grace, grace to all

Normal
0

false
false
false

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}

Normal
0
false
false
false
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

st1″:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-style-parent:””;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;}

That’s
the first line of a praise song I first heard over ten years ago. It sounds rather pretty, but putting it into
practice is not. This first week here in
Lodwar, in the Turkana district of Kenya, was a rather stark snapshot of this
realization.

I learned
my lesson three years ago, while on missions in Honduras with CTI Music Ministries
and Youth For Christ, to be gracious in response to the assumptions and
comments made regarding my ethnicity. Was
it the fault of the kids we’d minister to that to them, Asia = China +
Japan? Even back home in the States,
where most Americans (more or less) are exposed to and learn of different
cultures and such, I’ve confronted my share of racism.

Could I
set the bar of diversity awareness so high as I travel overseas? Only if I really wanted to be
disappointed. So I haven’t.

Here I
am, in Africa, for not one but three months. So while getting pelted with shouts of “China! China!” or cheap mimicry
of Mandarin à la Rosie O’Donnell and questions such as “Are you Chinese? Are you Japanese?” doesn’t hurt much the
first seventeen times.

The best
is when [here’s where you pretend you can see me roll my eyes] a few kids
contort their faces as to make their eyes small. If these were isolated incidents, it’s like,
whatever, right? But after 53^rd
time (give or take), they leave a mark.

Being
here costs more patience than I had thought and I’m caught short. And it’s a little awkward when the little
ones just stare warily ‘cause while mzungus (Swahili for “white person”) are
far and few in between in these parts, I’m a novelty. It takes a little longer for them to approach
me ‘cause they’re still trying make sense of me.

I guess
the timing couldn’t be any better. The
stark reality of Christmas is that Jesus came as a foreigner to the world. He lays down His divinity and clothes Himself
with the frail humanity of a newborn baby. Shortly after being born, His family flees, making them a refugee for a
time. Then when He does return to
Israel, the family settles in a city of a not-so-hot reputation.

I don’t
mean to analogize myself with Jesus by any means, but I feel like I get to
identify all the more closely with Him this year. A foreign foreigner (mmmm, double
portion). I’ve lost count of the times I
explain what it means to be a hyphenated American. Perhaps this is all part of the cross I’m
called to carry as I follow Him.

Frankly,
it sucks and all that keeps me from letting go altogether is the promise (which
I totally don’t feel right now but it’s not always about our emotions, right?)
that such trials and suffering (could I really call it that?) bring me that
much closer to Christ. This is a cross I
can’t share with my teammates, who were wonderful listeners as I tearfully
vented the frustration of it all.

It’s such
a delightful truth that though the sorrow may come for the night, the joy comes
with the morning. I can only hope that I
don’t have to carry this cross for much longer. In the meantime, God has given me grace to show grace to all I meet
here.

It’s not
quite giving sight to the blind or raising the dead, but it ain’t no small
miracle.