I’m sitting on the front porch, watching a bunch of Americans play volleyball in the yard. By the garage, a few girls are playing a competitive game of cornhole. Burgers are cooking on the grill; chips, guacamole, and watermelon are sitting on the open bed of the truck. Birds chirp in the trees, the sun warms the breeze, and the sound of laughter fills the air.
Welcome to the Fourth of July in Uganda.
It’s been pretty fun living with Americans this month. Our two hosts are both young adults from California, and two other Americans from Virginia are here visiting as well. We’ve eaten our fair share of American food, watched plenty of American movies, and made plenty of jokes about American culture over the past few days. I underestimated how much I appreciated spending time with people from my culture; people who get me, who understand my struggles and my perspective on things. In a way, this month has felt a lot more like home than any other month on the Race.
Traveling the world this past year has brought me a great deal of perspective on what it means to be an American. I came into this Race wanting to avoid looking like a domineering American who wants to fix the countries I visit, and so I tried to keep my national pride quiet in order to let the culture I’m living in speak for itself. And yet, for some reason, whenever I introduce myself as an America, people are still fascinated. Every country I’ve gone to, America is known as a highly influential world power, and a highly desirable place to be. People in poor villages know about our culture, know things about our lifestyle, and have opinions on our politics. It’s wild, and sometimes seems wrong, but it’s true – America has an incredible influence on the rest of the World.
This past year, I’ve found myself realizing that my identity as an American Christian is not entirely the same as being a Christian in other parts of the world. For so long, I hadn’t needed to separate the two. But now, as I’ve been around the World and have experienced life in so many new places, I realize that being a Christian looks so much different than my American culture has wired me to be.
This Fourth of July, I’m celebrating a country that I love, one that I take immense pride in, and one that I can’t wait to return home to in 48 days. But at the same time, as I celebrate it in a country that is not my own, I realize just how much weight of responsibility is on my shoulders as a proud American Christian. And so I’m left wondering:
As a Christian, what does it really mean to be an American?
Everywhere I go, I’m bombarded with questions about what my life is like in America. “What state are you from?” “What does your house look like?” “Do you have cows there?” I pull out my phone and show them pictures of my family and my friends, explaining that there are no cows in my suburban neighborhood. Admittedly, I’m a little embarrassed to show my giant two-story house decked out in Christmas lights to the African family whose house walls are made of mud.
People around the world are fascinated by America. And I don’t know exactly why. Maybe it’s because our country has such an influential hand in foreign policy. Maybe it’s because most popular movies depict the American life. Maybe it’s because we just have a lot of money. Whatever the reason, people from all walks of life are eager to know what America is like. In different countries, I ask people where they would want to go if they could visit one country in the world. “America”, they reply. Every single time.
It’s kind of fun sometimes, feeling like a celebrity. On several occasions this month, I’ve walked into schools and felt like an international superstar, almost getting my arm ripped off as a hundred children come swarming out of their classrooms to meet the white American. But why are Americans a big deal? Why can’t visitors from other nations be just as fascinating? Is America really as great as people think it is?
What makes America stand out in the world is our freedom to live with excess. We Americans love to consume, whether that be food, clothes, cars, entertainment – whatever it is, our culture has wired us to want it. And this, unfortunately, makes being an American Christian sometimes feels like a contradiction.
The Bible tells us to live simple lives, while our culture tells us to chase success. The Bible tells us to be content with our share, while the American dream calls us to more. The Bible tells us not to be consumed by things of this world, but our country tells us to never stop consuming. The early church model seems to make more sense in the rural village churches than in the big expensive megachurches of America.
But still, as much as I find it hard to describe my excessive American lifestyle to those who live in poverty, I still don’t take my lifestyle back home for granted. Seeing the poverty in the world doesn’t make me wish I could sell all the things I own. Because it’s not wrong to own the things I have, because I know that my life in America is just different. I’m proud to be an American, to have the blessings of great education, great food, great healthcare, and great opportunities. Living amongst poverty doesn’t make me despise what I have, but allows me to see the greater weight of responsibility I’m given, even as a middle-class American, to fight for those that have very little.
The comforts of American living are not what make me American. And they’re certainly not what makes me Christian.
I had a greater realization of this consumer mentality this morning. My team went to meet with a group of Ugandan women and their children who suffer with special needs, to bless them and spend time with them. As my team showed up, another group of white people joined in. Pretty soon, the Ugandans ushered us to benches and chairs in front of the women, who were all sitting on tarps laid out on the grass. We sat there and watched as the ministry coordinator presented us to the group, allowing us to speak and to pray before we started our session with them. Pretty soon, the women were invited to stand up and worship. It was beautiful, watching each women stand to her feet and sway and even dance as they worshipped their Creator.
