Transitions

Life is never still. Changes, big or small, are always a part of our lives whether we like it or not. Since I last posted on this blog I've been through a major transition and am now poised on the brink of another. I moved back to Canada for four months for my home assignment. As great as it was to be back in my home country with family and friends, it was a bit overwhelming too. It was difficult in the little things like trying to drive on the proper side of the road or making a decision of what to buy at the grocery store. When you have had little or no choice for so long too many choices can cripple you. It was also difficult adjusting back in more major ways such as fitting in to a busy way of life and trying to connect again with friends whose lives had gone in different directions than mine. In spite of all these areas where I faced reverse culture shock, I adjusted back after a couple months and really enjoyed living in Canada again.

However in less than two weeks I face another major transition. I will be leaving Canada and moving back to Tanzania. Having just recovered from my last move this next one is producing mixed emotions. I have rediscovered all that I love about my life in Canada and am reluctant to leave it. At the same time I miss my friends and work in Tanzania and am eager to rejoin them. What do I do when both of my worlds are pulling at me and I'm not sure where I belong anymore?

Although I don't have all the answers one thing I know is that I need to live in this moment right now. I may not see my family and friends for a long time once I leave but I can enjoy my time with them right now. And although I am missing out on the work in Tanzania I can stop worrying about it and know that in time I will be back there again. There is no point in worrying about one world when i am in the other. I just have to enjoy where I am and know that despite all the changes coming, God is the one constant in my life. He is faithful and so I can face whatever transitions the future holds.

An International Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving approached this year I decided the best way to celebrate would be to introduce my friends and colleagues to a Canadian Thanksgiving. Seeing as how I am the only Canadian in the area I figured it was up to me to take on this task.

I really wanted to get a turkey this year but they are few and far between and I didn’t know if it would be possible. Fortunately, one my colleagues knew someone who had been raising turkeys and was ready to sell them. I arranged to have a turkey delivered to my office. Naturally, it was still alive and I decided a fight with a live turkey was probably not a good plan. The man who delivered it came with me and we brought it in my car to my house where he killed it in the backyard. Then my house worker was able to pluck it and clean it for me. I froze it as this was a couple weeks before Thanksgiving.

When Thanksgiving weekend came around (we celebrated on Saturday, Oct 10 because Monday is not a holiday here), I had approximately 25 adults and 11 children crammed into my little house! Fortunately we had a potluck style meal where everyone contributed part of the meal. My housemate and I had to borrow chairs in order to have enough seats for everyone. We spent part of the afternoon arranging and fitting them just right in our living room, like a puzzle. Otherwise we would not have had space for all of them. We needed every single chair too! There were people from Egypt, England, the States, Australia, New Zealand and Holland. It was definitely an international Thanksgiving!

One of the best parts of the evening (besides eating the turkey) was listening to everyone share something they were thankful for. Sometimes doing this can be a little superficial depending on what people say, but it was actually quite meaningful. It was encouraging to hear all the different things people appreciate. We all come from such different backgrounds, from different parts of the world and yet we can sit together and honour God because of everything we have to be thankful for.

Holy, Holy, Holy

Although the key terms workshop is over and things have settled down a bit in the translation department, our work with those key words continues. Yesterday I sent two translation teams out to the community to test some of those ways they want to translate those key terms.

One key term in particular stuck out to me as I was helping a translator prepare for the community testing. That word is holy. I think our first reaction if we tried to define holy would be something along the lines of 'without sin' or 'without blemish'. But when we look at some of the ways that word 'holy' is used in the Bible our definition seems to be missing something. There are holy places, like the temple, there are holy articles, there are holy people, God's name is holy etc. What is the common denominator between all these things? It's not that they are perfect or without blemish but rather that they are all set apart for God. They are holy because God is holy.

So when it comes down to the very basic definition we see that holy really has to do with the fact that God is completely distinct from everything else. He is totally unique and that is what holy means. Everything is holy only when it is set apart distinctly for God. Along with that meaning we can get other meanings, such as the idea of being blameless or sinless but only because God is sinless. Otherwise the word for 'pure' carries the idea of being sinless.

