So, on to Thursday, June 22st:
Thursday

Today had us back in the program. My group went to Tooting Bec, to meet with Ad&R and G&J. They are doing ministry with Muslims in that area, and Ad is actually the team leader for the missionaries here. Ad&R and G&J told us a lot about day-to-day ministry with Muslims, much like P&L and J&K in S.

However, G&J are themselves Asian, and G was formerly a Hindu, though not from India, and Ad&R are Swiss. So that means that Ad talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And when he sing-songs “Tooting” lots of us giggle internally. But enough of that.

Both couples have learned a lot about ministering to Muslims in all walks of life. While we got a more moderate view of Muslims from A in Whitechapel, here in Tooting Bec, we heard of the difficulties of Muslim male-female interactions, honor killings, bait-and-switch conversions to Islam, and acceptable ways to interpret the Koran. Ad gave us Bible studies that could be used with Muslims, looking at Koranic scriptures referring to Jesus. It was pretty interesting, and very useful.

A lot of the cultural information was good, but somewhat repetitive for me, if only because of my own cultural upbringing and current surroundings. What I mean by that, is that growing up in the South, especially with an older father, has meant that I grew up with a slightly different take on life, culture and “proper” behavior. I’ve always called people Sir and Ma’am, Mr., Mrs., and Miss, and feel awkward (even still) calling people older than me by their first names. This fits well with Asian sensibilities about formality and cultural etiquette.

But I’ve also been brought up with the idea that once I was an adult, I was responsible for my own decisions and actions. My parents could add their “two cents”, but I could do what I wanted. This is different from most Asian cultures in which parents and grandparents still make decisions that children (regardless of age) are expected to heed. Families live together, spanning several generations, and not just because of economics or health needs. My parents’ measure of their parenting success has been whether or not my brother and I could survive on our own. They considered their goal to be making my brother and I capable of being independent. This has good and bad points, which, as I think of it, are a great topic for another blog post! :)

But while my own upbringing has emphasized independence, many of my Asian-American friends here in Baltimore grew up in families in which parental decisions and opinions are more mandates than advice. Though I don’t always agree, I’ve learned that it isn’t necessarily wrong, just different. What has been difficult has been to help my friends navigate their relationships with their parents in respectful ways, especially when they feel and hear God calling them to something that their parents don’t understand and/or agree with. I don’t always do that well with my own parents, much less with parents who aren’t mine, so I haven’t always been helpful, and try to listen more than anything else. However, these experiences have meant that the cultural norms of the Muslims with whom Ad&R and G&J work are no surprise to me.

What was most helpful were the Bible Studies and the ways in which Christianity meets needs and answers questions for Muslims. Ad&R and G&J are so transparent about their reliance on the Holy Spirit for their work. I think that because evidence of progress or fruit is so slow-in-coming that they have long ago realized that they can do nothing on their own. Or at least that they make no progress on their own. Rather, it is only God who can move and change hearts, people, systems, and worlds. I was also encouraged by Ad’s sharing his own spiritual walk in the area of prayer, and I am so glad that God has been showing Himself to Ad in this way; that God really wants us to pray and that He wants to act in conjunction with our prayers. So encouraging.

We were done early in Tooting Bec, so I headed back over to the hair salon to get my new haircut trimmed. The woman who cut my hair was not there, so I was slipped in with a woman who was also doing a dye job on another woman. Since it was a bit busier today, it was all they could do. I enjoyed this stylist so much! I wish I had asked her name, but I never did. She was so nice and did just what I wanted with my hair. She was Italian, but had moved to London about 4 years prior just to work on her English. (Italy was playing that day, in the World Cup, so her boyfriend was popping in and out with the score.) She was kept rolling her eyes and quietly commenting on an annoying client who had come into the shop, acting as if she were friends with everyone. Turns out the young woman was newly rich (married into money, I think?) and flaunted it all the time. My stylist was annoyed with her loud and tacky announcements of her trips to the US and elsewhere, her possessions, and her trivial activities. What floored me was that this woman had come in with wet hair (I think with leave-in conditioner), just to have her hair blow-dried out. That was it. It wasn’t even styled. (it was fairly long, though.)

It was interesting in two ways: first it gave me an insight to what was acceptable behavior to my stylist (as an Italian-living-in-London, as a European, as an employee), and second, it made me wonder how lonely that client must have been to come in to have her hair blow-dried telling all her inane stories.

I made it back to S in time to attend a meeting preparing us for the MBU (Meeting for Better Understanding) that the team was hosting on Sunday. The MBU is to be a meeting in which Muslims and Christians come together to hear a speaker from each group discuss the same topic. The topic this time is “the Honor of the Prophets,” especially in light of the Danish cartoons that depicted Mohammed in a less than favorable light. J (of J&K) is to be our speaker, and a local official, who is also a Muslim, is responsible for securing the Muslim speaker. We talked about how we should act, what we should expect, ways to debate, and what to avoid. The format is to be: J speaks, the Muslim man speaks, J responds briefly, the Muslim man responds briefly, and then questions are to be submitted in writing (via a moderator) to the two men. The written questions are actually a way of screening inflammatory remarks and off-topic questions. I guess past MBU’s have allowed people to stand up and then preach their viewpoint rather than ask a pertinent question. Or people have stood and denounced the other side or accused them of something (again, not helpful). Or people have raised a political issue that is, by nature, sticky and complicated. (also, not helpful). It should be fun!

After I got back to our room, i called my parents to wish them a Happy Anniversary (34 years today) and my Dad a Happy Birthday (75 today!!!). My dad wasn't there, but i got to talk with my mom. Turns out my dad has been having some cloudy vision problems, and went to the eye doctor this morning, only to discover that the membrane behind his eye had grown cloudy. So they "shot a few holes" into the membrane with a laser (18 shots according to my dad. He likes to count those details for the story later) this morning, and he's out gallivanting, as he is wont to do. Whew! it's not like i could do anything if i were in Baltimore, but it just makes me feel bad that they couldn't call me easily to tell me if anything was really wrong.