The Hajj Interlude: Labels

Well shoot: I just spent most of my time in this internet cafe talking with folks at home.

There was also a very notable encounter involving the discussion of Xtianty.

A particular fellow who speaks English quite well and was sitting in the chair next to mine involved me in petty conversation, and then on his own started talking about Jordan and Xtianity here. Turns out he's an xtin and so we just started mixing it up over different scritpures and I really want you's all to pr@y for his encouragement. He's part of the very small minority, and I do feel as if he, and his community, have totally disengaged in meaningful relig-s dialogue from their lost brethren--but what else I know comes only from reports from friends who've returned.

-Anyways, ask Father for encouragement and boldness for him and his village community

...If the Resident Director knew I was talking about stuff like this, she definitetly wouldn't take it lying down. Hah! But is silence what I really signed up for?
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This leads me to my next topic:
The Hajj Interlude: Labels.

This is something N. (my travel bud) and I had a good long conversation over. Technically, we had this discussion sitting in the Denver airport over lunch, (and Denver was before Hajj Part 1) but it belongs in the middle of my story of relocation because I think it's iconic of what this trip means to me.

We were sitting down and talking over future goals in Jordan. We concluded:
1)It's good to have goals about what you intend to accomplish in a study abroad program.
2)It's also good to lower your expectations to the point of ludicrosity so that you don't feel robbed by said study abroad experience.

It was a really valuable talk. N and I have many valuable talks because he is such a different person than I am.

Here's a Very Recent Example: When I needed to take a shower before I came to this cafe--because I dropped my shirt in the toilet at a restaurant, which will be covered in the next installment---he realized that he had to use our room toilet really bad. The bad tummy ninjas decided to strike. And (please, please forgive me for the overemployment of scatalogical humor in this and the previous post) it was a deuce-and-a-half.

There's a girl who was coming with us, and she knew why I had to take a shower, and she's waiting on me. But N absolutely refused, absolutely refused, to let me explain why I was late. My explanation would have been the following: N laid a deuce-and-a-half and I could not approach the bathroom without either a)generous use of weapons-grade biocide or b)treating the emission as a roach bomb and allowing gradual filtration out of the premises, which, with the half-life of such substances, is at least 20 minutes, if not millions of years.

Alas, N would not have it at all, and insisted on maintaining his dignity as a human being.

Dignity? Dignity Shmignity.

And I'm sure when he gets around to reading this blog & entry, he just might cream me, or find some way to replace my toothpaste with ben gay or something.

(From now on I will be watching my toothpaste.)

So that was a long tangent, but it illustrates the serious and very mature nature of my dear brother N, and how we both get along extremely well to the point of nausea.

But seriously: it's really good fellowship. I couldn't ask for a better guy to point out my screw-ups and encourage me in the walk.

Where was I? Oh yes. Labels.

Labels are what are affixed to you when you enter a community, particularly a country. Some come as tourists. Some come as workers. Some attempt to obtain m!ssoinry visas and most fail if they are pursuing that front-gate way.

What is my label? I am a student. So is N.

So what kind of things am I permitted to do here? Study, travel, and a lot of other things. It's a pretty nice set-up. You can ask all sorts of people questions and go out on your own a lot. Your tongue even has a lot more freedom than many other people's.

If you go with a m!ssoirny organization, as N. said, "you travel around with a big painted bus and you have to explain to people that you are not the bad people they think you are." It's a lot tougher to get over that first bump. Plus you have a big blinking light above your head which is tracked by the go'vt. No Bueno.

The general gist of N's reasoning is that here in Jordan I am a student first, and I can't compromise that label.
I agree, and yet I disagree. N is here for expressly different goals than I am, namely a strict focus on academic research. N is still a believer. That's the way he does things here. It's not bad, it's just different.

I am also here to study. I need to be careful with the words I say and the people I see.
But I'm also determined to be the light of Xrst to whoever G-d puts in front of me, be it American, international kid, or anyone else. This might take a different turn than what N signed up for.
And I know that being this doesn't mean throwing tracts at people, nor does it mean attempting to covnret anybody. That's not my job. My job is to show up. Only G-d can change a heart, and anybody who says anything else is selling something.

So showing up, as I mean it, could mean a lot of different things for me. All of them include being a servant as well as a messenger. So I"m not sure, which makes this entry vague I suppose.
Sorry.
I'll still talk about the truth when the opportunity arises.
I'll try to see where the need is greatest in this country and explore serving that need in the future.
I'll try to visit people here who are working for the king, and see what it takes to handle that job.

Know what I'm sayin'?

Time's short folks, and my head is heavy. I'll leave you with these:

Pr@y
-My dad just went through major heart surgery a day after I left.
By the Grace of G-d he survived with a less than 10% chance of doing so, and he now carries around in his body the same kind of tiny defribrilator that VP Cheney wears. He's not now with G-d. Ask that this experience would become a kind of internal defribrilator shocking his heart to beat in sync with Him whose heart was broken for us, yet lives.

-I've been handed this tremendous favor with all the Americans here in the student group. I don't understand why they defer to me sometimes, or laugh at my lame jokes, or even lean in and quiet down when I'm talking in the bus about something interesting.
Popularity is fickle, and fades quickly. It's a kind of blessing, though. I want to use the blessing with the intent of the Gifter. Please pray for the opportunity to use that influence to affirm truth and point people to Xrist.

-And O. (See above)

Until next time,
K B