So Sad! Work first Family Second!

This was written by a Peace Corps Worker in Mali,West Africa

"Peace Corps staff, all Malian, get training on American work values so that the office can be more efficient, punctual, and reflective of an American office. I was once in the office of a certain staff member, and noticed a small-typed list hanging behind his desk: 50 Successful Tips for Working in an American office. There was one highlighted. I leaned over the desk and squinted to read it. "Work first. Family Second." My heart fell. I pitied him, and in doing so, pitied myself, and the millions of Americans who have internalized that."

Work First, Family Second!

I thought this was well written. Peace Corp Worker in Mali, Aug 2010

As an American, I value achievement, intellect, individuality.....Amidst the constraints of poverty and the lack of access to opportunity, Malians have developed a strong values system. So if not competition and education, what are Malian values? Practicing utmost respect for people. Taking an interest in other people's affairs and endeavors. Sharing everything you have and not taking anything for yourself unless there's some left over. Stopping to help everyone you pass who may need a hand, not thinking twice about if it will make you "late" or if it's "not your problem." And though I've been annoyed with people persistently insisting on helping when I can clearly draw my own water or change my own bike tire, people stopping me to give an unending string of blessings and greetings, people constantly inquiring about my comings and goings or dismissing my polite declines to ask me to eat toh with them for the fourth time in a row, I know now, they just care about me. They give everything, which is nothing in our sense. But blessings, care, small acts of generosity, is all they have. And they have been offering it to me from the day I arrived. They are putting their values into practice and in doing so, show me that maybe the way I do things isn't necessarily right. I'm that girl who whizzes by on her bike because stopping to great a group of 10 women on the way to the market would take up way too much of my precious time. I'm the girl that has nice food and medicines in her home that she hides from the rest of the village. And how many nights have I dismissed someone who wanted to chat because I'd rather have my head in a book? What really gets me- is the individualism. I'm catching myself- my thoughts. Self-centered, so often about me. When I peer into the brain of my fellow Malian, who could be resting but instead goes over to help her neighbor wash clothes, I see her thoughts of society, and love for others suppressing that "me! me! me!" voice that is always trying to scream the loudest in our minds. Mali peace corps worker ...............
Peace Corps staff, all Malian, get training on American work values so that the office can be more efficient, punctual, and reflective of an American office. I was once in the office of a certain staff member, and noticed a small-typed list hanging behind his desk: 50 Successful Tips for Working in an American office. There was one highlighted. I leaned over the desk and squinted to read it. "Work first. Family Second."

My heart fell. I pitied him, and in doing so, pitied myself, and the millions of Americans who have internalized that."

Malian Proverb

"No matter how long a log sits in the stream, it will never become a crocodile."

Malian proverb meaning, ultimately, you are what you really are in any environment.

Some Fights Are Worth It!

"While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight - I'll fight to the very end!" William Booth

Too Small To Be Church!

Was reflecting on how difficult it was for the Jews to accept Jesus, and I tried to place myself in the routine of daily Jewish life and routine to understand why that might be. Well, you know, just about every structure and habit I had associated with my worship, and my place in that stricture would have been ripped away from under me.

Jesus was the end of the priesthood. Now everyone was to come to God, and live as an ambassador.

Jesus was the end of Animal Sacrifice. No more specialists required to worship God.

Jesus was the end of the Temple. God does no live in Temples built by human hands.

The synagogue was no longer needed. The river, the home, any place was ok to worship now. Many say church today is similar to synagogue structure. Oh my no. It is today but should not be. Because temple like places like synagogue are not required.
Jesus said not to go and hang out with the 99. He said to go seek lost sheep, and when you find him bring him to meet the ready of the family. Go to the ditch to pull out lost sheep. He never said that for our own health you need to be with the 99.

Jesus did away with Gathering size. Synagogues required 10 males to be formed. So it would have to involve at least 30 to 40 family members minimum. Jesus said where two or three gather in my name, I am there. But most Christians think its a false doctrine or only rebels or loons who actually practice it. Just about anyone is thought to be so. Never heard an exception yet.

