One of the things one learns in foreign missions is the difference between the classroom and what actually happens. Classroom situations are always written after the fact. And, we all know how easy it is to look by and analyze a situation by hindsight. Nevertheless, the classroom learning does help to prepare one for the unexpected so that one can at least have a fighting chance of saying or doing the right thing. One of the strongest lessons taught in modern missions is to respect other cultures and their beliefs. A secondary lesson is that if one “disdains” the beliefs of another culture, it is likely that one will lose the ear of the people in that culture.
On one of my trips to Choco, I had just such an experience. Choco’s technological level was such that there were no electric lights on regularly, nor running toilets, nor showers. You bathed in the local river. They did have a generator, which would get turned on for special occassions, but very rarely. As a result, at night you could see all the stars in the sky. There was no light pollution. That trip, it was a full moon. I generally stayed in the little store in town, on the second floor. That night I woke up in the middle of the night with a full moon so bright that I could see everything. So, I went outside and wandered around for a while, just enjoying the beauty of the moonlight night, and the absolute quiet of a night in the high Andes. I found myself praising the Lord and thanking Him for His creation, and, literally, being glad in Him. Then, I returned to bed.
The next morning, when the storeowner and another lady came in, I told them about my night and watched them turn white. They looked at each other and asked me whether I had felt anything or whether anything had approached me. Well, I said no and they said it must have been because I was a priest. That is when I found out that the Quechua there did not go out on a night of the full moon because they believed that a “soul-sucker” would come, rob your soul, and kill you. And that was the moment when I had to remember my training. Now, I could have tried to say there was no such thing as a “soul-sucker.” They would have simply thought I was either crazy or ignorant. And, so, all I said to them was that they did not have to worry either. All they had to do was to use Jesus’ name and tell the thing to stay away from them. This, of course, led into a discussion of Our Lord, but from within their cultural understanding, rather than from my cultural understanding. I let them ask the questions about the power of Our Lord and about evil spirits and I ended up learning more about their beliefs than if I had tried to ask them questions.
Now, here is the odd part. After being in South America for a while, I am convinced that they were more correct on some of the things they believed about the capabilities of evil spirits than we are in our skeptical North American world. Of course they were wrong about some of their beliefs, nor am I so naïve as to enter into some type of Shirley McLaine spirituality. Nevertheless, I now look back and wonder whether or not there was truly something calling out to me that night, something that was not of God, but also could not harm a servant of God. I am no longer quite as sure about our North American opinions about what is “real” as I used to be. What I do know is that that experience certainly gave me a whole new appreciation about the joy of the Lord being our strength.
===MORE TO COME===
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