Learning the culture, bit by bit
Life here is full of ups and downs, hilarious and heartbreaking things, as anyone's life is, no matter where you are. But sometimes here, the ups feel higher and the downs feel lower to us simply because we're Americans trying hard to enjoy and fit into this strangely, wonderfully different entity called Cameroonian culture.
Here's some of what the journey has looked like so far for us…
On Sunday, our friend Emmanuel ("Emma") the tailor came over to the house. He wanted to take us to greet his sister, Marie, who just had a baby. "She's been delivered," Emma said happily, leaving us to wonder at first if he was talking about a power encounter!
As we left the house to go into the village to Marie and her husband's house, Emma and I stopped on our front porch. A couple of nights before, Tommy had put a bucket just outside the waist-high concrete barrier of the porch to collect rainwater. Now the sun was reflecting off the pool of water and onto the corrugated tin roof of the porch. Emma and I both noticed the bright, dancing reflection. With a glint in his eye, Emma pointed and asked, "Wesley, what is that?" I hesitated for a second, wondering what exactly he was asking. "Emma, that's the sun reflecting off the water in Tommy's bucket," I said. Emma immediately started laughing---loudly and for a long time. "Oh, Wesley, I was hoping to trick you. I thought you wouldn't know what it was! But now I can see you know it's the reflection." Now it was my turn to laugh. Do Cameroonians really think we Americans are that incompetent? :) Ahh, the journey of learning and laughing goes on…!
As Emma led the three of us, plus our student friend Edith who "dry cleans" (=washes our floors with soap and water) for us, into Ndu and towards Marie's house, we passed a house with a huge crowd---maybe 40 people---outside. All of them were wailing loudly, and there was a mound of fresh dirt just beyond the door. The pastor of Ndu's First Baptist Church saw us and came over to explain: "This family has just been bereaved, and family and friends have come to mourn." I immediately thought of the scene in Mark's Gospel of Jairus' daughter and the mourners whom Jesus sent out of the house. Death in this culture seems to hold a place very similar to the one it held in Jesus' time---and the one it holds in all Third World cultures of today.
On Monday our friend MacPhil came over to the house. Charlie was napping, and Tommy was meeting with a student, so I got to hang out with MacPhil by myself for a bit. MacPhil---sometimes we call him "Mac"---is the six-year-old son of the VP of the seminary. He's really cute and really funny. Tommy's given him the nickname "Iron Kung Fu" because that's one of Mac's favorite movies, and Mac has returned the favor by giving each of us nicknames: I'm "Wessy," Charlie is "Chilly," and Tommy is "Tubby." When he got to our house on Monday and I opened the door, he threw his arms around my neck as I picked him up off the ground. I gave him a sugar cube as a treat, and we sat in the living room and talked about school (how he likes to skip whenever he can make up a good excuse) and what he's been playing with his older brother Jim lately. As he walked back up the trail from our house, I watched him karate-chopping some of the flowers on our front walkway. Yep, the nickname fits. Iron Kung Fu is one of our favorite kids on campus.
Yesterday I had my first meeting with my new prayer partner---I'll call him "Isaac." He's 24 years old and is in my Systematic Theology class. Since 2000, Isaac has wrestled with a serious, debilitating health condition that could eventually lead to liver failure. (I'm being intentionally a bit vague here for the sake of Isaac's privacy.) But with the help of doctors at Banso Baptist Hospital, he's doing better now and is back in class. As we met yesterday in my office, Isaac told me his story. He is from a nearby village in the Northwest province, one of seven children. His father is a farmer. Isaac's older sister shared the "Four Spiritual Laws" with him when he was about 14, and he consciously trusted Christ for the first time then. He is here at CBTS because he wants to be a teacher and a pastor.
Interestingly---here's another instance of the vast cultural difference between us and our students---Isaac's main prayer request yesterday was for his relationship to his father. Isaac's dad really wants him to consult a sorcerer and use traditional African religious methods to deal with his illness. Isaac feels that as a Christian, to consult a sorcerer would be to compromise his faith. Wow, I thought as we prayed together, what a dramatic illustration of how the gospel confronts drastically different things in different cultures! Where following Christ might lead to a conflict with materialism in the U.S., here it is more likely to lead to a conflict with traditional magic and sorcery.
Well, I'm going to end this post and head up to the playing fields to watch a game of "Handball"---it's kind of a cross between soccer and basketball, and all three of us are considering joining one of the seminary teams.
Thanks for reading this. And thanks for leaving comments, too. It's always encouraging to hear from you, our family, friends, and supporters.