You know, after thinking about it, If Jesus came to my church and said the same things
1. You are all priests, live like it. Stop waiting for "leaders" to do it for you. The Gospel has given you a ministry to do do it, there is nothing to figure out.
2. You don't need a building to meet with God, gather people anywhere and everywhere. "Jesus says go, but our church building says stay. Jesus says to seek the lost & we say let the lost seek the church." The Problem With Wine Skins
3. A good church is not measured by numbers, but faithfulness of those gathered. Two or three IS a church and could be a health on too....

I'm not so certain how many would hear it today. Would not be asked to come back and preach. There is much of the simplicity of the first century church we will not look at.

It's Just Life For Most

"Many of the crisis problems which are considered disasters in the United States would only be normal, everyday living conditions in most of Asia."

-K.P. Yohannan, Revolution in World Missions

Too Much Of Our "Stuff" With Gospel!

"Have Asians rejected Christ? Not really. In most cases they have rejected only the trappings of Western culture that have fastened themselves onto the Gospel."

-K.P. Yohannan, Revolution in World Missions

The African Generosity!

Was reading another Mali, west African Peace Corps workers blog this week. If you are planning to work overseas, spend 50 hours reading Peace Corps journals for the country you are going to (if PC is there), AND the surrounding countries too!

The insight you gain into the life and adjustments of living in that country is good. Take them with a grain of salt, but they live in rural villages very simply. (www.peacecorpjournals.com or get the free iPhone/IPod/IPad app "peacecorpsjournals"

This article expressed how I often felt in Africa too. I'm sure people with a lack of understanding envision us going in as "know-it-alls". Oh my, sigh....! No, always humbled by the acceptance of a poor, yet precious people!

“It’s amazing,” I said the night before my departure to a crowd of my friends and coworkers who had came to visit, “that you people can welcome and accept someone from a far off land who doesn’t speak your language, and learn to live and work alongside of them. That is a bigger accomplishment than all the wells we built......And it really is. I noticed that when Shawna, the young college grad from Orgeon, came to Dombila to visit for a week. Site visit. I remember mine. The worst week of my life. I took extra care to make sure Dombila’s new volunteer would be well acquainted, informed, and comfortable upon her arrival, but there’s no getting around it: adjustment is hard. Shawna was polite and warm to the people of Dombila, but trying to take it all in, imagining herself there for the next two years, she couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed.......

But seeing her, and the way my host family and all of the people at the CSCOM interacted with her, reminded me of my first few months. It was so hard for me, but I never really realized, it was so hard for them too. The way they took Shawna in as their own and looked after her was so endearing, and I began to realize that I have thus far underestimated all they have done for me. Peace Corps always said volunteers come out of service having gained more than they feel like they have given. It’s personal development, but it’s also valuing the gifts of others, no matter how small. They’ve giving me so much, the people of this town. All the pomegranates from the pomegranate tree, all of the eggplants from the garden, the only peanuts left in the house, the prize chicken, and all of the blessings imaginable. And a home. The last few months I’ve felt like I could finally let down my guard and be myself in Dombila. I wasn’t hiding who I was, nor was I struggling to express it. I was so comfortable, content, and so me.

http://em-mali.blogspot.com/2010/08/home.html

I'm Not Honking Because I love Jesus!

"I remember sitting out at a local Starbucks one day and hearing a guy honking profusely at someone who took his parking spot. It got so bad, I walked over to him and suggested he chill out. It got even worse when I saw his bumper sticker that read, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” I, of course, referenced the dichotomy between his words and his actions, but he blurted out, “This is my wife’s car!”


(Tangible Kingdom. Hugh Halter, pg 40, 2008, Jossey-Bass)

Why Blame God? What Do I Do About Poverty?

"Sometimes I'd like to ask God why He allows poverty, famine and injustice when He could do something about it. But I'm afraid God might ask me the same question." Amy Campbell

Ethnocentricism!

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime." - Mark Twain

Living Community, A Real Interacting Community!

Since the redeemed no longer belong to themselves, they adopt a corporate—rather than a private and individualistic—lifestyle. .....churches emerge when truly converted people stop living their own lives for their own ends, and begin living a community life according to the values of the Kingdom of God, sharing their lives and resources with those Christians and not-yet- Christians around them.

(The House Church Book. Wolfgang Simson. Barna, 2009, pg 31)

The Motivation Is...........?

