I feel blessed, having just spent three different weeks doing three different things in three different parts of the M-world which speak three different languages. Given the concerns around security in these places, I’ll follow that grand tradition for people like me and express some dependency on images of sunrises and sunsets…

Sunrise over Lake Issyk-kul, 10 times the size of NZ’s Lake Taupo

Some speaking in the Russian world

The dreary post-Soviet malaise has brightened a bit since my last visit twelve years ago when I came to speak at the same regional conference of the same company. It is the company in which I was raised and the opportunity to speak came exactly 50 years after my father was appointed the General Director of the company (in 1969). Sentimental me soaked in that unexpected symmetry. I encountered a hardy bunch of workers demonstrating greater sacrifice than they probably acknowledged. It took me back to the work of frontier, pioneering folks as the desperate need for doctors and teachers mingled with the innovative presence of a Brazilian basketball/football coach and an Aussie archaeologist. Every and any vocation seems possible, with the only constraint being whether people are willing to ‘give up their small ambitions’ and dedicate their lives to serving people in this region for Jesus’ sake. Like the career advice which that same father used to offer, “find a way to serve others and do it in the name of Jesus” – to which I add, and “prayerfully consider Central Asia as you do so”.

With progress so slow, people so scattered, and suffering so real I reached for my beloved 1 Peter for my messages. I was so glad that I did. In these parts of the world, Peter’s words just seem to walk off the page into peoples’ lives, while back home people can tend to turn the page, moving on in their relentless search for whatever appears to be relevant. It is true. Having opened 1 Peter in multiple places around the world, the influence of the context of the listener is so striking. It is hard work back home. It is down-hill among these sorts of people. Furthermore, on this occasion I could have signed up some new recruits for my campaign to banish ‘relevance’ from the Christian vocabulary, replacing its every occurrence with the word ‘intriguing’ as we choose to live and speak this life instead.

Some listening in the Arabic world

This was a consultation on the M-world, with a focus on its origins, its book, its prophet – and our presence among them. I was there to listen and to learn and that is what I did. It was the annual gathering of established, scholarly and skilled networks and so I felt very much an outsider, but that was OK. With headphones atop our heads, we bounced seamlessly between Arabic and English and between academic papers, case studies, roundtable discussions and interviews. So, there were high levels of thoughtful stimulation – and security as well. Absolutely no photos and on more than one occasion, when my name tag had flipped around, I was asked to turn it around and verify that this name was me before I was allowed entry into the venue.

I loved the way different Biblical stories emerged as templates for engaging Ms in conversation (John 4, Acts 15, Luke 7, Zacchaeus and John the Baptist etc). The big takeaway for me was the importance of changing the narrative. Sure, the book and the prophet do struggle a bit under the glare of scientific historical criticism, but why focus on those things? Why win an argument, but lose a relationship along the way? There are no gains to be found in a polemical-combative approach. Humility and curiosity need to come to the fore so that we can remain in the relationship for a much longer period of time. So the ‘full of grace’ instinct eclipses the ‘full of truth’ one. The anthropologist, more than the apologist, needs to set the tone, as we focus on the people in front of us, in their ‘lived realities’. And yet I’d still be apprehensive about those people who are closer to ’empty of truth’, still feeding off Sunday School levels of understanding, wading into this kind of engagement. We do need to know what we believe, even if the conversation itself is established more around curious questions than dogmatic answers.

Some training in the Urdu world

Now I found myself in more familiar territory, a happy place filled with good friends whom I have visited on many occasions. Plus, so much is so resonant with my childhood. The raucous singing of indigenous songs, lubricated as they are by hand-held organ, tabla, and rhythmic clapping. The joy and the fun in being together. The food. Oh my goodness,  the food … is the tandoori roti at the venue really manna from heaven? I think so.

Sunset in the Himalayas

Unlike the first two weeks where the rooms were filled with foreigners, this time I was the only foreigner present. I always learn so much as I watch the local team at work. The momentum generated by superb teamwork, be it among those doing the administration or those doing the training, leaves me to add a few sprinkles on the icing on the ‘training’ cake. On this occasion I was humbled by meeting different ones who have been in churches when they’ve been bombed and who had lost multiple family members.

On my first visit, almost ten years ago at a venue just up the road, I took people outside for some imagining and juxtaposing. The idea was to help them discover how the best illustrations are the simple, everyday ones. ‘The art of seeing the spiritually significant in the utterly ordinary’. We stepped outside the front door. In front of us was a vast slab of concrete with a crack running across it in which little tufts of grass were growing. If ever there was an ‘utterly ordinary’, here it was. “What might this illustrate?” Quick as a flash, from rural pastors reputed to be uneducated, the response came back. “This is how it is for we believers in this majority culture.” The ‘spiritually significant’, if ever I heard it. In so many ways, over this past decade, this has been a defining story for me.

And over these three weeks doing three different things in three different parts of the M-world which speak three different languages, there is one thing that remains the same. It is tough. While the first week had its sterile unresponsiveness hovering in the background, the second week its inflammable hostility and the third week its oppressive marginalisation … what they share in common is that it is tough, very tough. Different languages, but the same faith creating tough contexts which, under God’s hand, draw forth these resilient people who inspire those who pop by, like me.

nice chatting

Paul