Category: Culture Page 1 of 4

Slow Down

On February 24, 2023

Being in the village for almost three weeks had provided many opportunities to examine our own cultural values in light of the culture we have entered. As a young, short-term missionary years ago I learned a saying: It’s not wrong, it’s just different. This is a good first step towards opening our eyes to people from other cultures in effort to understand their mindset and how to best minister to them and share the gospel with them. However, it stops short of helping us really understanding the people we seek to minister as persons created in the image of God. It perpetuates an us vs. them mentality that is not helpful for life on life ministry.

As different as the Makai village people are to us and our way of life, I am recognizing there are many ways we can grow in our own character and as believers by learning and even embracing some of their deep-rooted values. I don’t mean their works-based, fear-based religious beliefs, but some of the deeper cultural values that we in the West have forsaken. Some of my reflections on these things are inspired by Wendell Berry novel I read a few months back called Jayber Crow which really challenged me in ways I am still processing.

Our broader culture, and even the Christian community, often emphasizes fruitfulness and productivity – tangible numbers and results. Yes, God has given us work to do, and this is good. Yet I’m afraid I have lived a lot of my life on a basis of task-oriented productivity, checking off lists in order to feel like my contribution matters, even at the risk of ignoring human relationship and need. Here in the village, and generally in Chad, “henisse” – being together – is of utmost importance. Eating alone, going on a visit alone, doing household tasks alone, spending the evening alone, is viewed negatively. Of course, we want someone with us – all the time!

As a missionary from the West, I have a choice: I can continue to acknowledge that this “henisse” lies in stark contrast to my own cultural value system and figure out how to crate boundaries, barriers, time slots to fit people in to our day. Yet here in the village, there is no framework for that. We have people from 6am in the morning until late in the evening coming in for short or long visits. Some people bring us gifts from their fields, others need help with something practical or medical, others stop by for a short greeting, others sit down for a cup of tea or whatever food they might find served at our home, while still others come to offer to help me wash dishes or rake the yard.

At times in Jesus’ ministry, he sought to get away for prayer, but the crowds would follow Him. Instead of complaining or becoming frustrated, He had compassion on them and gave more of Himself. In Jayber Crow, the main character (Jayber) sees the God-given beauty in everyday, normal interactions amongst the townspeople. Simply being together adds value to their lives in a way that rushing around, fulfilling all the tasks cannot provide.

I had a local lady compare two missionary women recently. It was a Mary and Martha sort of comparison. The one woman was so busy in her kitchen and hardly came to sit with her visitors; the other woman provided the best food she had to offer but also sat with them, giving her visitors the best gift: her time and herself. I think this also has a lot of implications for us as believers, not just as cross-cultural workers, but as team members on the field, or as fellow believers attending the same church. Living out the “one another” commands can’t really happen if we’re so busy rushing around in our task-oriented lives. We must intentionally slow down to consider one another, pray for one another, encourage and build up one another. So, as I receive one more visitor and my natural, fleshly, Western cultural self is tempted to look at my husband and roll my eyes or let out a sigh, I’m trying to remember the significance of giving myself and my time for the sake of the gospel. I’m learning that I have as much to learn from these new friends as they may have to learn from me.

Locusts and Prayers for the Dead

By kimberly

On March 4, 2022

In Culture, Islam

This was from our trip back in December, just getting around to posting about it…

On Friday, I wanted to go greet again in different homes around the village, but there were no women to be found! Overnight there had been a swarm (plague!) of locusts that camped out in all the surrounding trees. In the morning, we saw evidence of their arrival by the small droppings they left under the trees they had made temporary homes in. I found out a little while after I woke up that all the women had gone into the fields to catch the locusts. Fried locusts are a special, healthy, free treat enjoyed by young and old when they surprisingly show up. It’s an opportunity not to be missed! Our kids also got in on the fun closer to home by catching as many as they could hold in a little plastic bag.

In the late afternoon, I attended a gathering underneath the village tree with all the women. They were making special food to share around in memory of a young man who died a year ago in the desert while searching for gold. Islamic practice is for the men to recite the Quran and say prayers at the mosque for the dead person on the year anniversary of a person’s death. I shared a meal with the ladies which was an experience. Isaac came looking for me, but we were all gathered around our separate trays of food with large pieces of fabric covering our heads. Imagine kids sitting underneath a parachute with the top cut out! Makai tradition prevents certain family relations to eat in front of other family relations, such as a daughter in law in front of her mother-in-law. Because almost everyone is inter-related in the village, every one of us covered up! Isaac had no idea where to begin looking for me when he walked up to 10 or so groups of women all covered!

