God isn't Gandalf and Jesus didn't surf

You know how in the western church, especially in the US, there seems to be an occasional push to remind ourselves that God isn’t a prayer vending machine who resembles Gandalf, and how Jesus isn’t a white guy with long flowing surfer hair but actually was born in the Middle East? Okay, so take that sense of redefinition and multiply it by as many times as you can. That’s what’s happening out here. 

I’m reading the Bible through chronologically and it’s been a really helpful way to see how the Bible is ONE story, not a bunch of stories that God thought were important enough to group together. The reading plan I’m doing is a one-year plan. Last week I finished Genesis (with some chapters from Psalms and John 1 on a few days), currently I am reading Job, then in January I'll move to Exodus and so on. 

South Sudan is so, so, so underdeveloped. In fact, minus our compound with its solar panels and two vehicles, the area where we are is literally about as developed as Old Testament times. It’s hard to imagine, especially with all of the globalization and development in other parts of the "developing world", that some places still live out all the stereotypes in a National Geographic documentary. I’ve met less than five Toposa adults who can read. Some of the kids can read a little bit because they are in primary school. Everything we do is oral, so I have to read Bible stories a little bit differently when I’m preparing for a story group. This week we’ve been telling Luke 2 in preparation for Christmas. The emphases are in MUCH different places than what I’m used to. We’ve been talking about how Jesus was born on the earth just like a Toposa. In the US I learned how shocking the birth circumstances were: Jesus was born in a barn with the animals. There wasn’t even room inside anyone’s home or hotel and how dare the earth receive its king like that? Well, the Toposa know all about being born outside among the bulls and goats because that’s how all the women give birth. There isn’t a concept of what an “inn” is out here so of course visitors to villages just sleep on the ground with everyone else. The new perception of God from Luke 2 is that He came not in a shocking way but in a very ordinary way to show that from the very beginning He made all the effort to show that He is really Emmanuel…God WITH us. The Christmas story is just as applicable in Toposaland as it is in Dallas or Lubbock. I mean, duh I already knew that in my head, but now I’m really experiencing it. Two different things.

One really neat thing that is also extremely annoying to my type-A Western personality is that the really good conversations about God’s Word seem to happen when I don’t plan them. It’s frustrating to go to all of the trouble to continually remind people “hey, we’ll be coming back every Wednesday afternoon to listen to a story from God’s Word,” or “all of the women are invited to come to our compound tomorrow at 3 to sing and talk about a story from God’s Word,” and everyone says they will be there or they will come, and then like two people (or no people) show up. Then we could just walk into a village completely unannounced and there will be like 20 people that come over to sit and listen and all of them ask good questions about the story. God’s schedule is soooo not my schedule. That’s okay, just not a concept that I easily embrace. As I’m learning more and more, I am so NOT in control of anything out here.