"She'll be right..."

"Bir şey olmaz" - this is the equivalent of NZ's "She'll be right", only this wee phrase is used way more here than our own dismissive quip.  Often times the use of "Bir şey olmaz" is the basis of a wink and a chuckle at what you can get away with here in Turkey compared with what probably should or shouldn't happen.  However in some cases it reveals a more insidious tendency to care little about the wider picture, or of one's responsibility to act for the sake of the whole community - a reluctance to think beyond what seems the most expedient in the moment.  

Time and again I have felt dismay at what seems a prevailing readiness to accept the status quo, that and/or a sense of powerlessness to change things or make a real difference for the better.  Occasional attempts to challenge this approach are met with expressions that suggest I'm speaking Chinese!...the idea simply doesn't compute. (This is a generalisation of course and while I dare to say it is true in many/most cases, it is certainly not true of all).

At times I've become quite preoccupied with trying to solve the Turkish mindset, "Why are things the way they are here?", "Why do people seem to so readily accept what to me is unacceptable?"...  It's a risky business critiquing actions across a culture because no matter how well we think we've got things figured out, invariably there remains a great deal that we've not understood or even considered.  Nevertheless I can't help but contrast the drive within me, and generally speaking within my home culture, to always be looking for opportunities to make things better.  What is that about?  Why the difference?

I was reading something recently that said this sense of needing to contribute positively to our world and to make a change for good should characterise the Christian experience.  We have a God who has clearly communicated His dissatisfaction with much of what goes on in our fallen world and His work throughout history has been about redeeming it and us.  Jesus came because everything was all wrong, and His life, death and resurrection are integral to God's work of reclaiming and restoring...

Active and vigilant involvement in making our world better, safer and more just, are a normal and natural part of the call to align ourselves with a God, who said before any of us did, that "Everything is NOT okay."  Just as He is grieved by all that is broken in the world, so should we be, and our normal days should be about joining with Him in making things better.

It's a tension for the believer, called to see the worlds' brokenness - more than others might, and yet also called the love this world more than others do.  So as we love the world as it is, our love drives us to champion its change into something better.  Wow, that's gotta need a whole lot of the grace of God!

So, I haven't solved the questions I opened with, but in the meantime I know that there's a whole lot needs changing in me; but maybe while He's changing me, I might also get to partner with Him in being an agent of change for good in some small ways during our time here.  I pray that will be the case.

If it's worth doing...

Last Sunday I led the study during our fellowship time.  Now, while I don't believe I have a gift of teaching (that's my husband!), I do like to think I can communicate quite well.  Nevertheless, what I might do well in my mother tongue turns out to be quite another matter in a second language...

As it turns out the feedback I received suggested I did better than I felt I had - but that still didn't mean I felt terribly satisfied by my delivery.  Even acknowledging the heightened difficulty of negotiating spiritual truth - filled with nuance and deeper meaning - I still felt a bit disappointed and insecure about the whole thing.  In fact the importance of the content only serves to increase the pressure!

Anyone who knows me, even a little, will know I live my life very much according to the code of "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well."  Suffice to say, I don't like doing things that I can't do well...  But there's a very cool little twist on that saying which goes "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly!"  This idea has really helped me negotiate life in a second culture when I frequently feel I'm "performing" below par.

It turns out that there are some things that are so important...so worth doing...that doing them badly is better than not doing them at all; that is, communicating the message of the Gospel is such an important task that it's better that I do it a little badly than that I don't even try.  Certainly allowing my pride to be an obstacle to speaking out, no matter how haltingly is a mistake...maybe even sinful???

Additionally my own efforts are only a part of the equation to which God adds His blessing - the increase - so I simply need to offer my "bad" efforts in faith, then sit back and see what He does with them.  I really might be in trouble if it was all up to me, but thankfully it's not!

Some reflections on raising kids

I remember a co-worker observing the lavish lives of family back home and commenting on how hard it will be for those kids to ever serve God in a cross-cultural setting - assuming, as is often the case, that saying "yes" to God will involve a step (or several/many) down in the standard of living and experience of life that these kids were getting used to living now.

