the back burner

Day 26 (Monday)

Today was the day John Leonard spoke to us about contextualization. Here are the points that especially struck me:

* We contextualize more than just the message. Appropriate contextualization means changes in personal behavior and attitude (contxlzg. self), as well as methodology and church-planting decisions (contxlzg. church).

* Prayer evangelism -- don't be afraid to befriend people in an instant. Give them your heart and bring open doors for the Holy Spirit and for future relationship through the medium of prayer.

* Party evangelism -- work together with groups of believers to have a good time. Be seen as having a good time as a group, and be seen as a permeable group. Bring people into fellowship that's fun!

* Don't be afraid to go to the early church for examples and direction. The narrative of Acts is not neccessarily normative teaching, but neither is it irrelevant history. How did church growth happen? What did it look like?

Day 23 (Friday)

Tonight I took all my clothes with me while I went out to eat (with Matt, John, Trisha, and Evan). Afterwards, I left for the laundromat, a different laundromat than the one I visited earlier. There were two people there when I arrived. Both recognized that I didn't know what I was doing and offered lots of help. BUT THEN, even after all of our language training and focus on community, I just tried my best to offer competent thanks and preclude further conversation. They didn't stay long, but they might have stayed longer if I had made an effort to learn some Flemish. Even worse than this, I pulled out a book and read while my laundry turned. This meant that I didn't really engage these folks when they came back to check their laundry later, other than greeting them briefly. Rats.

Day 20 (Tuesday)

I am particularly pleased with Dwight's insistence that language is for communication (x3) and that communication demands a community context. Here is the sentence I underlined several times in my notes: "[Language Learning] entails seeking out a community in which communication can/does take place and taking the initiative to be involved in it."

WAHOO! This focus upon and love for community will definitely be a part of my learning contract. I bring a certain relational focus -- not sure if it's a good one or a bad one -- to my endeavors. I would say that one of the most exciting things about coming to the field is beginning to see how this sort of passion and ability ties into what our team is doing here in Brussels and what J is doing all across Enterprise.

It's especially encouraging to hear this sort of focus from people like the Gradins. Their fields (adult education and linguistics) have contributed a LOT to the discipline of community development, so it's nice to tie together those strings in my head.

Day 19 (Monday)

Dwight and Barbara Gradin spoke today. I really enjoyed their presentation and am looking forward to the rest of this week. Two things stood out:

(1) I'm remembering a voice and diction class I took in college. Their scheme of vowel sounds and their adaptations of the International Phoenetic Alphabet are mostly the same, so I'm getting a lot out of this without feeling overwhelmed. Hurrah for Camille! Hurrah for voices!

(2) Just before graduation, I was accepted by ELIC for long-term service in Vietnam. Just after graduation, I "failed" MTW's readiness evaluation because my call wasn't strong enough. So with that in mind, it's interesting to hear Dwight and Barbara's STONG passion for Vietnam but to rest in God's clear calling away from that region (for me). In the past, I have dealt with "What If" questions mostly by ignoring them. This week will mean answering them or defusing them.

The Gradins

The Gradins came for a week of our training. They helped us to learn about the principles of language learning, phoenetics, and cross-cultural work. Lots of powerful testimony. Lots of useful tools. Here is Dwight:

And here is Barbara, leading an exercise that used Papua New Guinean Pigeon as an example language. The front of her shirt translates "Don't mind me, I'm only looking." The back reads, "I will see you later."

Day 18 (Sunday)

This morning we arrived late to the Bethel church, by about 15 minutes. Of course, everyone noticed but everyone was kind. I wonder if there was some positive attribution going on, here... "They're Americans. They don't know any better, so we will let them off the hook." J (the youth leader) led the youth in leading the service. I wonder how often this happens? It seems like the youth group is really important in this church. J gave the message with a powerpoint projector providing visual aid.

After church...

...I struck up a conversation with a Flemish fellow named L. I happened to be standing near him just when everyone else around us seemed to turn to toher conversations, so I greeted him. As usual, I walked into the conversation blindly. In other words, I think M or J would have been a little more guarded, given L's posture, etc. How do I say this? His posture and eye contact didn't shift like those of everyone else in the room. He didn't stand in a group; he just floated on the side while other people swirled and eddied around him. There may have been other things to notice before I began the conversation, but I didn't notice them because I didn't notice anything. The two of us quickly established that French was the best common language to use. (As bad as my French is, his English was slightly worse.) Despite the fact that I had a hard time with French after sitting through a Flemish church service, I shared my testimony and we began to talk about spiritual warfare. I probably started to realize that Luc wasn't an average Flemish evangelical when he began to share with me recent visions that he has had. He told me that he has often felt oppresed my demons, represented in most of his visions by dark clouds. Spirits had even tried to choke him. I kept offering him the benefit of the doubt by taking what he said somewhat seriously and trying to maintain eye contact. After all, the room was loud and busy, my French is not the best... perhaps I misunderstood him? I admitted that I have never had visions, but that each part of the Body has different functions. I stressed the importance of prayer. I thanked him for sharing.

