I don’t want to be dramatic here, but I also don’t want you to think I’m not taking this story seriously. I’m actually more concerned about the latter, as I tend to shrug things off too easily. So there’s my worthless introduction to this story.
Mama’s gonna love this one.
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In previous blogs, I’ve described how welcoming our teenage friends in Kyrgyzstan have been and how happy my young soccer buddies have been to see us every day. But things are a little more strained between us and the older generation.
My team’s ministry location this month is a highly traditional Muslim city whose older generation misses the days of the Soviet Union. I don’t know if you’ve seen Lone Survivor or Rocky IV, but Muslim Soviet sympathizers aren’t the biggest fans of Americans.
One of our hosts shared in his testimony that in his previous life as a practicing Muslim, he regularly sought out Christians in order to fight them in the streets.
Many people truly have been very hospitable and welcoming to us, but there is definitely a part of this city who simply do not want us here. The recent attack on the Instanbul Airport was executed three men from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. The three people groups in the city that we’ve been placed in are Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, and Russians. Once or twice this month, cars have violently swerved toward me while I was out for a run. Understand, no harm was intended. I was only meant to be frightened.
I only want to give a fair representation of the mixed feelings toward our presence in this city.
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That brings us to my experience yesterday.
I was about ten minutes into my run when I noticed a large, older man walking toward me from a little ways down the sidewalk. He was giving me what Marcus Luttrell calls “the look” and crossing the sidewalk back and forth from one side to the other. So I thought he was drunk, even though it was a little early in the day for that.
“The look” persisted, even after I gave him a smile and the runner’s nod of acknowledgement, and as I approached, I started trying to zig to his zag in order to avoid running into each other. That was when I noticed something.
This dude is matching me.
When I moved a little to the left, he moved a little toward his right. The continued as we moved back and forth across the sidewalk and got nearer and nearer to each other.
When I was almost an arm’s length away, he lunged his arms out to push me, but I was still too far away, as I had started to slow my gait.
That’s when he recovered his footing and took a swing at me, a strong right hook to the nose.
Thankfully, I was already running, so heart pumping and adrenaline high, I was able to react and dip under that little surprise and avoid getting knocked on my butt.
He stumbled forward, and I kept running. I back-pedaled for a second to make sure he wasn’t chasing, but he never even looked back.
What. Just. Happened.
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So this kind of stuff happens. I’m not always camping next to a waterfall or working in an orphanage. Not everyone is receptive to us.
But the hard times, the times where we feel uncomfortable or unsafe, these are the moments that we signed up for. They’re the moments in which our vision becomes real and tangible.
For me, the adventure aspect was honestly the biggest draw of the World Race. And the adventures are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I have an amazing community of believers and new lifelong friends. I’ve seen parts of the world that I didn’t know existed. I’ve eaten foods that have blown me away. I’ve camped on the sides of mountains and met some of the most inspiring people I’ve ever come across.
But moments like what I experienced yesterday bring the dreamy allure of the Race violently into reality. We really see why we’re here and what we’re doing. We acknowledge rejection and we take it on the chin. We embrace the uncomfortable. We embrace the dangerous.
We move on and persevere in faith, even in the face of what we perceive to be failure.
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“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” – John 15:18-19