Village Hospitality and Language Progression

By kimberly

On March 4, 2022

In Culture, language

This post has been sitting in my “draft” box for several months now, but better late than never right?

We had such a wonderful week in the village! Our first day we arrived, we unpacked our belongings and were greeted warmly by many neighbors. Muluka took me around part of the village the following day to greet people. I was very impressed the entire time with how well Muluka and Daoud hosted us. She shared food with us several times, took me to visit and meet village women, came to visit with me several evenings after dinner, offered cultural advice, and just generally made me feel very much welcomed and cared for. Daoud was faithful to check in several times during the day to make sure we were cared for and had what we needed. He is also clearly concerned that the village accepts us and that we feel welcomed.

Visiting with the women provided much encouragement for me. When we were first introduced to this village two years ago, I was only at the beginning of my Makai language studies and was unable to converse to any extent with them. Now, I still have a long way to go to increase my vocabulary and clean up my grammar, but I can have conversations, make some jokes, ask and answer questions, and just generally enjoy visiting with them. They, too, recognized the growth in ability, which was encouraging for me. I also connected with multiple close relatives of people I know here in Abeche, which was also special.

Eid al-Adha 2021

By josh

On July 27, 2021

In Culture, Islam

Recently our friends and neighbors celebrated the second of the two big holidays in the Muslim world. The first is Eid al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. The second, Eid al-Adha, comes a little more than 2 months later and celebrates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael. As with many of the Islamic versions of the stories of the patriarchs, prophets and even Jesus – the names are the same and even some details are shared but the overarching narrative of redemptive history is hollowed out and only a shell remains.

Eid al-Adha on Wikipedia

Anyway, for us it’s a chance to visit friends and neighbors and learn more about the significance of this holiday in their eyes. We have opportunities to ask questions and better understand the worldview of people here so that we can more clearly present the gospel. And for our kids, it’s a bit like Halloween because they go from house to house and get candy, treats and even coins. They don’t dress up in costumes but they do dress up in new fancy clothes…

A Week in the Village

By josh

On February 10, 2020

In Chad, Culture, Family, Food

In January, we spent a week in our newly constructed huts in the village. It was a very productive trip, and we were grateful to how warmly we were welcomed into the community. The women were very hospitable, offering us food and peanuts from their fields. We in turn, shared our dates and candy from the big city – a special treat they can’t get in the village.

Josh was able to visit several markets in surrounding towns. These are “traveling” markets that only come once a week. It was helpful to see what food items and household goods are available.

Isaac, Judah, and Calla were all able to make some friends, even though the village children only speak Maba. We are hopeful that this will help them transition well when we spend longer periods of time in the village.

Soccer is something of a universal language

One highlight of the week was hosting women from our village and 3 other neighboring villages to make grass mats for a privacy fence for our home. They each donated one or two bundles of millet stalks, walking or coming on donkey, and then spent the day making the grass mats for us. We thanked them publicly and also provided a goat and a sheep as a thank you gift for the women to share a nice meal together.

We attended a village baby naming ceremony that was actually not in a village, but in the middle of a field! We used our car to carry a laboring mother to a nearby hospital and back again, only to learn that her baby suffered trauma during delivery and is paralyzed. I had two women from different villages walk by foot to come greet me and bring me food. We saw camels almost every day outside our front door. We saw amazing amounts of stars in the night sky, and walked far away to use the bathroom since the wall around our actual bathroom was not yet complete! We have so many more stories to share; we look forward to sharing more with many of you when we come to the States this Spring.

A Maba Wedding

By josh

On March 7, 2019

In Chad, Culture

Last week I traveled about 2.5 hours out of town to attend a wedding for Abdoulaye’s cousin.

The Maba, like most of the tribes here, have a two-stage wedding. They first do what’s called the fateh, which is something more than an engagement party but not quite a wedding ceremony. The fateh takes place once the bride’s family have agreed on a bride price and the groom has provided at least part of the price. The price for this wedding was something around $500, several large sacks of sugar and rice, and a cow or two. This can vary greatly due to the status of the bride and her family. For the Maba, unlike some of the other tribes, once the’ve had the fateh the groom can “visit” his wife, even though she still lives with her parents. Yep, I imagine this leads to some awkwardness, but culturally it’s very normal.

After a time (months, even a year or more), when the groom has paid all of the bride price (or the bride’s family just gets tired of waiting and gives up), the second part of the wedding takes place. This part is called the “arrooz” and it involves officially taking the wife to her husband’s house. At this point the wedding is finished and they build a home of their own together. This stage also involves a big party, lots of good food, and housewarming gifts for the bride. Often large glass cases (with mirrored back panels) are bought to display the dishes the bride receives. So it would not be unusual to go into a mud brick house and find a large glass cabinet displaying fancy dishes.