It got me thinking about the way we raise our kids and the values we bring to the role. Having spent many years raising my children overseas has given me an opportunity to reflect on some of our "Western" ways; I think it's enabled me to perceive things I would have missed if I'd always been immersed in my home culture.

Adding to my perspectives has been the observation that each subsequent generation of workers arriving in Turkey seems less equipped emotionally and practically to deal with the challenges of making a life cross-culturally.  By the grace of God somehow we get there, but I feel incredibly soft, and at times quite pathetic when I reflect on my own capacity(or lack of it) to cope with hardship compared with those who came before me.

It seems to me that in the West we've become so accustomed to the level of comfort we live with on a daily basis that our luxury has become normal.  And it's insidious in that the more we have, the more we seem to want - and it's not just a material thing, we've become emotionally very needy too.

As parents, wanting the best for our children generally looks like attempting to give them everything they need and doing our best to protect them from pain.  In and of themselves these are fine drivers.  The problem is that our perceptions of "need"  and "pain" are so skewed.

Our sense of need is largely shaped by our expectations and then we feel pain when those expectations are unmet.  In the Western world today our expectations are sooo high!  When as parents we 'succeed' in meeting all of our childrens' perceived "needs" we have often left them very weak and spineless.

As my kids wrestle with being removed from many of the comforts of home and engage each day with the challenges of life in a foreign country, my instinct as a mother is to want to fix everything to their liking and to try and meet all of their needs so that they are content and happy.  Of course this is well in excess of my capacity, as well as being misdirected.

I do have a responsibility to actively support my children, to listen to them and to care for their 'needs'.  However in all of that, a far more important element of my role is to teach them gratitude for the incredible blessings we enjoy everyday (without comparison with those who we perceive better off); to expose them to the realities of life for the majority of the world, to help put their sense of 'need' into perspective; to encourage them when they're struggling, but not to try and rescue them from that - instead, to teach them to trust God for His grace and to press into Him.

I'm confident that our time here is building emotional capacity and spiritual muscle in my kids that they would not have had in other circumstances.  That's not to say that it's impossible to raise strong children immersed in Western culture, but it does require great insight and intentionality - the support of like-minded folk would probably go a long way too.

Given the counter-cultural nature of the Christian faith I reckon we have a responsibility to keep standing  back and checking just what values are driving us; cultivating a healthy skeptism for what is normal and encouraged by prevailing culture can help keep us alert - even when assessing Christian ideas, which have all too often been as shaped by our culture as by anything from the Bible!

May God give us much grace as we endeavour to raise strong, resilient and Godly kids.

...oh, and don't forget to pray lots ;-)

A bit of advice...

I couldn't believe what I was hearing as an acquaintance of my neighbour took the liberty of telling her at length why she should have a second child (they have one pre-schooler presently).  I found myself unwittingly considering how that would go down at home, i.e. the offering of unsolicited advice -with conviction! 

It's very normal here for people to tell you what you should/should not do and why, and though without a doubt it's with the best of intentions I find myself inclined to inadvertently bristle...especially when the advice is directed at me!

As I reflected some more on the situation I began to find I wasn't as convinced of our Western hands-off approach as I'd previously thought.  I guess it's like so many things where our cultures tend to express polarising extremes...and if we could learn from each other we'd both sides be a good deal better off.  I actually think it's sad that we're so reluctant to take advice from others, or allow others to guide us where necessary.  Of course people can give us advice but only when we ask for it...the problem is we don't always recognise when we could so with a bit of guidance...either that or we're too proud to ask?  In the West we value individualism so highly, and the right to "do it my way" we can end up missing out on that much needed word of encouragement to look at something again, or the gentle rebuke or chiding from someone who might really care. 

I can't fully endorse the sometimes bombardment of unsolicited advice offered here (often with more confidence than it rightly deserves)...but neither am a fan of our Western "hands-off" approach.  I reckon sensitive advice/opinion offered lovingly is good for the giver and the receiver.  When we offer advice out of the right heart we get a bit involved, take a bit of responsibility for the person/situation; we live in relationship rather than on the other side of the line which separates my world from yours.  Conversely, we don't run around giving everyone our opinion on their situation because we respect peoples' individual thoughts and freedom to make their own decisions.

