Glad Its Not Me!

This morning, I decided to start reading Nehemiah simply because I remember Dr. David Jeremiah once preaching an excellent sermon on discouragement from the book of Nehemiah. Yea, I need that word now. But as I think about my circumstance I realize that it is not exactly like Nehemiah’s. His oppression and discouragement came mostly from opponents, which thankfully I don’t have right now. Further differences are seen in that Nehemiah had the difficult task of motivating a discouraged work force, which is a whole lot harder than my task of motivating just one discouraged person: myself. The point of similarity, though, between me and Nehemiah is that we both faced ENORMOUS tasks that must be accomplished. Nehemiah started with rubble and had to build a strong wall around God’s chosen city. I start with the feebleness of my mind and limited strength and have to build a usable understanding of the Gmz language.

Ok, honesty in communication means telling the upbeat, fun stories as well as giving you glimpses of the tough times. And yet, there’s no real value in just straight complaining or begging for pity from those who only hear my side of the story. So I will attempt to walk this fine line and write with honesty, knowing that there are a few of you who will actually take the time to read all of what follows (it is L O N G), and then possibly some who will translate it into a matter of serious prayer, which I know we need not just now, but always.

Wohis is my language teacher on Mondays and Tuesdays, but this past Sunday after church he came to me and said that his grandmother had died and that there was a funeral the next day (Monday). Sensing a good opportunity to get out of the house and into a Gmz community, I asked if I could come with him in place of our class time. He agreed and we arranged to meet on the road at 9am. I purposely showed up 20 minutes late and Wohis was not there. I went to his house and was told that he had left. Surprised that he had left without me, I thought, “Maybe I’ll drive down the road and see if I can catch up to him.” Not far along the way, there he was, walking TOWARD our meeting point, telling me that my being 20 minutes late was not late at all, it was still too early. No problem, he jumped in the truck and we continued to the place where the path took off to the village. Things were good as we hightailed up a steep hill/mountain, although it was brutal on my cardio-vascular. After 15 minutes or so, we made it to a village that had only a few people in it. We sat down on some stools and were given keya to drink. “This isn’t much of a funeral,” I thought as we sat there talking with some kids. Then, we got up and moved up to another house. Staying there only a minute, we headed up the mountain again to another village where from a long ways off I could see several hundred Gmz people amassed, all sitting in little groups around the village. As we approached what was obviously the main house, four armed guys stepped in our path - not that guns were uncommon there, probably 70 percent of the guys had big guns, including Wohis (to help you visualize, these are not handguns, or rifles, or shotguns, I don’t know what to call them – it’s the type that is about three feet long and has the ammunition clip curving out from the barrel just in front of the trigger area). Ok, so these armed guys confronted us. Wohis was greeted nicely, but the other two guys with us were obviously interrogated about something – none of which I understood. Individually, they agreed on something and each paid a “birr” (about 6 cents). Wohis also paid a birr and said something about me and so I guessed (correctly) that the non-related guests had to pay in order to party (which is really what followed). Then we did a formal greeting of the elders and each gave two birr to them – why? I didn’t know at the time, I was just told to do it. We went inside and were given more keya to drink (yippee). After about 30 minutes in there, we went outside and sat in one of the big groups. At about 11:30, Wohis, who was being a pretty good host, told me that the cow was going to be slaughtered at 1pm and then we could leave at 2pm. That was stretching the amount of time that I wanted to be there, after all, the day before Wohis had said “I have to go to a funeral in the morning but I can come in the afternoon if you like.” So I figured I would be home sometime at or shortly after lunchtime. But, in the name of cultural sensitivity, I agreed to leaving around 2pm after the slaughter. To speed up the story, 1pm passed, 2pm passed and after all that keya, I had to pee like a racehorse. But, being the center of attention anyway, I knew it would create a disturbance in the force for me to get up, walk to the edge of the village and post up like countless other males were doing throughout the day. Nevertheless, knowing that there was no way to nonchalantly do it, I stood up and announced my need to pee. Thankfully, a crowd of kids did NOT follow me and it was very nice to stretch my legs which repeatedly had fallen asleep having been cramped by the 6-inch stool I had been awkwardly sitting on all morning. Finally, around 2:30, Wohis said it was time to eat (though the cow had still not been slaughtered). We went into a house where we were served keya, nga, kohwa and oopa. The oopa is like a lima bean, but the other stuff is entirely foreign and not at all pleasant. The nga and kohwa are made out of millet and is very similar to the sedo (play-dough and snot) that I wrote about in a May 2009 blog. I choked it down with a smile on my face, glad that I didn’t have to eat it all the time. Ok, so we’ve eaten, that means we can go, RIGHT? That’s what I thought when we exited the house, but Wohis then said something that I knew right away was trouble “Travis, sit here on this stool, I will come back.” Oh great.

