3... 2... 1... Furlough! "Crying Over Biscuits"

I really tried to prepare.

I read blogs and sought counsel from veteran missionaries.

But I still ended up crying over biscuits.

I felt silly and was totally embarrassed, but what could I do? And I am not alone. Others have cried over toothpaste or shampoo or leftovers at Golden Corral. Some just walked out of the store empty-handed.

It's more real... and more gripping than I ever imagined.

Welcome to the vicious world of
                                reverse culture shock.

Crying Over Biscuits

I always imagined my tears would be over cheddar cheese... beautiful, yummy, yellow cheddar cheese. The precious block of golden treasure! I miss it when we don't have it on our field. We just went through a long shortage of cheddar cheese. Imagine being deprived of its valuable presence! And when we have it, we have an overwhelming selection of... two. That's it. Two choices. White or yellow.

But in the States? There is an entire aisle dedicated to its lovely existence. Shredded, sliced, block, sharp, mild, big bags, little bags... not to mention several brands! The shelves are beautifully glowing like gold fashioned any way you want it! Surely the sight would be so happy that tears would flow. Wonderful, happy tears of gratitude.

My reverse culture shock moment wasn't like this... um... fairy tale.

We had traveled all day, and I was tired. There was a group of our family with us, and the ladies were all going shopping for the week. It was my first time shopping in the grocery section since our return. We decided to go to Walmart. My mother-in-law worked hard dividing the long list up, grouped by location... divide and conquer. It was a great plan.

When we got to Walmart, she handed me a list. As I began looking over my list, I looked up to realize... I was alone... in Walmart. Everyone had gone their separate ways to get their portion of shopping done.

Now, if you know anything about reverse culture shock, this was a set-up for disaster. I was tired. I was alone. And I was in a large, unfamiliar store.

Panic started to set in, and I don't even know why. I tried to relax. After all, it's just shopping, right? So I looked down at my list. Fresh fruits and vegetables were at the top, and I was in that section already.

     I was in that very,
          very large section.
                        There were
                  fruits and veggies
                        everywhere!

On the field, I had gotten used to shopping at our little closet-sized shops. The entire fruit stand could fit on the average kitchen table. The same kitchen table could showcase every vegetable from our veggie stand. I had gotten used to small stores with few choices. There in Walmart, the selections were endless! Twenty of my usual shops could fit in just that section! I calmed myself by just focusing on my list. Bananas... I buy bananas all the time. I thought, "That's easy. I'll start with bananas."

I walked over to the bananas. Well, they looked like bananas, but certainly not like the bananas I had shopped for in the last 3 1/2 years. These bananas were huge and smooth and green and pale yellow. My bananas on the field are tiny, dark yellow, and speckled with brown. On the field, I walk up and let the store owner know if I am eating the bananas today or tomorrow. Then she grabs the bananas that meet the need, bags them, and gives me my total. Standing here in Walmart, I found that I had forgotten how to choose good bananas in America. Surely these smooth, beautiful, big bananas couldn't be ready to be eaten! Where were the speckles?!

And the stress level kept rising.

"Nectarines... Maybe nectarines would be good. Do I like nectarines? I can't remember! We don't have nectarines! Peaches... I think we all like peaches. How do I choose peaches? Our peaches are green. These don't look green. I can't remember!"

And the stress level was boiling.

"Time to move on to the freezer foods before I lose it! Hmmm... freezer foods." I scanned over the list. "Frozen biscuits... well, that's a great idea! I always have to make my own biscuits and then freeze them."

So I head to the frozen breakfast food aisle. Frozen pancakes, frozen waffles, frozen ham and cheese biscuits, frozen sausage biscuits... I just wanted frozen biscuits! Plain ole frozen biscuits. Up and down the aisle I went, and stress was welling up in my eyes. I held back the tears. It had been twenty minutes, and I had barely scratched the surface of my list.

Up and down the aisle.... up and down... up and down... NOTHING! No frozen biscuits!

Just at that moment, my mom walked up.

"How is it going?" she asked. And before I knew it, the tears came gushing out. I told her I couldn't find the biscuits. And with every ounce of maternal love in her body, she took control and walked me through each aisle. After a few minutes, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law walked up and discovered the situation. Again, the tears flooded out, and I felt like a fool. I was crying over biscuits!