Much love,
Wes
Here's some of what the journey has looked like so far for us…
On Sunday, our friend Emmanuel ("Emma") the tailor came over to the house. He wanted to take us to greet his sister, Marie, who just had a baby. "She's been delivered," Emma said happily, leaving us to wonder at first if he was talking about a power encounter!
As we left the house to go into the village to Marie and her husband's house, Emma and I stopped on our front porch. A couple of nights before, Tommy had put a bucket just outside the waist-high concrete barrier of the porch to collect rainwater. Now the sun was reflecting off the pool of water and onto the corrugated tin roof of the porch. Emma and I both noticed the bright, dancing reflection. With a glint in his eye, Emma pointed and asked, "Wesley, what is that?" I hesitated for a second, wondering what exactly he was asking. "Emma, that's the sun reflecting off the water in Tommy's bucket," I said. Emma immediately started laughing---loudly and for a long time. "Oh, Wesley, I was hoping to trick you. I thought you wouldn't know what it was! But now I can see you know it's the reflection." Now it was my turn to laugh. Do Cameroonians really think we Americans are that incompetent? :) Ahh, the journey of learning and laughing goes on…!
As Emma led the three of us, plus our student friend Edith who "dry cleans" (=washes our floors with soap and water) for us, into Ndu and towards Marie's house, we passed a house with a huge crowd---maybe 40 people---outside. All of them were wailing loudly, and there was a mound of fresh dirt just beyond the door. The pastor of Ndu's First Baptist Church saw us and came over to explain: "This family has just been bereaved, and family and friends have come to mourn." I immediately thought of the scene in Mark's Gospel of Jairus' daughter and the mourners whom Jesus sent out of the house. Death in this culture seems to hold a place very similar to the one it held in Jesus' time---and the one it holds in all Third World cultures of today.
On Monday our friend MacPhil came over to the house. Charlie was napping, and Tommy was meeting with a student, so I got to hang out with MacPhil by myself for a bit. MacPhil---sometimes we call him "Mac"---is the six-year-old son of the VP of the seminary. He's really cute and really funny. Tommy's given him the nickname "Iron Kung Fu" because that's one of Mac's favorite movies, and Mac has returned the favor by giving each of us nicknames: I'm "Wessy," Charlie is "Chilly," and Tommy is "Tubby." When he got to our house on Monday and I opened the door, he threw his arms around my neck as I picked him up off the ground. I gave him a sugar cube as a treat, and we sat in the living room and talked about school (how he likes to skip whenever he can make up a good excuse) and what he's been playing with his older brother Jim lately. As he walked back up the trail from our house, I watched him karate-chopping some of the flowers on our front walkway. Yep, the nickname fits. Iron Kung Fu is one of our favorite kids on campus.
Yesterday I had my first meeting with my new prayer partner---I'll call him "Isaac." He's 24 years old and is in my Systematic Theology class. Since 2000, Isaac has wrestled with a serious, debilitating health condition that could eventually lead to liver failure. (I'm being intentionally a bit vague here for the sake of Isaac's privacy.) But with the help of doctors at Banso Baptist Hospital, he's doing better now and is back in class. As we met yesterday in my office, Isaac told me his story. He is from a nearby village in the Northwest province, one of seven children. His father is a farmer. Isaac's older sister shared the "Four Spiritual Laws" with him when he was about 14, and he consciously trusted Christ for the first time then. He is here at CBTS because he wants to be a teacher and a pastor.
Interestingly---here's another instance of the vast cultural difference between us and our students---Isaac's main prayer request yesterday was for his relationship to his father. Isaac's dad really wants him to consult a sorcerer and use traditional African religious methods to deal with his illness. Isaac feels that as a Christian, to consult a sorcerer would be to compromise his faith. Wow, I thought as we prayed together, what a dramatic illustration of how the gospel confronts drastically different things in different cultures! Where following Christ might lead to a conflict with materialism in the U.S., here it is more likely to lead to a conflict with traditional magic and sorcery.
Well, I'm going to end this post and head up to the playing fields to watch a game of "Handball"---it's kind of a cross between soccer and basketball, and all three of us are considering joining one of the seminary teams.
Thanks for reading this. And thanks for leaving comments, too. It's always encouraging to hear from you, our family, friends, and supporters.
Much love,
Wes
posted by Charlie, Tommy, and Wesley | 8:04 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks, Wes. I like your insights into the differences between African and American culture. That's kinda fascinating.
Sorry I never called you back on Saturday. Things got kinda busy. We'll have to chat again soon. Love you, bro.
Praying that the Holy Spirit will equip you to be wise counselors during your time in Cameroon.
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