Of course, all of this varies a bit from family to family, and from village to city, just as with American weddings. But this is the general process.

Back to our visit… The unique thing about this fateh, I learned in the car on the way there, was the the groom’s father was also re-marrying the groom’s mother after having been divorced from her for 5 years. So it was a double wedding! Divorce is relatively easy here, especially for men, but I’ve yet to fully understand the rules governing it. So maybe a later post on that when I figure it out. The time in the village was a joyous one, with lots of singing and dancing by the women and cheerful conversation by the men. Thursday afternoon, soon after we arrived, the actual ceremony for the son took place. The grooms’s representative and the bride’s representative recount the bride price and the amount paid so far to the men sitting on mats. The two representatives shake hands three times, one of them saying something that I can’t quite remember, and then the proceed with someone leading prayers. The prayers are presumably for the newly married couple, although I couldn’t hear a lot of it because the guy leading was speaking too softly. Others offered what seemed like spontaneous contributions. When the prayer was over (after about 5 minutes), that was it, the fateh was complete. All that was left was the celebration.

We stayed that night, at one point visiting the women and greeting them, at which point they began dancing and singing. The sisters of the groom were apparently overcome with joy that their father was returning home as well, and their songs were all about “good rains” and “crops being plentiful”, I think a metaphor for their joy at being reunited as a family. We ate lots of meat and sauce that night, slept out under a tree, and the next morning continued the celebrations with more dancing and singing, horse races, and lots of laughter. At one point during the morning there was another short meeting of the men similar to the night before, but this time for the father. He even had to pay another bride price!

Around noon we loaded up and took off for home, for me a bittersweet time. Just before leaving, I had gone with some of the men to visit the wife the father had taken while he was divorced from his first wife, and our mission was to inform the other wife that her husband had reunited with his first wife and that she was now #2. She held it together pretty well, at least until we left. They had said that when her husband had mentioned the possibility to her of reuniting with his first wife she had thrown a brick at him. After all the joy of seeing a family reunited, I was reminded of just how broken the institution of marriage is in the Islamic world. Something meant to be shared between one man and one woman has been corrupted, just like in the times of the Patriarchs and Kings of the OT, and the consequences today are just as terrible as they were back then.

Visiting “Eat and Rest”

By josh

On December 21, 2018

In Chad, Culture, Ministry

I recently took off southeast from Abeche with Abdoulaye and his brother, “Omar” to visit their home village, who’s name in Maba is literally “eat and rest.” As it turns out, this is quite the appropriate name because that’s precisely what we did!

I taught them the word “selfie”, although they were already quite familiar with the concept. Chadians love taking selfies!

The trip took about 3 hours to go 90km (56 miles), so you get the idea of what the roads were like. We arrived early afternoon and immediately went to greet the adopted mother of Abdoulaye’s brother. Their mother had given Omar to her sister to raise because she couldn’t have children, so he had grown up in the village and remained there even when Abdoulaye and their mother moved to the city.

Greetings were very warm, and the initial greetings/blessings lasted several minutes each as is their custom. The longer it’s been since you’ve seen someone, the longer the greeting. Even if you repeat the same words over and over (“God Bless, I’m well, thank God, God Bless, Praise God, etc…”), no big deal. So after the initial greetings we were seated on large mats next to where they had stored the peanut harvest (which was convenient because you could just reach over and grab a handful of peanuts whenever you wanted). We spent the afternoon in further greetings every few minutes as the women came by to bring food or the men came in from the fields.

The night in the village is much cooler than in a large town like ours. I slept under a large blanket and still was cold. So the next morning none of us moved to much until the sun had started to warm the air a bit. After a breakfast of sweetened millet with milk and goat’s head soup, we went for a walk around the nearby wadi. A wadi is a seasonal riverbed that runs with lots of water when it rains but during the dry season the water remains underground, sometimes only a few feet. This wadi was full of date palms, mango trees and guava trees. We ate our fill of guavas straight from the trees while watching the monkeys playing in nearby trees.

I was told to ride the horse, apparently they assumed I was too fragile to walk all the way to the wadi
view from horseback, headed to the wadi
The stirrups were sized for someone about a foot shorter than me, so I just let my legs dangle. not. comfortable.
The owner of my horse striking a pose
In the wadi, looking like a band of Wild West outlaws
The wadi was full of guava and mango trees, date palms, and what I think were figs
This flower is incredibly beautiful, especially in contrast to the various shades of brown all around
The broken pump at the village well

That afternoon we walked in a different direction to see the well that was dug several years ago by some charities in cooperation with the European Union. It was located between several villages so that it could be used by all. But no one from the village was trained to repair it, so when a technician who had been working in a nearby town on another project finished the project and left, there was no one responsible or trained to repair it. So for the past year it has sat idle. This is such a common scenario in the developing world. Helping people improve their lives is usually much more complicated than assumed.