As I ended the conversation, I wondered whether L's beliefs are as odd as I think they are. I think I have a theological read on the Bethel church because they wear the same clothing -- more or less -- as people in my church in the States. But do I really know what's going on in the Flemish and Dutch Evangelical churches of Belgium? Nope. Not really. Still, I think that this sort of focus upon special dreams and visions would find some sort of outlet in corporate worship. Since I can't observe any evidence of that, I'm going to guess that L is an anomaly. I will treat him decently, however, feeling that people are too valuable to be treated as anomalies only.

And this is what I wonder, as M and J and I grow and work together: when is it appropriate to exercise discernment in relationships? When I hear folks talk about having strategic relationships, something within me wells up and hollers no! "Being Strategic" neglects the marginal people! But I have to admit that marginalized individuals require lots more energy and offer much less reliable information to people (like myself) who are just entering a particular community for the first time.

Watch out for falling snot.

Thank you, JL, for the timely warning. It is that time of year, after all.

Awwww.

Can't tell you their names, but I sure do like these people.

Day 15 (Thursday)

One of my teammates and I are getting into the groove of working together. He is so community-fixated that it is difficult for him to be alone or to let others work alone. I can foresee this being a challenge in the future, as I begin to need time to work on language by myself and to do research by myself. Still, I would rather have this "problem" than the opposite. I am more like him in this regard than unlike him.

prayer from a friend...

From the Vally of Vision, sent by a friend:

O Heavenly Father
Teach me to see
that if Christ has pacified thee and satisfied divine justice
he can also deliver me from my sins;
that Christ does not desire me, now justified,
to live in self-confidence in my own strength,
but gives me the law of the Spirit of Life
to enable me to obey thee;
that the Spirit and his power are mine
by resting on Christ's death;
that the Spirit of Life within answers to the law without;
that if I sin not I should thank thee for it;
that if I sin I should be humbled daily under it;
that I should mourn for sin more than other men do,
for when I see I shall die of because of sin,
that makes me mourn;
when I see how sin strikes at thee,
that makes me mourn;
when I see that sin caused Christ's death,
that makes me mourn;
that sancification is the evidence of reconciliation,
proving that faith has truly apprehended Christ;
Thou hast taught me
that faith is nothing else than receiving thy kindness;
that it is an adherence to Christ, a resting on him,
love clinging to him as a branch to the tree,
to seek life and vigour from him.
I thank thee for showing me the vast difference
between knowing things by reason,
and knowing them by the spirit of faith.
By reason I see a things is so; by faith I know it as it is.
I have seen thee by reason and have not been amazed,
I have seen thee as thou art in thy Son
and have been ravished to behold thee.
I bless thee that I am thine in my Saviour, Jesus.

Day 13 (Tuesday)

Today I began feeling the effects of a little sleep-deprivation, a little allergic activity, and an infection/virus. I'll keep taking vitamins and drinking lots of water. I feel like I often felt in college, when everything that I have to accomplish keeps being crowded out by all the people I want to enjoy. Welcome to the mission field! Because I've been given so many balls to juggle, I get tired. And because I get tired, my ENFP self thinks: "Ah! I'll just recharge by spending more time with people!" So I socialize and find myself digging deeper and deeper in the hole of Not Getting Things Done. Just now, for example, John and Evan breezed through the room and invited me to play ping-pong with them upstairs... tempting, but I need some time by myself.

I know introverts who crave being with other people.
I am currently an extrovert who craves being alone.

Day 14 (Wednesday)

Today we went through the Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory (CCAI). This is a tool that measures four skills generally associated with an aptitude for adaptability in cross-cultural situations: emotional resilience (ER), personal autonomy (PA), perceptual acuity (PAC) and flexibility and openness (FO).

My CCAI indicated that my lowest adaptability dimension is Personal Autonomy. This has dropped a bit since last time, although Emotional Resiliance is still very high. There are several ways of interpreting the results. Personally, I think increased self-knowledge has changed my self-perception -- changes that have taken place since the Spring of my junior year, right before my Philippines internship. I particularly value emotional resilience and have a low view of how autonomous I am (or even need to be). I like being a chameleon, but I'm not sure this is always a good thing. Thoughts?

