My “Finisher”- the benefits of sermons in a different language

            My Arabic is not terribly useful for doing daily life things like buying groceries (though I did buy a cell phone in Budapest in Arabic).  It is useful for understanding the news, which use the formal classical Arabic, complete with case endings that no one else ever uses.  Sermons are also understandable, because they normally use more formal Arabic.  Most of the church services that I’ve attended have some form of translation into English, from someone sitting behind the foreigners in chapel at the hospital and whispering quietly to the fancy radio headphones, or even two people standing up front, with one person repeating every sentence in a different language.  Sometimes I choose to not put my headphones on or to sit away from the translator to practice my Arabic.  And I’ve grown to enjoy the insights that come from listening to the bible in a different language.

            Sometimes my understanding of un-translated sermons is a disaster.  I thought an entire sermon was about peace and rest until the very end when I overheard the translator, and realized that he was actually talking about peace and grace.  Whoops. The sermon illustrations and funny stories are also usually lost on me, because I don’t have the vocabulary for those sorts of things. But most of the time, the extra mental work required to understand sermons is worth it, because I have to think more about what’s being said.  Just listening to the bible passage makes me think more, because I have heard a lot of passages many times in English, but the different words make me pay attention to what’s actually going on.  Even subtle differences help point me in the right direction, because translation is an art, not an exact science.

            My favorite new word in Arabic is found in the Bible a lot, but I mostly heard it during Christmas songs.  The word is ‘mukhullṣi’, which means “my savior” in English.  This word is kinda fun to say (it has a velar fricative, a pharyngeal, and a geminate all in one word), but the meaning and relationship to other words that I know is the best part.  In Arabic, most words are related to other words, which can sometimes help one figure out a new word.  (But only sometimes.  Sometimes you’re just stuck.  Or sometimes you’ll figure it out wrong) This word for ‘savior’ is related to the word ‘khalaṣ’, which means ‘finished’.  I use it all the time; whenever I finish at task I throw up my hands and say ‘khalaṣ’, and it’s the word you use to tell kids to stop doing something.  A great word all around, but an even better word inside of Christmas songs.  The word has been put into a form where it means “the doer of this verb”.  So ‘mukhullaṣi’ sounds like ‘my finisher’, and yet it refers to a tiny baby whose birthday we celebrated yesterday.

            I love thinking about this.  Yes, Jesus is my savior, but I’ve heard that a million times, and perhaps so often that I forget what it really means.  But Jesus is my “finisher” too.  He finished my sins, he finished my selfishness, and he finished my justly-deserved punishment.  The last thing Jesus said before he died on the cross was “It is finished”.  He finished the never-ending sacrifices at the temple and he finished the division between humans and God. Jesus’ death on the cross was God’s way of putting an end to our task of trying to be good enough.  Because of the little baby born in Bethlehem, who grew up in order to die a terrible death, I can through up my hands in surrender, and say “khullaṣ”.  My salvation is complete, so I am finished with trying to work for it.  And I can rest, because I know my finisher.

7 Ways that Camp Prepares You for Traveling the World

            I went to camp as a kid, and then I worked at a summer camp for three years.  A job that is both awesome and incredibly difficult.  Now I’m living in Nazareth, Israel, and I’m visiting friends all over Europe for Christmas.  Those two experiences seem vastly different on the surface.  Summer camp: chasing children under the sun and building fires.  Traveling: hostels and art museums and really old buildings and strange food.  But when I think about it, so much of daily life at camp prepares you for not-so-normal life abroad.  Here are seven of the ways that I've noticed in the past three months. The list excludes the ways in which camp prepares you for living life in general (because then it would be really long).

1- Going to the bathroom in the woods

            You know you’re a camp counselor when you’ve given lots of large-group lectures on how to go to the bathroom in the words (this may only apply if you’re female, but still).  Yes, we do have very nice bathrooms at camp.  But sometimes you’re far away from camp in the woods and you need to pee.  Woods it is.  Okay, in most foreign countries you don’t have to go to the bathroom behind a tree or in an outhouse on a regular basis, though you do in some places.  Still, other countries often have different types of bathrooms.  In Israel, you don’t flush toilet paper.  Yes, it’s a little weird and takes getting used to.  And in the realm of strange toilets, that’s not that bad.  But if you know how to deal with going to the bathroom in the woods, you can deal with bathrooms pretty much anywhere else.

