NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

“There is nothing new under the sun.” King Solomon may have said it, inspired by the Holy Spirit and all that, but that doesn’t mean we are not taken by surprise now and then. Sometimes those surprises can nearly take your breath away. And sometimes those surprises can come from people who are just being themselves.

There are many opportunities to be surprised in this life, especially while living overseas in a culture that is not our own. Normally we call this culture shock, and living in and being a part of another culture can give us plenty of opportunities to experience this shock. With the ease of travel and access to the World Wide Web, we often feel as if the world is a smaller place, but we must remember that doesn’t equal knowing the world.

Imagine waking up one morning to find yourself in an unfamiliar bedroom with a sweet breeze blowing through soft white linen curtains. You can tell by the noise on the street below that something exciting must be going on. Then you hear a pop, and the noise increases. You arrive at the window to find that you are three stories up on a narrow European styled street. You look down to a mob of men running down the street and in wonder desperately try to understand what has just happened.

Unfortunately what words you can make out you soon realize are not English and now there are wild horned beast running down the street. And now thanks to the Internet and our vast amounts of media you realize you are in Pamplona, Spain for the running of the bulls. How did you arrive there? I don’t know, stop dwelling. The point is, what a shock that would be if you did not have an easy answer for what was going on below.

I can only imagine how my wife must have felt the other afternoon while at a ladies bible study in our host church. Here is here story:

“I couldn’t believe my ears. What had they just asked me? We ladies had just finished our Jula Bible study and were sitting outside chatting. That’s when it happened. The situation every man dreads and most women are easily able to avoid. But not this time. My pastor’s wife repeated herself. Yes, unfortunately I had heard her correctly.

‘Amanda, which one of us is fatter?‘ she asked, indicating herself and another friend from church. All eyes suddenly focused on me.

I began thinking. Now I know that in Burkina (in West Africa actually) being fat is a good thing. It’s a sign that you eat well, which is inadvertently a sign that you have enough money to eat well.

Here where, after having returned from a journey, you’re friends greet you by telling you how fat you are, regardless of the fact you’ve recently (with much effort, sweat, tears, and moments of extreme hunger) managed to drop ten pounds. It’s meant to be an encouragement. It’s a good thing! In fact, we’ve been told by women here that they will avoid drinking lemonade because it causes them to lose weight. {{Mental note: we need to buy more lemons}}

So I realize that this answer should be easy. A cursory visual exam proves that my pastor’s wife is easily the larger of the two. I try to force my mouth to speak the words that would encourage at least one of the them. But I couldn’t.

Out of respect for every western woman I have ever known I just couldn’t make myself say it. ‘You’re the fatter one.’ It just wouldn’t come out! Instead, I copped out and left them with a very diplomatic and vague, ‘It’s difficult to say.’

They both laughed and let me off the hook as the two of them discussed among themselves who is larger.”