One common theme I’ve noticed in myself and other Goer’s I’ve kept in touch with as we’ve sojourned on this journey has to do with the theme of expectations. We all had them coming into this process, and almost all of us have had expectations shattered, exceeded, and everything in between. One thing I know I (unadmittedly) expected was a type of adventure somewhere along the lines of Lord of the Rings and the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The reality about living overseas though, is that most of it is just that: living. You get up, eat breakfast, learn language, work projects, buy groceries, get a haircut (or don’t), sweat, rinse, and repeat. There’s no epic background music, or inspiring one liners, yet God still shows up and does cool things in the mundane everyday grind.
Occasionally, however, something happens that makes you stop and say: “Whoa, that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else except in the context of cross-cultural ministry.” In other words, sometimes an adventure really does happen. I got a taste of one last week. This is what happened:
I’m in a new city now, and before our team leaders left for the summer they introduced me to one of the refugees here of the people group my ministry is focused towards. Being a long metro ride away from the rest of our team currently, I found myself alone in a big part of town with few contacts. Naturally, my biggest prayer in this new season is ‘God, please give me new m-slim friends.’ With that prayer sent to the heavens I called this one contact and arranged for us to hangout one night shortly after Ramadan had started. In my typical American thinking, ‘hanging out’ meant max two hours, maybe a coffee, and then part ways. Ha.
6:00 PM rolls around and I meet my new friend G. He says we’re going to a place I internally translated as a ‘photography’ place. He’s an artsy guy so I figure, no problem, he probably wants to take pictures or make prints. Into a taxi we go, and an unexpectedly long ride later we’re across town in his friend’s office. We’re not making photo prints. Instead, I unknowingly crashed a photo shoot they were conducting to film part of a documentary they were making about children in war torn Yemen. What?! Here I was praying for new friends, and I end up in a room full of Yemeni (the dialect of Arabic I speak) men.
Then the fun kicked in. As the Ramadan fast broke they brought in huge trays of rice and chicken so we could eat together (the results pictured above). We sat around laughing at my Yemeni Arabic, and then their laughter quickly turned to surprise when I abandoned the spoon they gave me, and began to eat with my hands…Yemeni style! We had lots of interesting conversations about morality and fasting, and they eventually learned I was a Christian. After food, they returned to filming. I felt kind of awe struck watching these young men work on this project they were obviously passionate about. Like an outsider getting to watch a group of mad scientists at work. You can’t really know what all is going on, only that it’s big and important to them.
As midnight neared, I remembered a social quirk. This was the month of Ramadan! These guys had mostly slept all day and were only really just now starting to work. Me, on the other hand, had already had a full day, and was now dosing in the corner. They even ordered me a Red Bull at one point to keep me going. Finally at 1:30AM, some 6 hours after I arrived, the filming finished and G got us to a bus to begin the journey home. He insisted I eat with him at the local Yemeni restaurant. I could scarcely say no seeing as he kept me alive all night. In a weary and delirious daze I consented, and to the restaurant we went only to meet ANOTHER group of Yemeni G knew, who were also very excited to meet and talk.
At this point my language skills were taking a serious nose dive. I could barely see straight for want of sleep, let alone manage full coherent sentences in a foreign language. At one point I even had to tell one of them in Arabic “You know speaking another language makes you tired, my brain hurts, please forgive me.” He laughed and quickly understood and made sure we only talked about simple things (thank God!). After dinner, or breakfast, or whatever you call a 2:30am Ramadan meal, I parted ways with G, trekked back to my flat, and collapsed in bed 8 hours after I had first rendezvoused with G.
Amidst fuzzy thoughts of foreign languages, documentaries, and new friends I finally let sleep pull me under. Today was one of those days, an actual adventure.