2- How to deal with bureaucracy with grace

            Camp is not a bureaucracy in any form or fashion, but when kids get to camp, they have to be registered. For many kids, this may be the first time they have to wait in line to talk to a complete stranger.  It’s mostly giving your name and figuring out where you need to go and making sure you’re healthy and don’t have lice (we really do have to ask that question).  It’s not that exciting, but it’s important. When you travel, you have to deal with this kind of thing all the time.  Passing through customs is basically registering at camp, except I’ve never had anyone ask me if I have lice.  But they do ask for your name and where you’re going and make sure that you don’t have anything illegal.  You have to keep calm and talk to them and not stress over it.  It also requires waiting in line for a while. However in the line at immigration, I’m not sure that a long rendition of “baby shark” (or any other camp song that seems to never end) would be appreciated, which is how we occupy ourselves while we wait at camp.

3- “Challenge” is a good thing

            At my camp, ‘challenge’ is an activity, not a curse word.  It involves everything from team-building activities to zip-lining across the lake to walking across ropes between trees 40 feet off the ground (you wear a harness for the last two).  It’s a lot of fun, but it also teaches kids (and reminds counselors) that just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth your effort.  In some respects, there is a lot of fun to be had doing things that are hard, both because they are themselves fun activities but also because it’s fun to say “hey, I did that!” 

            Seeing a challenge as a quest to be conquered and not as something to run away from is great practice for living in a foreign country.  Here, the littlest things are challenges.  I’m forever excitedly telling my parents things along the lines of “I bought laundry detergent today!” like it’s a big deal.  Because for me, it is.  I have to go to a strange store and figure out which funny container is laundry detergent, as opposed to dish soap.  All of the labels are in a language I don’t know in an alphabet I can’t read.  But if you run away from everything that’s hard in a foreign country, you won’t eat or get much of anything done.  Seeing challenges as something fun, not scary, helps a lot.

4- How to be away from home

            This is more important if you’re away for a longer time, especially by yourself.  There are often the more complicating factors of culture shock to deal with too, but learning to be away from home, especially without anyone you know, is a really important step.  “Homesickness” isn’t a good reason to go home from camp, and that’s not even feasible when you’re in a different country.  So you do what you do at camp: cry a bit, talk to someone, and find ways to get distracted.  There is a reason why you’re not at home, and it’s usually because what’s away is interesting and there are things worth doing.  One of the best ways to help get kids un-homesick is to have them think of all the things they are looking forward to doing at camp.  Because you can’t go on the lake toys, or swim in the Sea of Galilee, at home. 

5- What’s important (and what’s not)

            Taking care of yourself is an important life skill in general that’s developed at camp.  But in addition to knowing what’s important in life, like making time for God and showering on a regular basis, it’s also important to know what’s not important.  Matching your clothes, for example, doesn’t matter at camp.  Nor does singing on key during silly songs or getting muddy.  The same principles hold true when you’re traveling.  When it’s cold here, matching is a struggle because I only have so many clothes, and I need to wear about half of them to stay warm.  And differing cultural standards sometimes means wearing things you'd never wear at home.  If you’re afraid to climb up the mountain because you might fall down and get muddy, you’ll never see the view from the top.  Yes, do the important things like showering and sleeping.  And don’t worry too much about the rest.

6- It’s the little things that matter

            Kids come to camp for the big things, like the zipline and horseback riding and the lake toys.  They come back because of the never-ending stories during the thunderstorm and the giggles and the rock-painting and the water fights.  Traveling is a lot like that.  Yes, if you’re in Paris, go see the Mona Lisa and go up the Eiffel Tower.  But make sure you see the stained-glass windows in that tiny little church that you find while lost and eat ice cream by the river.  Those are things you remember.  Too many people see the sights and not the place.  Camp helps you learn to take it slow and actually see the world you’re in, whether it’s the butterflies in the field next to the parking lot or the funny way people park in Amman.