Being international

I need to learn new ways of listening to languages I don't understand. Today, I heard a lot of Dutch, a fair bit of Spanish, Arabic, French and some Farsi. M graciously spoke to me in English. Other than that and the French that I managed to catch here and there, everything was a blur. Sheesh.

I think the most important thing I can do right now is rearrange my church expectations. Being at a church on Sunday morning will not neccessarily mean that my needs for fellowship and hearing the Word are met. That has to happen at other times, so that I can be watchful and intentional when I do go to a church on Sunday mornings.

I hope that makes sense. It almost sounds like I'm NOT watchful or intentional when I go to an English-speaking church, but that's not entirely true (and of course, it's not entirely UN-true, either). Hmm. I'll think about this later. Gotta run.

Hey! I know that person!

The weird thing about being with all of these digital photographers is that all of a sudden, I have pictures of myself! How strange! I have always had the hardest time finding decent pictures of myself to give to other people. I'm thinking this one's prayer card material.

Week 1 - thinking points

ON THE ONE HAND, I've been thinking about the practicality of "CP work" and community development. In any leadership situation, there is great difference between doing something for the sake of doing it (making rigid decisions for the sake of structure when you don't have enough information to make good ones), and being ready to facilitate something that you might not expect (waiting and seeing and being ready to act on the fly). We always seem to be tempted towards the first, but good things come from the second. Being practical means sometimes delaying judgement and not making decisions so that something better can emerge.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I wrote down a good quote this week: "An effective church plant must reach the poor, the immigrants, and the elites. Obviously, no church can do everything, but a movement of churches can reach the whole city through these groups." -- Scot Sherman.

Scot's point seems to be about what the "whole city" means. Fine with me. I just wonder why we assume a church cannot contain folks from more than one of those groups. Why does a particular church have to choose one group and leave the others to other churches? How well does homogeneity reflect the kingdom of God? Basically I'm just having some trust issues. How can I trust myself, Scot, Tim Keller, or anyone else to love the city without somehow enabling the god-complexes of the non-poor?

So (for those of you who waited this long for a connection), I'm left with a desire to approach the city with a predjudice in favor of the poor. That's in conflict with what I'm learning about leadership and facilitation in the development realm. Humph.

washin' and shootin' and eatin'

So far, I've done lots of this
,

... a little bit of this

... and (of course) a ton of this.

Church Notes

This one is looooong and uninteresting -- just some condensed fieldnotes from church. Read on if you've nothing better to do...

Some expanded fieldnotes from the morning service at Bethelkerk (Schaerbeek): Location -- 403 Chausee de Haecht (French street name)
Exterior is red brick, with concrete edges (swoops?), looks like a church, has the name of the church on the outside. The church doors were opened when we got there. We stepped inside to a small anteroom with a literature table. Another set of double doors opened into the sanctuary -- long room, finished in light wood tones, full of light wood chairs in rows with book-holders between them. A stage sits at the far end of the room, with a low table holding an immense Bible. Behind the Bible is a pulit with dark letters on the front which read "woord is de waarheid." M says it means "the Word is the truth."

We arrived about 15 minutes early. A few women were there already, and one man (Gotlieb). People trickled in slowly and church began at exactly 10 am. During this time, 3 men and 1 woman come up to us, greeted us in Flemish (guijen dag), and shook our hands -- M, E, and B. Others where unwrapping their coats and things in a coat room in the back of the room, or sending their children through this door into the back of the church. By the beginning of the service, there were about 40 people present, including ourselves, MO, KR, and her son, B.

The service was conducted -- with one exception -- entirely in Flemish. It began with a few announcements (5 minutes), and proceeded with 45 minutes of songs interspersed with an occasional prayer (there were three such prayers). The congregation sang songs from two books, Zangbundel (4 songs -- small, blue, hardcover, 1992) and Opwekking Liederen (4 songs -- large but thin, yellow, containing mostly choruses). I saw and heard a violin, a guitar, a piano, and one vocalist with a microphone. This series of eight songs was closed with a "special music time" (my term), during which the vocalist (female) sang a Flemish song. A few people hummed. Cloth bags with wooden handles were passed around, and people placed money inside them. Then we sang the song again, as a congregation. After this, Gotlieb used a guitar to lead us in two songs. Lyrics for all three of these songs were projected upon the wall using an overhead projector. One of them we sang thrice -- once in Flemish, once in English, and again in Flemish.

