Worldview

Have you ever borrowed somebody else’s sunglasses and been surprised at how yellow (or pink, or red, or blue…) the world looks, when you had always thought that the world had a definite brownish hint? We all look at the world around us through different coloured glasses. The different colours are our different worldviews. Have you ever thought about how your upbringing in a particular culture that is underlined by a particular worldview affects how you see everything? It affects how you view society, how you view relationships, how you view time, the cosmos, the mind, morality etc.

I work in an office where Tanzanians, Europeans and Americans work closely side by side. This week and next we are holding a workshop at our office to help our Tanzanian colleagues understand the way we (Europeans and Americans) think, as well as various other things (such as helping them understand Wycliffe better, team building etc). As part of that, we have been thinking about the differing worldviews that we come from, and today I had the dubious privilege of being the teacher and talking about secularism and God’s Word. As I prepared for this, I was struck again by just how much our understanding of our faith is actually affected by the worldview of the society in which we grew up. When I read the Bible, I read it through my secularism spectacles, whether I mean to or not, as they are impossible to take off completely. Equally, my African colleagues read the Bible and act out their faith through the worldview of their environment, which is primarily animistic. It is impossible to acquire a purely Christian/Bible based worldview, because we don’t ‘acquire’ a worldview, we grow up in a worldview and imbibe it subconsciously. Most of my colleagues have grown up in Christian families, but despite that, we can all see how our secularist worldview has affected our faith, from making us sceptical of supernatural healing to being afraid to speak the truth of the Bible into a Christian friend’s life when they need to hear it because we mustn’t be ‘intolerant’. While for my African friends, their worldview may lead them to believe without measuring the truth of what they hear to blaming everything on the spirit world rather than acknowledging personal sin or nature’s input.

Of course, the question then is, how do we determine truth? Well we certainly have to come back to the Bible and test our thoughts and actions against it, but even as we do that, we are always going to be reading it through our worldview specs. I think those of us who work in a cross-cultural setting are in a privileged position to start seeing God’s Word from different perspectives, and hopefully to find our understanding of God deepened as a result. I am looking forward to more conversations with my colleagues so that we can come to understand each other and our differences better and so I can see ways of interpreting and applying the Bible that I just haven’t noticed before. May the Spirit of truth guide us into us all truth (John 16:13)!

People

In my last blog I talked about how unsettled life can feel here, particularly due to the comings and goings of people. While it is hard to go through these constant changes, I also think it’s a great privilege to meet so many different kinds of people and get to know them to a greater or lesser degree. I just wish I could remember everyone’s names – I have an incredibly bad memory for names, which is very embarrassing in this relational culture. I find comfort in the fact that Tanzanians also mix up non-Africans, even those they have know for a long time, confusing our names and faces.

One thing I love about Tanzanian culture is how easy it is to talk to people (at least, on the surface it is, but getting to know people deeper isn’t so easy). Here’s some recent random encounters:

- Down at the market I popped into one little shop to buy some eggs and ended up in conversation with the shop owner, discussing deep questions like, “How do you see Tanzania versus England? What advice do you have for us? Why don’t we make progress?” These questions aren’t uncommon. I always start my reply with what I value about Tanzanian culture – people’s hospitality and focus on relationships.

- On the way home from church I stopped to buy some samosas from two ladies on the street corner. We got chatting about religion, and I shared the reason for my faith – that through Jesus Christ alone can we have a certain hope for the future.

- As I left church a couple of weeks ago, a voice called out, “Subiri” (“wait”) – it was a lady from church heading the same way. She knew my name (as most people do at church) but I didn’t know hers (as is usually the case!) and I learned about her family and I visited her market stall (where she sells tomatoes and lemons) and her home.

Of course, there are also the less pleasant encounters, such as people calling out ‘mzungu’ as I pass by and staring at me, and there are the encounters that you just have to laugh at, such as children saying, “Tell me my name” – they obviously haven’t quite grasped how English possessive pronouns work!

God certainly made each person unique, and He also made us to be relational beings. I find myself more and more seeing the value and importance of relationships and friendships and spending time with people. And if we are made in God’s image, doesn’t this need for relationship also reflect something of how God wants to be in relationship with us? Does it also teach us something about how God is more interested in us spending time with Him than He is in all the things that we might seek to do for Him (just like with Mary & Martha)?

I am looking forward to all the chances I will get to spend with people over the next few weeks – chances to see old friends and deepen new friendships, and most excitingly, the chance to welcome my parents to Mbeya! Karibuni sana!

Photo: Some of the people I have recently had the privilege to encounter - Sunday school teachers at a workshop in one of the language areas where we work.

Unsettled

Since the beginning of June there have been an amazing number of comings and goings in our project in Mbeya…

• Two ladies leave for furlough
• Two new ladies arrive to serve as linguists
• Another lady arrives to work with me for two months in SU, and is staying in my home
• A couple get married and leave on honeymoon and won’t be returning to our project
• Seven or eight Tanzanians leave for two months for studies in Kenya
• Two couples return from furlough

Each going is much more than just an item on the team meeting minutes, it’s goodbyes to friends and colleagues (some whom I have know for many years), whether for a short while or permanently, and it’s a change in work responsibilities and team dynamics. Each coming is more than just another name on the pigeon holes, it’s people to be welcomed to a new place and trained and potential for new friendships to be built.

Add to all of this the fact that the market from the centre of town has been demolished and shifted so that I don’t know where to find anything, and I am left feeling as if I have moved house without having packed a single suitcase!

With so many things changing around me, it is hard not to feel a bit unsettled, to feel a little unsure of where I fit in. How do you feel when you move house? Can you imagine how it might feel to stay in the same place, but have everything else around you moving, and on a fairly regular basis? What things give you a sense of stability in the midst of it all? I’d like to hear your thoughts!

Reading the Bible and praying is a source of peace for me in these days. One phrase keeps cropping up as I read through the Psalms which is ‘steadfast love’. ‘Steadfast’ to me means constant, unchanging, faithful… all the things that life here is unable to offer! But that’s what God has for us, a constant, unchanging and faithful love, that will endure through all the changes in life, through all the ups and downs we face, through all the questions and insecurities as well as the joys and happiness.

“Great is your steadfast love towards me” Psalm 86:13