"What is the point of all of this? To destroy a man who seeks the truth or to destroy the truth so no man can seek it."

Agent Rheas, X Files , "The Truth" Season 9, Episode 19, 20, 2003, Time 53.25

Alone, Degrees Of Alone!

"When you're on your own in the desert, you are completely on your own."

Somali Grandmother

(Infidel. Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Free press, 2007, Line 477 (kindle)

Release The Church From the People Who Shakkle It!

"Christianity has been buried inside the walls of churches and secured with the shackles of dogmatism. Let is be liberated to come into the midst of us and teach us freedom, equality and love". - Minna Canth

Experiencing Other Cultures Opens Eyes

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime." - Mark Twain

Forging A New Path!

"........we need to consider new ways of initiating the spiritually younger generations into their next phases and support their growth in stature in Christ. In the absence of Christian initiations, many Christians take role models from the world and imitate them. And so whole generations are initiated by MT’. sports, and sometimes even by cults or satanic groups who know very well the power of initiation.

How does a young girl of thirteen grow up into a mature mother in Christ if she is never initiated into motherhood? How many of us complain of how many girls are embracing pop-star role models, becoming initiated into this value system in concerts and clubs and ending up as more sad copies of dancing Barbie dolls? Similarly, many boys never meet a truly dedicated and dangerous Christian man but are familiar only with predictable, boring names on church membership roles. Once they run into a drug dealer, a freak, or a recruiter for any organization that smells of adventure, off they go, swept off their feet by the promise of more meaningful and adventurous lives and a chance to change the world. Many of God’s best and most influential men and women in history come from rough, rather than overprotected, backgrounds: fishermen, prostitutes, zealots, orphans, drug dealers, mafia members, political extremists, and even former jihadists and near-terrorists. Few come from reputable Bible schools or predictable middle-class churches where no one has given them a cause to die for, challenged them to the core, or forced them to embrace the challenge and find something to live for.

Consider the way that Israeli soldiers are routinely brought through the initiation process. They are led to visit Masada or Holocaust memorial sites like Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Faced with the terrors of the Holocaust and the past wars, they are told: “You soldiers are the last line of defense between such an enemy that is still out there and the safety of our land and your family. What will be your resolve?” Often enough, with tears in their eyes, something clicks in the young men and women, and they understand that if they don’t give their lives for this, their country will be lost. And it transforms them from dreamy teenagers, waiting to watch one more movie, into soldiers who take responsibility. It wakes them up, challenges them, and initiates them as disciples for their cause, those who are no longer waiting for others to take initiative while they enjoy the good life, but who are instead willing to leave their former lives and enter into a new kind of existence.

(The House Church Book. Wolfgang Simson. Barna, 2009, pg 149-151)

50 - 50 What's In It For me?

"As Adullam began to grow and Christians started to find us, we felt quite a bit of pressure to make sure people were introduced to our values, particularly our values related to being a “sent” community. I set a “two-visit” rule. That is, if someone came to check us out and I knew they came from another church, I’d invite them out and have what has become affectionately known as “the talk.” During the talk, I’d make sure I mentioned a few things. Here’s a sampling:

“I just want you to know that we’re not a church, we’re a mission to Denver, I don't feel and compulsion to feed you spiritually, but I will look after your spiritual formation. I believe you won’t grow unless you live like Jesus lived and try to do what he did with people.This mission probably has nothing to offer you. However, I’m interested in finding out if God brought you to us, and what your part in serving this city might be.” I go on to suggest that they won’t fit with us unless they are willing to open up their homes and lives to Sojourners and participate in a missional community within the city.

As you would expect, about 50 percent of the people who get “the talk” don’t come back."

(Tangible Kingdom. Hugh Halter, pg 54. 2008, Jossey-Bass)

Some Things Never Changer!

“No matter how long you look at it, a tree stump will never turn into a crocodile”, Proverb in the Bambara language means that some things just don’t change.

House Church Skepticism! Are They legal! Are the Sane!

My oh my how things have changed. The Church of 30AD to about 250 AD were all house churches. There are few, if any known "Church" buildings.

