The cross cultural mission field next door

Ever wonder why you never really clicked with your neighbor across the street? Or have you ever felt like avoiding eye contact with the person in line next to you in the store…the one with the vibrantly colored tattoos and the bars in their eyebrows? What about the lady wearing a hijab in the grocery store? So often we feel as though a cross-cultural experience can only happen with folks of different ethnic backgrounds or in an entirely new country, but really as we drift further and further from a community-centric norm, cross-cultural mission fields are closer and closer to our front door. Our tendency to surround ourselves with people very similar to ourselves provides an insular comfort zone and deadens our sensitivity to others and their needs.

Consider the path Jesus took when traveling from Judea to Galilee in John 4. He had to pass through Samaria, but rather than moving directly through as was the standard, he stopped at a well and interacted with a Samaritan woman. He could have moved passed, but he didn’t. How often do you pass quickly through areas of town that make you uncomfortable? Have you ever found yourself downtown and rolling up windows and locking your doors? Jesus didn’t. He stayed for two days.

Consider Luke 5: 27-32. Jesus calls Levi and Levi makes him a great feast. The Pharisees found the company lacking – tax collectors and others – and grumble. The Pharisees had isolated themselves to such an extreme that they were unable to recognize God among them, or the value of the creation of the God they worshipped. To isolate yourself from others to this extreme is one form of valuing yourself above them. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:39.

I’ve found myself struggling with this from time to time as I get used to life in a small town after living in cities for ten years. I have a lot of room for growth, but I see the fruit of doing hard things – I’m learning about what my neighbors find important, how they think a church should run, politics, land ownership and care, and the value of waving to and acknowledging a passing car on the road. It’s awkward at times. One gentleman talked about his military service and referred to “Them Japs and Orients” over and over, another person asked about my English, and still another asked if it was hard to cook American food. This cross-cultural experience has much more to do with families who have lived in these hills for generations and generations than stamps in my passport, but I know this will prepare me for a time when my passport needs a stamp.