Now, so far, the story sounds like I am just getting tired and needing to be patient, but let me fill in two gaps I’ve left out. Keya is a slightly fermented grain-based drink, arike is a whiskey with a very high alcohol content. At any Gmz celebration, both keya and arike flow freely. Being in the midst of the gun-bearing Gmz people as they got drunker and drunker was wearing me down emotionally. Yes, this “funeral” is an important cultural event for me to observe, but like most Gmz celebrations, they just turn into gatherings of drunkards waving their guns and jumping around to the beat of a drum. These guns are loaded, decades old and known to misfire, so why would you sit with it between your legs, the barrel pointed at your face? And why would you all gather in a circle and dance with your gun in your hand, carelessly pointed at the crowd on the other side of the circle? Ok, enough on the guns and alcohol. Now, Wohis had left me, where did he go that he didn’t want me to go with him? The non-confrontational side of me didn’t want to know.

The second detail that I haven’t said yet is that being in a 100% Gmz environment was not at all encouraging to my language learning. It would be generous to say that I understood 10% of what was being said around and to me. It’s as if Nehemiah spent 3 months of hard labor building the wall only to step back and see that his work resulted in a 1 foot tall ledge which served only as a speed bump for any approaching army. Exhausted and frustrated by my inability to do anything more than entertain people with my attempts to say single words or small phrases, I eventually just fell silent and stared at the ground – a position of defeat.

Let me finish the story before I comment on it. So I sat on the stool where Wohis left me, gearing myself up for how I might leave, when one of the two guys that had come with us, now sloshed, came and invited me into another house. Is Wohis in there? I wasn’t sure, so I hesitantly followed him inside and unfortunately was fed more Gmz food. Yipee… For the next 40 minutes, this guy kept saying over and over, “It is good that you have come to live here. You know, it was my father that gave you foreigners the land where you are living and it is good that you have come too. As my father’s son, I tell you that you can stay as long as you want, 10 years, 15 years, if you like. It’s good for you to be here. Now if we just wait a little longer, the cow will be slaughtered and then we can get our meat and we can go back home together in your car. You know it was my father who…” I learned two things from this guy. First, I learned that the two birr I had given at the beginning meant that I got a portion of meat from the cow to be slaughtered. And second, I learned that this guy, who was now as drunk as a skunk, was showing me hospitality and repeating nice things so that he could get a ride back to his village. It was clear that he had come to the “funeral” just to get trashed and I wondered how many of the people there were just like him. Now, these guys would not claim to be Christians, so why should I expect them to act like one right? Right. But that doesn’t make me any more comfortable with it. Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s being in the heart of Gmz darkness that was breaking my heart. Maybe…but I don’t want to give myself too much credit. After all, by this point, I was down-right crabby.

Oh great, just as I was getting noticeably upset, word came that the ox had been slaughtered, but the way in which my sloshed friend told me made me doubt its truth. Nevertheless, it pacified me for a few more minutes. At about 4pm, I just got up and left the house, ignoring everybody’s attempts at stopping me. When outside, countless people tried to make me sit down again, even by force. When I refused for the 200^th time, I forcefully said “I want Wohis.” I figured I should tell him that I was leaving.