My mother-in-law admitted she didn't know what I was going through, but that she would be there to help. And she was! She didn't have to understand for her compassion to reach out to my need. Making the simplest decisions became overwhelming to me, and my mind just wanted to shut off. When they saw me struggle, they jumped in without hesitation. Sometimes they just made the decision for me. Sometimes they narrowed the choices down and gave me a chance to try. None of them had studied reverse culture shock, but somehow the Lord just directed them.

We checked out, and the nightmare was over.

Yesterday, I went to the store again. It was a much different experience. I learned from my mistakes. I went when I was feeling energetic and refreshed. I went when I had plenty of time, so I could go slowly and make decisions at my own pace. I went to a store where I used to shop all the time before we went to the field. I was familiar with the store's layout! I took someone with me who keeps me relaxed... my daughter! She walked calmly through every aisle with me.

I still felt overwhelmed at the selection and the number of choices, but I was able to keep the situation in context. After all, it's just a trip to the grocery store!

And the icing on the cake? As we were checking out, the cashier and the bagger were so friendly! They asked us how we were doing and chatted with us. They asked if we needed help getting the groceries to the car. They smiled and said, "Have a great day!"

So I did! And I even bought frozen biscuits and cheddar cheese. Beautiful, wonderful... cheddar cheese.

Gabe Funnies

Me (sitting in church)- Gabriel, don't forget your tithes.
Gabriel grabs a tithing envelope, fills it out, and then begins to stuff his money in it.
Me- Um, Gabe, they don't take rupees here.
Gabe- They don't?!!!


Gabe- Mom, can I use the microwave at this time?
Ben- Gabe... it's America. There is electricity at all times.
Gabe- Oh...

Meeting People

Sometimes on the field, you miss births of new family members. We finally got to meet my cousin's baby girl for the first time. Something tells me she fits into our crazy, silly family just fine.

The Furlough 20

Let the battle of the "Furlough 20" begin!

It is commonly accepted that missionaries put on some weight during furlough. I really don't want to be in that statistic, so it's time to get busy! For one week while we traveled, we had access to a gym. Michaela and I worked out hard for five of the seven days.

Now to get the eating under control...

Sorry, Krispy Kreme. Our relationship has just taken a turn for the worse.

(Maybe we can have an occasional secret weekend rendezvous?)

Reclaiming the Word "Missional" for Missionaries

Did you know that the word "missional" has several connotations and connections these days that makes many in-real-life missionaries leery of using the term themselves?

That's annoying. I mean, the adjectival form of the word mission works perfectly for my Monday writings. "Missionary Monday" is a little awkward and cumbersome since it's not an adjective, and "Mission Monday" has some connotations of its own. Did you know that even whether the "s" is on the end of the word mission or not can define you in a certain camp?

1. Mission
2. Missions
3. Missional
4. Missionary

The odd-numbered terms are in one camp (that, along with removing the "s" also removes the article, saying things like, they are "on mission.") The evens are apparently in an outdated, colonialist mindset that loves dinosauric institutions like churches, and says that they "do missions" or are missionaries.

It's really very confusing. I read several articles trying to understand what it means exactly to be "missional," but I'm still on mission to get at the substance of it. It seems kind of like the word evangelical--a hazy, encompassing word that lots of people use to describe themselves, from some Mormons to some fundamentalists to some Catholics.

So am I missional? I thought I was, but I guess it's gotten redefined from some guys tracing back to Karl Barth. Like the word gay, it means something different now than from the 40s; and you might want to be careful about using the term if you haven't made your definition clear first.

Some people in our postmodern age hate labels altogether, and thus would say it doesn't matter what term you use. But Seth and I feel that labels can have value in saving time, IF the speaker and hearer have the same definitions for the label. For example, rather than saying, "I'm a Biblicist," and then using a lengthy doctrinal statement to define what you mean by that, you could say, "I'm a pre-mil, Reformed Baptist." (Providing your hearer understands your definition of those labels!)

It's also difficult to use labels if the labels themselves have become so amorphously defined that people of all different stripes use it, which seems to be part of the difficulty with the term missional. I normally don't like to play with redefining terms or labels, (though I'm going to break that rule today). Definitions do exist, and truth can be found.

Here's Seth's definition: Missional refers to interacting with culture for religious ends; striving to redeem or transform society with a spiritual motivation. Wikipedia and Christianity Today use missional authors to define it, and 9 Marks Journal and Kevin DeYoung critique it in the other links in this post.