"......in AD 380 bishops Theodosius and Gratian ordered that there should be only one state-recognized Catholic Church, and one rule-set of faith—the orthodox dogma. Each Roman citizen was forced to become a member of the Catholic Church and was made to adopt the lex fidei, the law of faith. Other groups and movements—including those meeting in homes—were forbidden. That meant the legal end of the house church. This law turned the rules upside down.

Until the rule of Severus around AD 222—35, church buildings had not even been allowed by the government, and house churches were the only way for Christians to meet. But from AD 380 on, those involved with starting a house church were breaking the law and viewed as criminals. Thus began a new era: the persecution of the church in the name of the “church.” The Inquisition, a religious-political joint venture in the form of a Christian “faith police,” had lifted its bloody head, killing millions of followers of Christ in the name of organized Christian religion.

(The House Church Book. Wolfgang Simson. Barna, 2009, pg 20)

Malian Cultural Issues

Dos and Don’ts of Malian Culture. Let me share simple insights.

1. It is not necessary to talk during a meal.
2. Don’t wait to be invited to go visit someone, you are always welcome.
3. Eye contact can be seen as aggressive, so you do not look your elders in the eyes.
4. Do not speak while in the bathroom, and if someone is coming you have to make a noise to let them know the bathroom is occupied.
5. Females should not smoke in public, if they do they could be mistaken for a prostitute
6. In the morning do not greet someone until after you and they have washed their face.
7. It is acceptable for people of the same sex to hold hands, and 8. It is not appropriate for women to whistle.
9. Also women should never wash or hang their underwear in public, women do that inside or at night.
10. Women also wear this like belly chain bead thing called Baya beads, and to them theyre basically like a thong. Theyre supposed to be really sexy, and you wear them under your clothes and you're not supposed to let guys see them. They're supposed to be for your husband.
11. Volunteers call the icky finger. This happens when shaking hands; a guy uses his middle finger to rub the palm of girls hand, and this is a sexual advance. If this happens to a lady they're supposed to immediately pull back the hand and give the dude a death.
12. Never eat, greet, pay money, handle, receive something handed to you, hand something to others,or gesture with the left hand. The "dirty hand". With no Toilet paper they wipe with the left hand and rinse with a plastic tea shaped water kettle, but they do not generally clean the hand with soap. Basically, because of this you never do anything with your left hand. In Mali it is seen as disrespectful to hand people things with your left hand, to shake hands with your left hand, basically anything with your left hand. Just so you all know, I WILL have toilet paper on me at all times

13. Three course tea time is very important. Tea is a really big thing here, and a tea session will take hours. There are usually 3 cycles, the first cycle is really bitter but still good, and then the next two cycles get less bitter and more sweet. They also add mint. I really liked it. The whole purpose of a tea session is to hang out and talk, that's why it takes hours.

Personal Safety: pneumonic AVMDED to remember it we say, All Volunteers Must Do it Every Day), and this stands for Awareness,
Vigilance,
Mitigation,
Diffusion,
Escape and
Defense.

Freedom Is Never Free

"………….. and there in that pleasant corner of the world they plied their well-ordered business of living, and they heeded less and less the world outside where dark things moved, until they came to think that peace and plenty were the rule in Middle-earth and the right of all sensible folk. They forgot or ignored what little they had ever known of the Guardians, and of the labours of those that made possible the long peace of the Shire. They were, in fact, sheltered, but they had ceased to remember it."


J. R.R. Tolkien "The Fellowship of the Ring" , 1985, George & Allen & Urwin Pub LTD(Page 22-23 prologue)

Talking About Africa Too Much!

During a "re-entry" Session for Peace Corp workers returning to the USA, after 2 years of rural development work in poor countries, the instructor,.....

"......he did explain some of the challenges we will experience during our re-entering phase of service.You shouldn’t be surprised if friends have moved on, or get a glazed over look after just five minutes of stories we tell about our time abroad"

This summer I have been graced with several opportunites to spend time with a dear Christian brother now living in Edmonton. We worked together in Africa and we formed an inseparable bond there. We talked Africa all day today, and all day & night a few weeks ago. Mission is in our heart, and minds, but we rarely ever get to share our stories. On the rare times we get to be in the same province, it pours out.

Refreshing to dream of our other love.