Living in foreign countries, getting to know new people every month, and adjusting to different cultures creates a lot of awkwardness. Like ALOT. So many times we find ourselves in situations where we just have to laugh out loud.
When living in a tiny apartment, church, or house with 6 people – some of them boys – awkward situations abound. For example: everyone knows when you are sick, and you have to try to pretend you don’t know. Try having a prayer session when one of your teammates is getting sick on the other side of a thin bathroom door…awkward. People getting walked in on while they are changing, and running out of TP in the bathroom (and having to wait 20 minutes in a restaurant bathroom till your teammates decide to finally come check on you) is also commonplace. Then there are the funny “showers” that you run into in other countries. Here in Nepal, our shower is partly made out of a sign for an airline. We have a friendly pilot staring up at us every time we try to get clean.
There is more. Everything we do, we have an audience for! Wherever we go we are the talk of the town. People stare when we go running (and when we trip and fall trying to greet them with “namaste”). We even have an audience when we aren’t doing anything at all. So many times I’ve looked up from reading and seen 7 or 8 little kids staring at me through the windows. Communication can be tricky, too. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve asked someone two contradictory questions and gotten “yes” as the answer for both.
“Are we going now?”
“Yes!”
“Are we going tomorrow?”
“Yes!”
“. . . “
Even ministry offers awkward situations. We visit people’s houses where they fill us with Chai, and things always get confusing. So many times we end up staring at each other wondering what is going on. One of my favorite situations happened the other day, when our contact asked us to go to the village to talk to people. We walk out there with him and get to a street where there are families sitting out on their porches and kids playing in their front yards. Pastor Phillip turned to us and said, “Sing! You play and they will come.” So I whip out my little travel guitar and start playing the only song I have memorized. My team and I are all singing our little hearts out in the middle of the street and everyone around just stares. . . We played, and they didn’t come.
So many times things have gotten very serious. Stuff is sad, hard, and confusing. Sometimes you just need a moment to laugh at yourself for the sake of your sanity. No need to fear though, the race is abundant with those moments. I’m going to walk away with heart touching stories, yes, but I’m also going to walk away with those kinds of stories that make you giggle to yourself when you remember them.