As we walked back from the abandoned well, my head began to throb and I started feeling worse and worse. By the time we arrived, I just wanted to lay down and try not to throw up from the pain. When I laid down it was around 5 PM, and I didn’t get up again that night. Fortunately though my friend Abdoulaye sat up with some men, including the village chief, and shared the gospel along with more of his testimony. As I was in and out of consciousness I heard them around me talking, but didn’t know what was going on until he filled me in the next morning. He shared openly, and people were attentive, and when a guy who had been in Sudan started to argue and tell them not to read the Bible, the rest of the group made him be quiet. Abdoulaye was very encouraged by this time!

The next morning, my head still throbbing, we gathered our things and after another round of goat’s head soup, headed home. I arrived at the house around lunchtime, thankful to find a bottle of Alleve and a real bed…

Slavery of Fear

By josh

On November 17, 2018

In Chad, Culture, Islam

Recently The Gospel Coalition launched their Africa site, where reformed theologians, pastors and elders from all over Africa contribute posts dealing with issues and concerns unique to this part of the world. Of course, not all the issues African Christians face are unique, but some definitely are. One of those issues is the fear/power dynamic. The traditional African worldview is one of fear, and African religion provides a means of gaining power over those sources of fear – the spirit world, ancestors, and other people. The most powerful people in African society are often the local witchdoctors, who (for a fee) promise all kinds of power to the fearful individual. Children are believed to be especially vulnerable to evil spirits (and the high rate of infant mortality, mostly from preventable causes, doesn’t help here).

But isn’t Chad majority Muslim?

Of course in Chad, and across the entire continent of Africa north of about the 10^th Parallel (10⁰ North of the Equator), Islam is the dominant religion. But Islam, primarily spread by the sword, cannot deal with underlying heart issues. One becomes a Muslim by repeating the shahada, literally the “testimony” that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. Issues of the heart are secondary, at best, to the 5 “pillars” of Islam: the shahada, the 5 daily ritual prayers, the Ramadan fast, giving of alms, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. You can do all these “works”, with a heart full of fear, pride, lust, etc. and still be considered a good Muslim.

So, in Chad as in other African Muslim countries, you have Muslim parents visiting the local witchdoctor (who doubles as Muslim cleric) to buy charms to tie onto their children to protect them from all sorts of dangers – sickness, death, evil spirits, etc. etc. The witchdoctor writes verses from the Qur’an on pieces of paper and sews them up in a leather pouch to be worn around the neck or waist by the kids. I’ve seen toddlers with 6 or 8 of these small pouches hanging around their neck. But not just kids, often adults will visit the witchdoctor for help getting pregnant, or cure for sickness, or protection from specific enemies, or just general protection from the “Evil Eye.” It’s not unusual to see and young man with these amulets tied around his upper arm. I heard the story the other day of a certain type of person who can control the locusts and will sometimes come to a farmer to demand money with threats of sending the locusts to eat his crop. For this specific problem, the witchdoctor will write verses from the Qur’an on a wooden board and then wash them off with water into a bowl. This water is then put in a bottle and sprinkled over the farmer’s field to protect it from locusts.

To my Western mind, this all seems ridiculous. My initial response is to dismiss it as ignorant nonsense. But I am rebuked by the Word, especially the Word made flesh, who lived in a society and culture not so different from the one we find ourselves in here in Chad. And Jesus didn’t dismiss the spiritual realm as “nonsense” or “nothing to be afraid of” but demonstrated his absolute power over it. He commanded demons to come out and they came out, and they went where he allowed them to go. Jesus liberated people from spiritual bondage and destroyed the strongholds of Satan. Jesus defeated fear by His power, and he still offers the same deliverance today by the power of the Gospel.

Pray for Chad. This is not a problem only for Muslims, but it continues to be a problem for the church in Chad as well. Fear can be a great temptation even for Christians when they forget that Jesus, who commands them not to fear (Matt. 10:28), has given them the power of the Holy Spirit to obey that commandment (John 14:26-27).

