Cultural Anthropology Light Side Up
We regularly send updates of ministry experiences, trip recaps, revelations, tribulations and consolations. We want to use this Insights to share a little bit of the lighter side of observing and learning culture and social practices. We all know a joyful heart is good medicine (Proverbs 17:22). Christine is missing children right now, so we are going to share some fun to lighten up things. We hope you have as much fun reading about these experiences as we have had learning about them.
We have a very good friend, Jose, who we love from El Salvador. He has been living in the United States for many years, maybe about 15. He is a great story teller. We love to sit and hear stories of his life and family. He has shared many stories of spear fishing with his father to get fish to eat. He tells about guarding the vegetables they were growing for food through long dark nights and long hot days. He would patrol the perimeter of the garden to make sure rodents, birds or other hungry vermin would not steal their food. Though by some standards, his family would be considered very poor, he believed they had everything anyone could ever want. When he decided to come to the US, he believed it would only take a short time to get enough money to help his family. He didn’t realize how much work he would have to do to get a little bit of money because he had been told all his life that all you had to do is go outside and pick the money since it all grew on trees in the United States!
We have another friend from Colombia who went to the United States about 18 years ago to work. He had been told that all people had to do to get money in the US was to go outside and pick it up off the ground. He arrived at the airport in New York very tired. When he got off the airplane he saw a $20 bill lying on the ground. As he sat and looked at the $20 bill, he said to himself that he was too tired right now to start collecting money, he would start after he could get some sleep!
It didn’t take our friends long to learn the principle we find in Scripture:
2 Thessolonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
We were in the taxi on our way home from the gymnasium last week. We were on one of the main streets when we approached a traffic jam. There is a lot of road construction here and there that holds traffic up occasionally, but this appeared to be a possible car accident. As we neared the front of the action, we could see people stooping to look under the cars stopped in the road. Of course, our immediate thought is that a person, maybe a young child had been run down by a car. There were several men circling the car in front of us in the other lane giving instructions to the driver about whether to move or not to move. We could hear the horns of impatient drivers behind us who obviously did not know there was something terribly wrong up front where we were. Suddenly the car in front of us in the other lane moved forward and proceeded to journey down the street. Well, now we were confused as to what in the world was holding up traffic. Immediately, those men who were coaching the now departed car were shouting directions to our taxi driver. Our Spanish is just good enough to understand that the people outside the taxi did not want us moving. Of course, taxi drivers are in a hurry to make more money and ours began to move forward to leave this particular spot in the road. Then the driver of the taxi next to us began yelling out his window at our driver to “STOP, STOP, STOP!!!” It was then we saw it. A little green ‘iguanita’ scurried out from under our taxi and across the other lane. Two of the men who were frantically trying to direct traffic around this little lizard ran after it, caught it, and carried it out of harms way! We laughed as we told our driver that little creature would have been road kill in the United States without much of a second thought from the drivers.
Saving the little lizard from its motorized enemy is much like the direction we read about pulling the perishing from the fire in Jude.
Jude 1:22-23 And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.
There are always people working these intersections. There is one lady who works close to our house. She is called ‘grandma’ by those who frequently see her working her corner. It’s hard to tell how old she is, but if we were to venture a guess, we would say she is probably in her late sixties to early seventies. She is very tiny. She dresses up in what seem to be very nice 1960’s style clothes. She wears large dark sunglasses and platform shoes. She comes to the windows of cars waiting at the stop light and talks to people. She blows kisses to the younger drivers. She makes the people laugh and they are suppose to give her pesos for being so dressed up and friendly to them!
There is another intersection about two blocks from where the cute little old lady can be found. It is very busy and there are usually two spots where you can see people working the travelers. We don’t know what determines who gets what corner and when they get it. But, while Kevin was walking to the gymnasium that is closer to our apartment, he witnessed something that must have been pretty comical. There was a juggler who juggles for pesos. He wears a clown’s wig and nose and juggles in front of the cars as they wait for the light to change. There is also a mime who dresses like a robot. He is painted silver from his head to his toes. He has something that makes robot noises. While he plays these recorded sounds, he does something similar to the moonwalk or robot dance. He comes to this intersection for the same reason the juggler is there…to get pesos for his performance. Well this particular day, they both wanted the same corner at the same time. Since this is not possible, they commenced to engage in a fist fight in the middle of the street! Robot against clown juggler fighting for turf!
You just never know what you might see here. The city is a hodge podge of century old horse drawn carts carrying things like produce, livestock or grains. Sometimes we spot a pick up truck with three or four goats in the back where you can buy goats’ milk straight from the goats in the middle of the downtown commerce area.
One thing we are sure to see is people who do not know their Redeemer. In this beautiful city where a million people live, less than 2% are Christian. The country as a whole is ripe for the harvest. Many of the leaders who have a burden to see their country saved, join in our vision of seeing this accomplished through training, discipling, and building up the local church.
We have downloaded a video on our website, www.faithworksinaction.com. You can witness through this video a historical precedence. The little village of newly converted indigenous people is learning to sing praises to their newfound Redeemer for the first time in their history!! This is another thing that will bring a joyful heart. If you’re like Christine, you will laugh and cry at the same time. You will laugh because the people are having such fun. You will cry because the joy on their faces is evidence of their Savior living in their hearts.