 However, we often make the best decisions for ourselves after we've listened well to others ;-)

Gifts and giftedness

The other day on Facebook a co-worker posted some drawing and painting she'd been doing lately - it was really good.  It was another reminder to me how little I generally know about the pre-ministry life of most of my co-workers.  I've been surprised when the subject has come up occasionally to learn of significant gifts and abilities laid aside to serve God and people in other countries...e.g. among our regional leaders is a concert pianist!  There have been others who have left very successful well-paid careers to serve in very important but low-profile roles for the sake of the Gospel.

Needless to say I get a bit stuck sometimes when I hear it suggested that the way God will use us is necessarily tied to our gifts and abilities, that is, the thing God calls us to do will naturally be something we do easily/well and which we enjoy.  The problem with that from my perspective, is that if this is the case, 99 percent of us serving cross-culturally would have to conclude we got the call wrong!  For most of us, whatever we did with ease and confidence back home we can no longer do where we are now.  In many cases each day is a challenge grappling with cultural constraints and considerations - not to mention the language!  The opportunities we enjoyed back home to serve in roles we had natural gifting for and had also developed a degree of confidence for, are a thing of the past and most days involve a degree of pushing myself to do things I feel little natural aptitude for.

An additional thought...we might also consider that assuming our call lines up with our natural talents is a luxury only enjoyed by those of us who've had the opportunity to discover and develop those talents. What I mean to highlight is the fact that there must be a wealth of talent amongst the world's poor and underprivileged but it will go undiscovered as all of their energies are poured into mere survival.  If we imagine it a natural relationship, or even our "right" to serve in a role that exploits our talents and gifts, do we neglect those who will never know that opportunity?

Maybe we will be called to serve God according to our gifts (I do actually believe this is quite Biblical)...but maybe our gifts will be just that...gifts that we give back to God, laying them down so that we can serve in the way He calls us - which may or may not line up with our talents and giftings.  It may, in fact, mean that in doing so, our service allows someone, or many, to discover their value, personhood and giftedness in Christ.  If that is so, then my gifts, in a round about kind of way, have still served God and His purposes, but ironically by not using them!

So, I reckon filling out a questionnaire designed to diagnose our gifts, and therefore guide our understanding of God's call upon our lives falls very short of figuring out God's will and way for us.  Steeped in his Word, caught up in His story, loving Him and loving His purposes is much more likely to effect a real impression of what His will for our lives is, and then we can move with confidence in His grace, whether or not our gifts feature highly along the way.

Will I offer God something that cost me nothing?

It must be a good 17 or so years ago that we sat in a classroom at bible college listening to a couple share about some tough experiences overseas.  One of them involved exposing their young daughter to very substandard  healthcare (they are both medical doctors themselves - heightening their conflict over the situation) because this was all that was available.  Afterwards they did some soul-searching, wondering what they were doing serving God at a potentially high cost to their precious children.  They referred to various scriptures which God used to speak to them, and left us with the place that they came to, a question...."Will I offer God something that cost me nothing?"

Their words have replayed in my mind many times since then and have been running through my thoughts more than usual in recent days.  We praise God for clear evidence of His grace in the lives of our kids...but that doesn't mean they don't frequently struggle with being here.  Social networking is great but it does mean they're well aware of what their friends are up to back home and of what they're missing out on.  They don't have any real friends here to speak of, and while they enjoy many aspects of their schooling system, it comes with a host of challenges too.  This week we've had some tears...and there were some last week too...

It's one of the hardest things as a parent to see your children struggling, and more so when there's nothing you can do to "fix" the problem.  I've considered this week that I could get mad with God because it's hard and I'm having a difficult time dealing with the challenges...or I can consider these are my gift to Him - a gift that is worth something because it is costly to me.

I should add that I also believe I can trust God with my children because He has led us here and He is in the business of redeeming and making good every situation we trust to Him.  That's 'good' in His economy of course...so 'good' doesn't mean easy, but it does mean growing grace, character, strength, faith, perseverance...  I do believe that my/our obedience means the best for my children, and me/us - but that's not the same as the easiest or most comfortable.