Here’s the article that spurred this post:

https://africa.thegospelcoalition.org/article/spiritual-insecurity-fear-gospel/

Eid Al Adha

By josh

On September 8, 2018

In Chad, Culture, Islam

Eid Al Adha is one of the two main holidays in the Muslim world (the other being the celebration of the end of the fasting month of Ramadan). Adha means “sacrifice” in Arabic, and this holiday celebrates the Islamic version of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22). I asked several Muslim friends to explain to me the significance of this holiday for them. They believe that God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael (thought to be the father of the Arabs), and that at the last minute he provided a sheep in his place. If he hadn’t provided the sheep, then good Muslims would be required to sacrifice their own firstborn. But since God provided the sheep, they celebrate by slaughtering sheep. And the sheep must be at least a few years old, in good health, no injuries or blemishes, etc. Sound familiar?

Why must the sheep be “spotless”? I don’t know, and my Muslim friends don’t seem to know either. You see, Mohammed appropriated bits of the Old Testament story without a clear understanding of the meaning. The Qur’an includes bits from many of the biblical prophets, but without the redemptive thread. It’s just a bunch of stories and instructions with one overarching point – obey God and believe in Mohammed his prophet or go to Hell. You can’t know God, you can’t really love God, but you CAN and MUST fear and obey him. And on the Day of Judgement, if God wills he will send you to Heaven and if not he will send you to Hell. There is the idea of a set of scales, with good deeds on one side and bad deeds on the other. The hope is that the good deeds outweigh the bad, but know one knows.

I had a discussion with an Arab Muslim friend about assurance of salvation. I told him I know I am going to heaven, I have no doubt. The Bible offers that kind of assurance (read 1 John, especially 5:13!). But he said it’s impossible to know, and it’s arrogant to presume to know. “If God wills” could be the ultimate summary statement of Islam. And the god of Islam is an arbitrary god.

All that being said, this holiday is a time people look forward to. People buy new clothes, and over the 3 days of the holiday they visit family, friends and neighbors. Food is often shared around, and there are lots of sweets. Kids go around in groups from house to house to get candy and sweets (like some kind of Chadian Halloween without the costumes). The first day of celebration begins with mandatory prayers, and then the sheep (or sheeps, if you are wealthy enough) are slaughtered after proclaiming “Allah hu akbar” (“God is the greatest”) three times. Every bit of meat (including intestines, liver, stomach, etc.) is eaten – some grilled, some cooked over a fire in a sauce. And of course, afterwards there’s tea.

I visited my friend Abdou’s family this year, bringing Judah and Calla Grace. Kimberly stayed home with Isaac, who was sick. The picture above is in a room of his parents house where we sat and talked while the kids tried to finish off all of the candy, cookies and dates. The wood carving of Africa is a gift I had given Abdou a long time ago because he likes maps.

We stayed a couple of hours at Abdou’s parents’ house, talking, eating and walking around outside seeing how green the world has become during the rainy season. The kids especially enjoyed that part.

A Note on the “Christian” West

By josh

On July 23, 2018

In Culture, Islam, Ministry

Nasraani (pl. nasaara) is what they call us here. Not just us, but anyone white from Europe or North America. It is a reference to Nazareth, as in Jesus of Nazareth. Essentially it means “Christian.” Let that sink in for a moment. The UN workers who come to Chad for humanitarian reasons, and who also drink alcohol and live generally worldly lives – “Christians.” The French military, in Chad for over a century now, who drink alcohol, eat pork, and visit not-so-reputable women – “Christians.” The people in movies produced by Hollywood – all “Christians.”

Something important to understand about Islam is that it’s not simply a religion, concerning itself with matters of faith. Islam is a culture, a political system, a religion – it’s a way of life. You are born into Islam (when your Father whispers the Muslim “shahada”, or testimony in your ear as a baby), you don’t choose it. And you don’t leave. There is no separation between church and state. Because of this, people who’ve grown up as Muslims assume that Christianity is the same way. And they look at the “Christian” West and see rampant immorality tolerated, even celebrated, and this is what they think being a Christian means. Of course many Muslims misunderstand the concept of the Trinity, assuming we are polytheists who’ve associated other creatures (Jesus, Mary) with the one God. But along with that they see the filth churned out by Hollywood, the immorality celebrated in western culture, the general cultural ignorance (not to mention immodesty) of Americans who travel abroad, and this is what Christianity is in their minds.

So what’s my point? Should we avoid the word “Christian” at all costs, as many in missions today suggest? I don’t think so. It’s a biblical word. It has 2000 years of history (although admittedly that also brings baggage). But we must work to distinguish the true from the false, and recover the original definition of the word from when it was first used at Antioch (Acts 11:26) – those who follow Jesus with all their hearts and consider it a great privilege to be associated with him and called by his name.