7- Not-so-ideal things make the best stories

            Sometimes, at the weekly end-of-camp dinner, my boss asks kids to come up and tell about their favorite part of camp.  After, “I had awesome friends and counselors”, most of the stories aren’t the big, exciting things that went perfectly.  Many of them are the things that failed miserably but were still fun anyway.  The boy who fell in the lake while fishing, and no one caught anything either.  The camping trip that got rained out before s’mores, but the counselors made them over the stove and we had a fun sleepover.  The glittering eyes of a group of kids yelling about something they found in the woods while lost with their counselors.

There are so many things you experience while traveling that aren’t so great.  You miss the bus and have to walk back.  You get lost or caught out in the rain without an umbrella.  The breaker switch flips whenever you bake, about five times per batch of cookies.  You run around the house unplugging everything else to try and make the electricity stay on.  Not so much fun.  But they really do make good stories after the fact.  Have a sense of humor, laugh at yourself and your situation, and move on.  Camp teaches that.  So that after you're too old to go to be a camper, you can still have adventures that may take you all over the world.

If Jesus Was Born in December

            People always think of Israel as being hot, desert-y, and dry.  I could have easily gone swimming in the Sea of Galilee on Thanksgiving (if it was closer).  Israel is scorching during the summer, and hot for the fall and spring. Still, there was a reason it was called the ‘land flowing with milk and honey’.  And cows can’t graze in a desert, and bees need flowers to make honey; you need rain.  It does rain here, and that’s what’s called ‘winter’.  And it also gets cold.  It was a high of 50 degrees Fahrenheit today, and it was mostly in the 40s.  Friday it’s supposed to get down to 36 degrees. No snow here, just cold and nasty rain (it is supposed to snow in Jerusalem).

            But it’s also Christmas, which celebrates when Jesus was born.  Now, we don’t know for sure when Jesus was born (the Bible doesn’t say).  I’ve heard it said he was probably born in April; the Puritans thought he was born in September.  So no votes for December that I've heard of.  Which is probably best, even though it does make for nice Christmas pictures in northern climates.

            I hope for everyone who got a part in the original Christmas that Jesus wasn’t born in December.  First of all, Mary and Joseph walked (perhaps with the aid of a donkey) from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  That only takes you about two hours in a car, but then it would have taken anywhere between a week and a month, depending on what route you took, how often you stopped, how much energy you had after camping for several nights, etc.  Either way, it can’t have been pleasant for a very pregnant woman to go that far in the first century.  If it happened it December, it would have been absolutely miserable.  No one wants to go camping during the cold and rainy season, especially not a pregnant woman.  The shepherds and the wise men would have also been spending a lot of time outside, too.  The stable would have been smelly at any time of the year because of the animals; can you imagine the stink if it was wet too? 

            Regardless of when Jesus was born, the fact is that it was unpleasant.  He wasn’t born in a palace, but in a stable.  The rich and dignified from his own country never noticed him.  He was worshipped instead by the shepherds, who were low on the social ladder, and foreign kings, who were even lower (especially religiously).  His parents were poor and far from home, though not quite refugees (yet).  Still, in spite of the social and political situation, and even the weather, Jesus was born exactly where and when he was supposed to be.  Rain or Shine.

Multi-Cultural Nativity Sets, and the Wise Men Who Couldn't Get There

          During a recent trip to Jerusalem, I went to Bethlehem. It's only about 10 miles away from Jerusalem, though it's within the borders of the West Bank.  One of the oldest churches in the world is there, sitting on top of several caves, which is where Jesus is said to have been born.  It's a cool place to see, though I don't really like the church itself because it is so dark, and I don't like the crowds either.  In addition to the church, we visited the Bethlehem Peace Center, which is right next door.  They have various exhibits, and there was one showing a really neat collection of nativity sets from all over the world. I picked some of my favorites to show here.
          I especially liked the ones that were a little bit different.  For Christians, and probably a lot of people in the West who aren't Christians, the picture is a familiar one: Mary (usually in blue, showing purity, though she could never have afforded it) and Joseph, shepherds and some sheep, and the wise men (usually three of them, one to represent each of gold, myrrh, and frankincense).  Perhaps a donkey, an angel, and a camel if you're lucky.  And all have the newborn, who is really the important part, lying in the feeding trough (we usually say manger, but that's what it was).  Anything that's different stands out.  They reflect a number of different cultures, which is awesome because God created us all to be different and to be creative.

