A Rainy Day

We are all one in Christ, so how come it doesn’t feel that way? It’s true that on the outside we, as people from a variety of different countries, look and act differently but those differences can be fun to explore. We try wearing different types of clothes, eating different kinds of food and speaking other languages. There are challenges to all those attempts but we get past them and even enjoy them. We believe that we have arrived at a place where we understand each other.

Then one day something happens, such as it rains really hard one morning. This is a seemingly insignificant yet very revealing event. From one perspective the rain is a major obstacle. You will get sick if you walk all the way to work in the rain so the sensible thing to do is stay at home and wait until it finishes. You might arrive at work a few hours late but that’s not important. You have stayed healthy and done your best to get to work when you can. There’s no point in letting your boss know why you are late, they will have seen the rain and understood.

However, there is another perspective at play. This perspective looks at the rain as a minor inconvenience. True, it’s difficult to walk to work in the rain so you use your umbrella, ride the bus or take a taxi. It might not be as easy as getting to work usually is but it’s your responsibility to arrive at work on time. Your boss is not going to accept the rain as a valid excuse for being late. It would be embarrassing, even shameful to arrive at work very late and then claim that you couldn’t arrive earlier because of the rain.

Both of these perspectives are valid, so what happens when the first perspective is the perspective of the employee and the second is that of the employer? What happens is a barrier goes up. Neither person understands why the other person did or said what they did. The employee is hurt and confused by his harsh employer. He can’t understand why his employer doesn’t care about his personal health but only about getting to work on time. He tries to explain that he saved his employer paying him sick time because he stayed home and didn’t walk in the rain. But his employer doesn’t understand and punishes him anyway by forcing him to make up the time he missed on another day.

On the other hand, the employer is confused by his usually hard working employee. He doesn’t understand why the rain is such a big deal. He feels like the employee is being lazy and making excuses because he didn’t feel like coming to work on time that day. He doesn’t know why the employee won’t take responsibility for his own actions. He tries to be understanding because it was raining really hard so instead of punishing the employee he offers him the chance to make up the time on another day.

This example shows how the differences between these two people go much deeper than the clothes they wear or the languages they speak. They look at life completely differently so what started out as good intentions on the part of both people, ends up in hurt, anger and confusion.

Now if these people are Christians they know they should be able to get along and work together because they are united in Christ. But what does that mean on a practical level? How do you work with someone who doesn’t seem to care about you? What do you do when you try to put someone else ahead of yourself only to have them think you are being cruel? How do you handle the power imbalance between the employer and employee when there are these kinds of differences?

I don’t have any answers, just lots of questions. Prayer and wisdom are crucial ingredients but what can we do to see past our own perspectives? How do we lay aside our view of the world and step into someone else’s shoes? How do we help them step into our shoes? How can something so impossible be possible?

Unexpected Friends

One of the things I love (and sometimes hate) about traveling is that you never know who you're going to meet. I had such an experience yesterday as I was traveling home from Dar es Salaam. I boarded the airplane and found myself seated next to an older Tanzanian gentleman. After he kindly helped me stow all my pieces of hand luggage he started up a conversation.

Not long into the conversation I shared about my line of work, Bible translation. His enthusiasm overflowed and he had many questions for me. I love talking about what I do so it was great fun to answer all his questions. I even had the opportunity to jump on my soapbox of the importance for people to have the Bible in their first language, not just their second or third.

I was also able to ask a few questions myself and discovered that this man is a wealthy business man who enjoys supporting Christian ministries where he can. As a way to help me out he offered me a ride to the bus station from the airport to save me the taxi fare. So when his wife and colleagues picked him up from the airport I was in the vehicle with them. They drove me right to the bus station and didn't let me out of the car until a good seat on a reputable bus had been secured. They even insisted on looking at the seating chart to find the best possible seat for me.

It was such a blessing to meet this man and his wife and yet an unlikely occurrence as well. As a wealthy businessman in a city three hours away from where I live, we would have little opportunity to meet. In fact many men in his position would not have begun a conversation with me. But the conversation was started and I left that flight with a new friend. I wonder how many opportunities like this I have had in the past but missed them because I was too tired or too busy to follow through. It was a good reminder to me to be aware of the possibilities, possibilities to make a friend, encourage someone, and share my faith.

Life From Another Perspective

Living in another country provides many opportunities to see life from another perspective. I encountered a couple of those moments today.

The first time occurred as I was checking Luke 4:33 with the Ikoma translators. When I'm checking the translation I read through it looking for areas that aren't accurate, aren't understandable or aren't natural ways to say something in Ikoma. In this case I was checking to make sure the translation accurately communicated that the evil spirit was inside the man and was speaking through the man. After I asked about it, one of the translators just laughed and told me people know about these types of things. He explained that people here are familiar with evil spirits and they would know exactly what is going on in this verse.

I have to admit it, I was a little taken aback. I know that spirits are very real and known here but the way he said it just surprised me. Back home, most people wouldn't say they are familiar with how demon possession works but out here it's a fact of life. It made me aware of how different our perspectives on life are.

The second moment that altered my perspective occurred during a meeting of the translation department. We were discussing a misunderstanding that had occurred a few weeks ago, trying to make the policy clear and resolve the issue. From where I was sitting, it seemed as if the Tanzanian translators did not agree with the policy because of cultural differences and could not see why it should be followed. However as the meeting went on it become clear that the real issue was how the translators had been told the policy, not the policy itself. They had been hurt by the way they were told and thought they were being punished. From a western perspective, we thought the guidelines and expectations had just been honestly explained. There was a cultural difference causing the conflict, just not the difference I expected.

I realized I still don't always know how my behaviour is perceived by Tanzanians, even after living here for two years. Everyone was involved with the same event and yet understood it in completely different ways. This happens even within our own cultures, not just between cultures. It was a good lesson for me on how to relate with Tanzanians and also a reminder that I usually only see a small piece of the picture.