He was located in a house at the far end of the village and when he came out to talk with me I simply told him I was leaving. “You can’t,” he said mater-of-factly. Why? “Well, what if some bad person is waiting by the car to harm you, you can’t go alone.” His concern was valid since a nice shiny vehicle on the side of the road was a great sign which read ‘wealthy person soon to return and handsomely reward the patient thief.’ Wohis continued, “If you just wait a little longer they will slaughter the cow and you can go, you already paid didn’t you?” I responded immediately and confidently, “You can have my meat, I’m leaving,” not quite sure whether I was bluffing or not. After all, I had heard rumors of the slaughter being at 6pm or even 7pm, which was after dark, totally out of the question for me. Wohis, who had been a good host with the exception of the last hour, knew I was tired, upset and serious about leaving. “Shall we go? I will walk with you to the car and then come back.” Perfect, and with me leading the way down the mountain, we arrived at the truck about twenty minutes later, and thankfully Wohis’ gun had no reason to leave his shoulder. “I’ll come to your house tomorrow at 9am, just like normal,” he said to me before I drove away. Well, now as I write, it is 12:30 and still no Wohis, so that didn’t happen. I hope he is ok, or maybe, knowing that funerals last several days, I was not supposed to expect him to show up anyway.

Now, let me conclude with the REAL chigger that’s under my skin (and Andrea’s too). In the past three months, we have used Micah as an excuse to stay close to home (which is a pretty good excuse given the previous blog “The Ugly Face of Malaria”). I’ve been to the villages only a few times and although we have had many people coming to our door, it is obvious that we need to be spending more time out among the Gmz. Our introverted personalities are fighting against us and, thus far, our love for the Gmz people hasn’t broken us free to make us actually WANT to go hang out in a village. With our teachers coming 5 days a week, we are picking up some language, but we are a long way from actual communication. So, here I was, sitting in the midst of hundreds of Gmz people, hearing only Gmz language and yet I was miserable most of the time! Arggg.

I know, I know, I know. The solution is easy, “get out there and put yourself in uncomfortable situations for the sake of the call (work).” But two of the problems run deeper than these easily resolvable surface things. First, the haunting question, will I ever learn the Gmz language to really communicate in it? You may say, “of course you will, just look at Amharic?” And I respond “Yea, that’s MY strongest argument!” Our Amharic is good enough to get by, but you won’t see me trying to preach in it and when a good Amharic preacher preaches, I’m still barely keeping my head above water. One of my colleagues assures us that Amharic is one of the hardest languages in the world and that learning Gmz would be different, but days like this take me right back to the same frustrations we found with Amharic. Will we ever really speak and understand Gmz well enough that I would not just get along but to be able to critique and fine tune the use of precise wording in Scripture translation? At one point, in a moment of optimism, I said to Andrea “I have the easiest job in the world!” but these last 24 hours have changed that tune to what others have been singing about our work “Glad it’s not me!” -Yet it is me!- Arggg! All languages are messy and I’m not sure learning Gmz deserves to be in an easier category because it’s still the reprogramming of a stubborn mind to process things very differently. That’s the first underlying cause of my present cloud of discouragement.

 

The second was the overall feeling that I had yesterday at the “funeral.” Even if I had the translated Scriptures here for them to read or hear, would they even care? I had my notebook with me and for a short time, some people were interested in me writing things down and reading the translated story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but the novelty was extremely short-lived and interest quickly died away. Apart from God’s Spirit beaconing the Gmz to Himself, I see that Scripture is useless to the vast majority of the Gmz people. Then again, apart from God’s Spirit, nothing can really be eternally accomplished. And so, the name of the game is “faithful perseverance.” Not knowing the outcome and with no guarantee of success, we strive toward the goal to which we’ve been called. Whether or not that work will produce fruit beyond mere words printed on paper; that is not up to me; though it is my honest prayer. Nehemiah had a MASSIVE task and yet the Lord gave him and his workers success. Andrea and I have a different yet equally MASSIVE task ahead of us, might the Lord grant us the same favorable outcome. For apart from His help, it ain’t happening. Then again, with His help, there’s no stopping it! That’s the lesson Nehemiah is teaching me yet again.