This one is from Switzerland, and I like how crowded it is.  I'm sure the real stable was more like this, with no personal space.  And I like the fluffy sheep.

This one is from Sweden and, as Adri put it, looks very Swedish and just like it stepped out of an Ikea catalogue. 

This one is from Australia, and made to look like a frontier town.  The creativity is really striking.  It's the Royal David City Hotel, and Mary has the baby on her hip and looks rather sassy.  And I love the lady sticking her head out of the window.

This is from an Inuit group in either Canada or the US. Apart from the angel that had fallen over, the style of dress is interesting because it's based on the Inuit style, not the Middle Eastern type of dress.  And there's a moose instead of a camel, and a sleeping polar behind the dog-sled manger.  

A life-sized Chinese nativity set!  You can tell that Mary and Joseph were poorer than the rich guy, which can sometime be easy to miss.  And they had the sense to keep the cow away from the baby.

A Hungarian Puppet Nativity!  (and my Hungarian Roommate)
The decorations are traditional ones, and the puppets are just fun.

This one is made inside of a walnut shell.  It must have taken a lot of skill to make.  

I don't remember exactly where this one was from, but it somewhere in Africa.  The shiny spot is just my flash, but Jesus is in a hanging basket, not on the floor.  There's also a pig, even though Bethlehem would have, at least in theory, been kosher, so no pigs.

This one is just pretty, but there is just one wise man and one shepherd.

          The last one isn't exactly my favorite, but it is very startling.  This nativity set is from Bethlehem, and made of olive wood (which, apart from growing olives and making nativity sets, isn't actually that useful).  The modern city of Bethlehem is located in the West Bank, which is sort of a separate country from Israel, but it's under Israeli military control (it's really complicated).  It's an Arab town, and has both Christians and Muslims who live there (there are lots of Arab Christians all over the Middle East).  To get in from Jerusalem or anywhere else in Israel, you have to go through the wall.  It's concrete, but on the Arab side it's been decorated with paintings. Some of them are beautiful, others are sad, and some are very political.  A section near Bethlehem has stories of different people displayed on the wall.  Many are about the giant wall and its effects, with sad stories and heartwarming stories, though some are just about daily life.  Regardless of your political opinion on the subject, it's sad and ugly and I wish it wasn't there, and that there was never a reason (however good or bad) to build it.

This is the wall.  It's huge (not even a really tall person could touch the bottom of the posters) and rather ugly.  

          The picture below shows what the Nativity might have looked like if Jesus was born today.  Mary and Joseph and the shepherds would have been in a stable together, still stuck in their poverty (the West Bank is really poor).  And the wise men would have been stopped by the huge wall.  Even if they were allowed in through the special gate in the wall for tour buses, they would have had trouble finding the baby lying in a barn, because it would have been down a back street.  

The wise men who couldn't get there.

          Bethlehem has always been a special place in my imagination.  A little village, with a dusting of snow, a shining star, and a new baby crying in the hay.  The real Bethlehem was probably crowded and loud and stinky and hot.  The real Bethlehem is still crowded and loud, and sometimes smells a bit strange, and now feels like a huge mess with a wall that seems permanent.  But the point of Bethlehem wasn't that there was a pretty picture.  The point was the little baby, who came to bring peace and hope.  The little baby grew up, and taught me to reach across walls, both physical barriers like walls and mountains and oceans, but also the ones we build up inside ourselves.  And then he died, but rose again, to tear down the wall between us and God.  Until all of the walls in the world fall down, the little baby who would have been stuck behind one gives people on both sides of the wall hope.  Hope for a resolution, hope for reconciliation, hope for peace.