in the middle of something important. It’s the exact opposite in Uganda. When they come to the door, you invite them in. You don’t ask them why they have come, especially when they are standing on your porch. It is quite rude to do so. You invite them in for a visit. They have come for relationship. If they have come just before dinner, you feed them. There doesn’t seem to be much concern for what you were busy doing, and it gets put on hold for an indefinite amount of time. Can you see how this might be hard for a Westerner to adjust to day after day, year after year? I actually like the practice of inviting people in, having an open-door policy. But there are times when I think I would just need to be alone, or just do my work in privacy. Privacy is non-existent for many here, especially in a community living environment like New Hope Uganda. It is a HIGHLY valued thing in the West. It’s not a big deal here.

A few other difficulties. The roads here are astoundingly awful. In the States many of them would simply be blocked off. On the way to the retreat we passed four or five large trucks that had tipped over and were laying on their side. The electricity is sporratic. At meetings there is a tedious formality, even for small things. People are generally always late for everything. There are donkeys that wake up everyone within a quarter mile at 5 am. Chickens are running everywhere, getting into gardens and even some houses, dropping their business. When you leave New Hope everyone is staring at you because you are white, a “mizungu” as they say. When you go into town to buy supplies people are constantly scamming you and raising their prices a few notches because they think all whites are rich, and they want a piece of it. A lot of the kids gossip and falsely slander the western staff. Some of the MK’s get teased and jokingly threatened by adults just to get a rise out of them. The whole mindset of the culture is so different, and often I myself just cannot understand or believe certain things go on, and are OK with the culture.

These are only a few things on the list. Imagine living here with your family for ten years. It will wear on you over time. It can really be a wearying thing. Yet every missionary who accepts the call to serve God’s kingdom in a different culture accepts the unknown, and knows that these things will be there. The cultural shift will be difficult. Some missionaries just burn out after a few years of this. Others endure it, and find a way to deal with it. Yet what I saw at this retreat was that everyone there has difficulties with these things, and a lot of adjustment is required, but they are all still here, still in God’s will, and are happy. They have found a way to deal with it, and everyone must find their own way to deal with it. I used to not understand why missionaries took furloughs, but now I can see why it would be helpful. To get back into the culture you know can mentally be a great refreshment.

These cultural difficulties are by no means a reason to leave the mission field, unless of course one fails to properly deal with it, or has false expectations, like hoping to change the culture. Some of the early missionaries tried to do this, and it caused a lot of harm to Christianity for generations. The gospel is not for one culture, and it’s not cultureless, but it is full of every culture, every tongue, tribe, people and nation. These are things I’m still just beginning to understand. But I do know that God provides the grace needed to carry out his mission whether the mission is to a western affluent society, a persecuted underground church Islamic society, or a war-torn, very different African society. It’s vital that we adjust to the culture we are placed it, and be strategic and creative about how to preach the gospel in such a way that it will speak to that culture, that the true gospel will come out with all it’s fullness and power. It will look a bit different than in the West, but it’s the same truth, the same faith. And by the way, our American culture is changing too. We must find a way to preach the gospel in such a way that it remains rooted in the Word, rooted in historic Christianity, yet cuts to the heart of the 21st century American, and tears down the false worldview and relativistic epistomology.

Finally, I would encourage you to pray for your missionaries in one new way, that is, to pray that they might stand firm in their different culture. Pray that they would have true rest in the midst of it. Pray that through their struggle the gospel might shine more brightly. Pray that they themselves would be sanctified more and more through these difficulties, and that culture-transcending, humanity-transforming, God-glorifying gospel would come out clearly.

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