I think that many of us, myself included, sing about God being holy or his name being holy without ever really stopping to think what that means. But if someone would ask us to define exactly what we mean by 'holy' we wouldn't know what to say. This is a bit of what happened to me because all the languages we work with have no word for 'holy'. So I had to explain what 'holy' means in that context and to do that, I had to understand what it means. It was a good challenge to me to really think about some of these words that roll so easily off my tongue.

Why I Do What I Do

Recent events in our translation department have caused me to re-evaluate why am I here in Tanzania. Before I came to Tanzania I had many reasons for wanting to be part of a Bible translation project, the most important one being that I believed God was calling me to this work. But I had many other reasons along with that. I wanted to do something with my life that would last forever. I wanted to invest in people. I wanted people to be able to read the Bible in their own languages. I wanted to live in another culture and learn another language. I wanted to be a part of what God was doing, somewhere else in the world. Never did I dream how easily those reasons could be disposed of.

Somewhere along the way it stopped being fun learning another language and culture and become increasingly frustrating, feeling out of place and never able to communicate well. People didn’t always respond as I hoped and I didn’t feel like I was investing in them. It’s difficult work translating and sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever have a good translation that people can read in their mother tongue. But most of all recently, I have discovered that people who I thought were committed to this work, aren’t all that committed and it makes me question why I am still here.

I am still here because I have one reason left to be here and that is that God called me. In the end it boils down to the fact that my work out here does not depend on the commitment of Tanzanians or other colleagues. It doesn’t depend on whether people want me to be here or whether they like me or not. It doesn’t depend on my personal fulfillment or desire to live in another culture. It depends on the fact that the God whom I serve and have dedicated my life to, asked me to work here and I need to obey. That’s it.

So whether I am struggling with my ministry or in my personal life, I will stay. And I know more than ever how faithful God is and that we will walk together through these times when everything seems to be coming apart at the seams. And His will will be done.

Layers of Belief

Since I’ve arrived in Tanzania I have heard that Christianity is oftentimes more of a surface thing than a deep-rooted life changing experience for many people. I have seen evidence of nominal Christianity but then again, that is not so different from nominal Christians back in Canada. They go to church on Sunday and then live however they want the rest of the week.

However, what I didn’t realize that I was not just dealing with nominal Christians but rather with was a completely different and separate worldview which Christianity has not penetrated. I had heard about this but didn’t fully understand the extent to which this works itself out in the lives of these people until I had some good discussions with my translators.

This week in our key terms workshop we have been researching their cultures, trying to find words that will help us translate key terms. At one point one of my very dedicated Christian translators told me a story about when he was a boy. He was responsible for watching the animals (probably goats or sheep) but one day some went missing. That night at home his grandmother showed him a special ceremony for asking the hyena to return the animals. According to their traditions, the hyena is a close friend and member of the community. During a ceremony involving certain stones and some ashes, this translator asked the hyena to return the animals. A few days later the animals came back in the middle of the night. As a thank you, they picked one of the best animals, killed it and left it out for the hyena.

As the translator talked about this story he didn’t relate it to God in anyway. It was just a part of life as he knows it, which is that the hyena has its own power to protect their clan. He was arguing that this power wasn’t from God or demons but was just its own power. The problem is not that something like this happened but that the realm in which it is understood is completely separate from God and a Christian worldview. When it comes to that part of life, Christianity is irrelevant.

Christianity is seen as a separate, more western thing and as such it has no power to change or impact the deep, underlying way these people see the world. I am making generalizations here because there are Tanzanians who relate Christianity to their traditions but for most people, they still see the world through the eyes of their traditions, not through the Bible.

More than ever, this realization has impressed on me the importance of having the Bible in these different languages. When Christianity is spoken about in Swahili or English only, it’s easier to keep it separate from traditions in the village. But when Christianity uses the language of traditions, it can began to penetrate that worldview which has so far been keep separate.

