Jesus Culture

"I will sing of lovingkindness & justice to you, O Lord, I will sing praises" I read first thing this morning from Psalm 101.

"I will give heed to the blameless way. When will you come to me?

I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It will not fasten its grip on me.

Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy; No one who has a haughty heart will I endure. My eye will be upon the faithful. He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me."

For the first years I worked in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the first two years that we worked together in Northern Haiti, everything in Haiti just looked different. There are SO few similarities between Haitian culture and American culture, Haitian thinking and American thinking, Haitian perspective and American perspective, that we were always at odds with where we are. We have appreciated many of the differences, and many, have even loved...but Haiti has always been different.

We are finding now, however, almost three years here in Cap-Haitien, that we have changed...are changing. We now frequently HAVE the Haitian perspective, and the American. We sometimes forget what was American culture and what was Haitian culture. We continually catch ourselves using English words in Haitian order, or Creole words in English sentences without realizing it.

Even Lily, dear one, calls dogs dogs, but chickens 'poul', cookies cookies but cake 'gateau'.

I saw an American woman a few weeks ago on a team wearing pants, and I balked. Scandalous! I was sincerely shocked, ME, who will gleefully embrace my long lost jeans the moment I hit American soil.

It doesn't phase me anymore that every single person we pass yells "give a gift to me of the little white one!" Why does everyone ask for Lily? Why does everyone make sure to clarify that they aren't offering money for her, but just want her for free? Did missionaries or foreigners used to give out their children to the strongest asker? How does this not seem weird to me?

Someone commented in the car a few weeks ago about the garbage, and I honestly thought, "What garbage?" All I see anymore is the people, though I remember being shocked and overwhelmed by the trash our first months here.

I found a very rare crate of apples on the way home from the beach on Sunday (which I miss and long for all the time), but didn't buy any because in the culture I'm in they were far too expensive...at 45 cents an apple. (Ah, what is WRONG with me!)

Why doesn't it bother me that every evening our watchman stands right outside our many windows and watches us...read, talk, type, do dishes...until we go to bed? This "curious and bored, not rude" part of Haitian culture used to drive me CRAZY, and now, James and I talk about the Bible or laugh about his little sisters while we all watch a movie, two of us from the couch and one through the window over our shoulders (we'd invite him in if only he weren't supposed to be working!)

Wouldn't a man waving and urinating in the middle of the major road to town be weird in the States? (Is it weird that we grin and wave back?) Wouldn't visiting people in their homes and finding half of the family naked (oh, the heat!) have made me blink a few years ago?

Do other seminaries have electric razors and cell phones plugged into every available outlet at all times? Should it still be uncomfortable that the guys constantly ask me if they can go "make pee-pee" during class?

Should I still mind that every time Matt or I gain so much as a pound, dozens of people comment on how "beautiful and fat" we are?

Should I be infuriated when everyone from the naked-butt child to the shoe-shine guy to the babysitter tell me every single moment that I should do EVERYTHING differently with Lily and currently do NOTHING right? (Don't hold her like that, she is too cold, she is too hot, you need to watch her, don't let her do that, why aren't her ears pierced, do NOT let her suck her thumb, you need to make her tea with those red flowers, white women cannot breast-feed, the skin of potatoes is why she is sick, why doesn't she have a little brother yet, when will she have a little brother, it is shameful she has no little brother, you should be glad her nose does not look like yours.)

I don't know! But even Matt, whom I thought at the beginning would never adjust to certain elements of Haitian culture has now become a part of the culture himself, gnawing happily on sugar cane with the guys, eating and drinking all kinds of really not clean stuff and asking for seconds, bee-lining through the packed out market to haggle for eggs or beans, speaking in Haitian proverbs and holding hands with the staff and students for a ridiculously long amount of time after shaking them so as to not offend the friend.

eggs, 30 per flat

Thankfully, I'm finding the Lord changing us through the Haitian culture in important ways, as well. As we loosen our grip on our own culture to make room for a new one, it somehow becomes easier to loosen our grip on the world's culture and make room for HIS. How I look, how we appear, what people think...fading, fading in importance. What He desires, where His heart is, what is important to Him...increasingly taking over our thinking.

Don't care about skirts or pants or what they mean there or here...I want to walk in the blameless way before my God.

Don't care about rich or poor or having or not having. We've seen that either makes no real difference. I just want to set no worthless thing before my eyes.

Don't about my space or my rights, my things or my plans...they aren't important here...and I'm realizing they're not important to Him, either (Praise the Lord for this, because if justice was the most important thing to Him, I'd be facing death!).

Don't have one support for a haughty look or an arrogant heart...The only thing of worth within me is He Who Is Above Culture, and that, only to be given freely away.

How thankful I am to find my Bible a native to every man, my God a national on every mountain, His Spirit at home in every household.

We will never be Haitian, even if we spent our lives trying to be, and we'll never quite be American again, either. Ever felt that you don't quite fit anywhere?

Let us, then, be the faithful. He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to Me.