Brothers and Sisters

We are creatures of habit, and things that are different are often hard, at least at first.

It's hard to go to church here.

It's hot, the wooden benches are hard, the service is long, the PA system is loud, we don't understand Kono yet, and even when they speak French, we're often not exactly sure what's going on. (Uh...what was that?  What did you just say? You want ME to get up and pray now??)  But like anything hard that you do, the more you do it, the easier it gets.  Faces are starting to look familiar, even if we don't know all of the names that go with those faces. There is a format to the church service, even though it didn't seem like it at first.  The words to the songs are starting to become more clear.  But it's still hard.

The people around us are so different from us on the outside, that sometimes it's difficult to know how to relate to them on the inside.   We don't cook food in the same way, we don't carry our children in the same way, we don't interact with friends and family in the same way. Yet aside from the differences that at first seem so glaringly obvious, there do exist some similarities. Their kids get bored during church.  Sometimes the adults even fall asleep. Traditions are important to them. They enjoy getting new clothes. They work. They laugh at one another's jokes, and they, too, give announcements at the end of church about the amount of money raised so far for the building project. They are people. They always have laundry to do. Their kids sometimes run wild.  They have choir practice. They like to be entertained. They greet their neighbors, and they talk about the weather. They are people.  

When I see a mom playing with her baby, or see a dad holding his sleeping child, or see someone nodding off during the sermon because it's just too hot to think, I realize that maybe we have more in common than is at first obvious.  After all, they come to church to worship the same God we do;  they invite the same Holy Spirit to be present in their midst.  We are brothers and sisters...despite the lack of family resemblance. 

Often in our daily life in West Africa, we are smacked in the face with this culture that is so different from our own.  Perhaps, though, the similarities outweigh the differences. Perhaps, like the decision to view the glass as half-full rather than half-empty, we can choose to see the similarities before we focus on the differences.   And perhaps, slowly, but surely, these hard things will become easier.