But then, as the women were worshipping, I saw something that shook me.
Cameras. Dozens of them.
The white people from the other group surrounded the women, taking pictures and videos of their time of worship. And suddenly, I didn’t feel like a missionary anymore. I felt like I was in a zoo, watching wild animals through glass. It was like the African women were there to put on a show, and we white people were there to be entertained. Suddenly, I saw the chasm between us – white Americans who had nice clothing, good health, and money in our wallets, halfway reaching out a hand to poor African women through a window. I felt embarrassed to be there. Did these women think we actually cared about them? What good were we actually doing for them? Is this really the kind of missionary I’ve been all this time – consuming an experience like I’m watching a movie, without ever really stepping into the picture?
Am I truly a Christian missionary? Or am I still just an American consumer?
Yes, I’ve been that guy before, taking a lot of pictures during ministry. And I admit, there’s been a handful of times where I know I didn’t press into relationships during ministry because I wanted to stand back and observe. It still grieves me to see people in deep poverty, and to not know what else to do but take a picture and hop back into the car. It’s strange, to be an American living in a life that has been so surrounded by wealth and comfort, hearing the struggles of the man trying to feed his family with only two dollars a day and trying to understand what that feels like. Living on five dollars a day for food, sleeping on a small pad on the floor, and wearing only the clothes that fit in my pack, might seem like roughing on American standards but still is a richer lifestyle than most of the people I minister to. And because I know there’s no way I’ll ever live at the same level as those in the poor villages, I don’t know what I have to offer. I come from great wealth and carry great influence, and yet I still come with empty hands, taking pictures in hopes that my memory of those suffering never leave my mind.
I never wanted to be the guy who just came in for the pictures, or the stories, or the bragging rights. I always wanted to be the guy who came in and loved people well. And yet, still, I find myself sitting on a bench with a bunch of white people, sitting and taking pictures of the African women worshipping as if it’s the only thing I came here for. How do I bridge the gap?
I realize now that in trying to fully live out my Christian identity in this crazy trip around the world, sometimes I have to lay down my American identity. The identity that says “I know how to do this best”, or “this won’t relate to me because I’m different than you”. I find myself saying these things in many overseas church services, feeling as if I might be wiser than the congregation because I’ve had more experiences than them. And yet, what I realize is that my American pride limits my ability to join with the body of Christ. It sometimes elevates me above the people that I’m with, not fully allowing myself to engage as if I am just one of many in a crowd. Being an American overseas makes me feel special, noticed, almost like a celebrity. But that’s not how the body of Christ operates.
The body of Christ steps in. The body of Christ sits alongside their brothers and sisters of opposite color. The body of Christ doesn’t see other humans as a show or an experience, but as living human beings equally loved by God. Even despite differences in language, culture, or physical features, the body of Christ lives as one people of one nation. Heaven.
America is where I live. It’s the place I love. It’s my land, it’s my people, and it’s my home. Currently. But as much as I love it, and miss it, and feel comforted by it, it’s not my identity.
My identity, even beyond this short life, belongs to the God who saved me – the one who brings the whole world together in equal harmony, for the purpose of becoming one glorious Bride of Christ. I’m a citizen of Heaven, an ambassador of the Heavenly realms, assigned to a beautiful little country called America for this short blip of time that I call life.
This Fourth of July, as I celebrate from the front porch of our homestead in Rukungiri, Uganda, I’m grateful for the home that God has given me on Earth. I’m grateful for a beautiful land full of opportunity and blessing. I’m grateful for the people who fought and died for my freedom. I’m proud to live this life as an American, proud to be carrying great influence in the world, and proud to have the freedoms to live peacefully as a follower of Christ.
But the American life is not enough for me. Because as much as I think America has promises for me, my country is still imperfect. America’s promises of a great future could pass at any time. Comforts could fall away, freedoms could cease, and opportunity could be snatched away. And at that time, would I still be proud to be an American?
So I claim my heavenly citizenship with even greater pride, because beyond the faults of the world, I know that the Lord’s promises never fail. The promise of a great future that will never change. The promise of eternal comfort in His arms. The promise of freedom that no one can take away. The promise of a life more eternally fulfilling than anything America could offer me.
And so today, I celebrate my wonderful country and the amazing ways in which the Lord has blessed her. I celebrate that God has allowed me to live in such a wonderful place, and has given me authority in the world to share the Gospel with people of all nations. But furthermore, I celebrate my citizenship in Heaven, a kingdom that will never fade away. And as a citizen of Heaven, I resolve to live beyond my American limitations, step off my platform and over the barriers, and love people of every nation.
God Bless You America, my Earthly home sweet home. I’m gonna go light some sparklers in Uganda now.
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Philippians 3:20