Seth's definition above doesn't seem too incendiary. It's the applications of what the mission is perceived to be and how it is achieved that can be scary. For example, church as a governed institution is rejected and undermined, as is typical outreach or churchplanting done by traditional missionaries. "Engaging culture" seems to be a thinly veiled term for actually clinging to sinful culture. Rather than encouraging daily denial of self and taking up one's cross, new believers are encouraged to stay in the groups or acts they were in or doing and to "redeem" them for Christ.

A hunky student at an evangelical college models licentiously for an Abercrombie & Fitch ad, and student writers for the college newspaper commend him for his efforts as a "missionary" to Hollywood. That's missional living (according to some). (Totally crossing the line to use our word there--"missionary"!)

An evangelical mega-church near my home (in America) advertised their weekly singles' meeting, in which they would watch an R-rated movie together to find the "redemptive value" in it. That's missional.

Even with these problems with the word missional, however, I feel that there are three reasons I can apply the term to myself.

1. I do agree with some of the underlying passions of missional proponents.

As Kevin DeYoung says in a very helpful critique of missionalogy, "At its best, missional represents everything Christians ought to be. We should be concerned about the lost and compassionate about the hurting. We ought to sacrifice personal preferences for the good of others. We should think critically about our own traditions and creatively about new strategies. We ought to bless people, love God and love neighbor."
In the sense that "Missional refers to interacting with culture for religious ends; striving to redeem or transform society with a spiritual motivation," I am missional. In the bad exegesis and applications that missional proponents have married to the term, I am not.

2. The etymology of the word missional applies to me.

According to my Latin guides here, "miss-" means to "send, let go." The noun suffix "-ion" means "condition; quality; act." And the adjective suffix "-al" means "characteristic of; relating to." What is relating to the condition or act of sending, more than actual missionaries? And if we're going to apply the term "missionaries" (people who have the quality of being sent) to people who are not actually going somewhere (and by that I mean, crossing a cultural, linguistic boundary), then we need to find another term for those people who do that.

There needs to be some adjective for us, if we can't use "missional."

3. I feel the errors of the missional movement need to be critiqued by real missionaries.

I'm not sure the most obvious way to do that without trying to snub the fallacious exegesis of those on mission, by taking their term and reclaiming it for myself and other missionaries like me, who I feel are really doing missions! First, the term is confusing and amorphous enough that I feel I can play with it and apply it to myself. Secondly, some of the connections that are somewhat clearly linked to the term are bad enough that I want to reclaim it for us! The real missionaries!

"Missional" should mean people who leave their own culture to go to another lesser-reached one in obedience to Christ's commands in Mt. 28:19-20, NOT people who stay in their own culture and focus on Christ's commands from the Sermon on the Mount.

"Missional" should refer to a carefully crafted sermon prepared through hours of thoughtful study of both the Word and the linguistics of a foreign language, NOT an exegesis of the latest article on the 17 hottest guys in America in Seventeen magazine.

"Missional" should refer to carefully defining the Gospel--repentance, faith, substitution, grace, NOT calling "instituting peer mediation among students" in the public school "preaching the Gospel."

"Missional" should refer to people who evangelize using the Ten Commandments and terms like "sin," NOT people who evangelize using the 11th commandment of general nice-ness.

"Missional" should refer to people who have think-sweat from trying so hard to figure out how to help the poor culture they are living amongst without hurting them, NOT people who assume that throwing money at the noble savages is the best way to salvage our conscience that we have done mission.

"Missional" should refer to those who give themselves to the Word and prayer and keep themselves unspotted from the world, NOT those who are conversant about the phone-book-thick catalogue of rap artists on the music scene today or the newest alcoholic beverage brand name.

"Missional" should refer to me and those like me, who have left houses, lands, and family for Christ's sake, have suffered unique trials and temptations because of our mission, have dug fence post holes with their hands on Saturday morning and practiced sermons Saturday night in another language, have as our most embarrassing moments those language mistakes we made while preaching, are fluent in the critter population in our storage, remember the names and faces of numerous villagers we have had a Bible study with, are trying our 20th method of attempting to penetrate this culture for Christ, wonder if our water or electricity or gas will be reliable that day, whose children have been called "stupid" for not speaking the language well enough, who have cried over their own failures and earnest desires for a foreign people group...

Missionaries are the ones who should get to use the term missional. NOT a model in Hollywood.

To give the term to others so different from us undermines our true missional efforts. Use another name. That one’s taken.