Sin Across Cultures

This week we began our key terms workshop. Basically this workshop consists of analyzing certain key terms in the Bible, such as sin, holy, God etc. Then we study the different languages/cultures to find suitable words to translate these key terms. Key terms are very difficult to translate because they are so fundamental to the message of the Bible. If you mistranslate these key terms, the translation might preach a different gospel than Jesus did. Thus we are taking two weeks just to focus on properly translating some key terms in Luke.

In preparation for our study of the word 'sin', I read an article about sin in different cultures. It was a fascinating article as the author, a long time member of Wycliffe, argued his point that although the core definition of sin is the same across cultures, there are different ways to interpret that definition. For example, he lists murder, adultery, lying, and stealing as actions that are considered wrong almost universally. However what one culture considers to be a lie, another culture doesn't. Or an action that is considered stealing in one culture is not stealing in another. An example would be how walking through an orchard in the States without permission and picking fruit would be considered stealing. However in ancient Israel, this would not be considered stealing.

This point really struck me as I live in another culture but have come here with my own ideas of what is right and wrong, ideas that I received from the Bible but have interpreted through my own cultural lenses. It's easy to look at people and condemn them for lying because they did not tell me what was true but told me what I wanted to hear. However, in their culture the greater sin would have been to be rude, to not love their neighbour as themselves. So were they sinning?

The other side is also true. How many times have I thought I was doing what was right according to my interpretation and yet maybe it was considered a sin in this culture? How many times have I blurted out the truth bluntly or didn't offer a meal when someone came to visit me? Did I hurt the people involved and did I sin against them?

To be honest, I don't really know where to draw the line but I am starting to understand what Paul said in Romans 14:1-4 "Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don't argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. For instance, one person believes it's all right to eat anything. But another believer with a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables. Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don't. And those who don't eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them. Who are you to condemn someone else's servants? They are responsible to the Lord, so let him judge whether they are right or wrong. And with the Lord's help, they will do what is right and will receive his approval."

Banging My Head Against a Glass Window

It was a warm Friday afternoon and I was trying to concentrate on my work when I heard a buzzing sound above my head. Not unusual to hear, I looked up to see what kind of bug had invaded my workspace this time. It resembled a wasp and was trying desperately to get outside.

In order to understand the plight of this bug you have to understand the windows. They are big, maybe 6-7 feet across in total and 4 feet high. In the middle there is a glass pane which is probably about 1.5 feet across. On either side of that pane are open windows, double the glass pane in width and the same height. Now these open windows don’t have screens, just a few bars so there is space for birds to fly through if they wanted to.

This poor bug was literally banging its head against the glass window pane as it tried to find a way out. It went up one side and down the other, searching for some crack, some hole to squeeze through. It searched the edges, the corners, around and around it kept going. This went on for quite a while and distracted me from my work. I kept thinking that if the bug would just leave the window pane and retreat back into the room a bit, it would see the big open windows and could fly away freely. But it didn’t and kept going at the glass for some time.

Then it struck me how much like that bug I am and I just had to write down my musings. How many times do I stand looking at a goal, a really good goal in fact,like the bug trying to get outside (it definitely does not belong in the office). But when I try to forward I just hit a wall. I can’t understand it and I’m sure I need to head toward the goals so I try to force my way through. I bang my head against the glass, hoping it will break or I’ll discover some miraculous way through. I look at the glass from all angles trying to figure it out.

And during that whole time God is standing over me, watching and seeing the big picture. He sees the huge open windows on either side of me and tries to tell me He has made a way for me. I can go out anywhere through the huge space on the right or through the space on the left. But I won’t leave my pane of glass long enough to see the opportunities. I refuse to let go, to back up, when that in fact is the only way for me to achieve my goal.

Eventually the wasp-like bug flew away back into the room but he didn’t get the goal he was trying so hard for. God puts goals and dreams and desires in my hearts and he doesn’t necessarily mean for me to give up them. I just have to give up my way of getting there. I have to let go of how I want to do it and listen to God. Maybe then I’ll see the open windows on either side, just waiting for me to fly through them.