G spoke a few words, and an elderly man (60-75?) mounted the podium and stood behind the pulpit. He preached from 10:50 until 11:13 am. He chose Ezekiel 33:1-9 as his text. Here are the words I understood:
Babel
Chebar
Chaldean
Israel
stadt
tempel
profeet
Jerusalem

Here are the words I may or may not understand, the ones I should ask about:
opbredegin
machtige
weg
hoste
wachter
opkoming

Here are the ideas I thought the man might be mentioning:
blood, sword, trumpet, watchman, wicked one, responsibility, fear, witness, shame, fault, accountability, church, Christ.

After the sermon we sang another song that I do not remember, while the purple bags with wooden handles were passed again. G spoke and prayed. Afterwards, all migrated through the coatroom to a kitchen and dining area for coffee and conversation. G introduced himself to M and myself, and established through conversation with Murat that an important email had been misdirected between them. He seemed surprised to see us. He speaks at least Flemish and English, perhaps something else, as well. Smiled a lot. Attentive body language. Low eye contact when speaking, higher when listening.

a triptych

This child is one of my favorites.

Day 3

Today is the day everyone arrived. I'm getting used to seeing people from the past in new surroundings. How am I doing? Jet lag isn't much of a problem. I can tell I'm trying to impress people, etc. I can also feel my devotional time getting squeezed out by social desires. I want to hang out with all of these fascinating folks, and so I read less and less, pray less and less. HOWEVER, I know that devotional refocusing is getting more and more important. There aren't the cultural supports I'm used to.

Day 2

Walked southwest down a main thoroughfare from the train station to the Eglise de Ste Marie -- doors shut tight. Architecture beautiful and slightly Turkish, according to M. I must have forgotten that the Turks made churches, too -- hmmm. I will definitely return here to take photos of this building. Beautiful.

On the way to the Church, we passed through a market. Everyone was breaking down their stalls and wares, etc, but it seemed more like a bazaar than a market. J noted the lack of foodstands -- maybe they closed up early? It wasn't yet 1 pm at this point. Lots of people, lots of Turkish language, some other languages (Arabic), a few Belgians. Passed half a dozen <> signs -- apartment for rent.

After consulting a tram map, we turned southwards at the church and walked a loooooong way down le boulevard de Rogier (Rogierstraat). Had an interesting discussion about whether or not we were lost -- I am AMAZED at my teammates' sudden willingness to be wrong and willingness to let others lead. I was definitely following this example, NOT leading the way. I have much to learn from them in this regard.

Had a late lunch together at a place called Snack Turkce, where M ordered in French -- hurrah for M! I am glad we stopped, because I was starving and trying not to talk about it.

We walked back along and through the parc, squirreled around, and finally caught a train from the Scharbeek station back to Zav.

Day 1

Evan met me at the airport -- funny how a familiar person in a strange context can throw me off. I felt the same way the first time I saw Evan in Atlanta. You know, my relationship with that kid has really come a long way, considering how little I've known him. Almost as amazing as my relationship with Matt, whom I've known for not even two years.

STORY: The frits places that are good seem to get customers in great waves. There were four people in the tiny shop near the Wondelgem train station when Evan and I entered (one lady worker, three customers), and I tried to close the door behind me on an additional lady -- I hadn't noticed she was there. I said sorry three times, by which I really meant three different things: "I am very sorry. I didn't know you were there. I don't speak Flemish."

I'm thinking out loud, again.

My happy new year feels more like a nappy new year. I stayed up last night and then when I went to bed, I laid there for a whole hour, not sleeping. I laid there looking at the ceiling with all the lights off and the air conditioner whooshing cool air through the apartment. I'm not sure why it was on, since the night was pretty mild. I even had my window open, so add to the temperature and the blue night colors of the room the sounds of laurel bushes brushing against the screen, kids running outside and yelling, traffic buzzing by, and firecrackers cracking all over the city. It was a good setting for reviewing the past year and previewing the next.. So now I'm tired.

I came up with some good insights -- more than I could handle, actually. They just came one after another, undoing all my assumptions in quick succession. I thought how strange it seemed that I would ever think of myself as a victim. I thought how wrong I must have been all year to imagine myself continually abused and mistreated. The great sacrifices I had made for other people suddenly seemed smaller, even petty, compared to those that others have made for me. I thought how there is a difference between talking to someone in a way that magnifies Jesus and talking to someone in a way that magnifies myself. I thought about the great difference between loving other people (becoming lovely in the process) and earning other people's love (trying to be lovely, but ending up only selfish). In short, I have been taught much and remembered little. I have been loved much and loved little. I have been given much and given little thanks.

So now I'm listening to some good music and getting ready to move to Europe. There are not many people there who know less than me. Thankfully, those people are ready to teach and I am more ready to learn than I have been in the past. PLUS, there are dozens of folks here who chose to think and say the best about me, and who are cheering for me. It's a new year, baby.