So, the elementary school that I was working at closed for the holidays for about 18 days. Instead of staying in Bethlehem for that time, my family was generous enough to pay for me to come home for the holidays. Even more exciting than that, is that my grandparents were also going to be at my parent's house for the holidays and they didn't know I was going to be there. My flight was supposed to get in about an hour before my grandparent's flight was, but then my flight was late and their flight was early. I raced through the airport and got to baggage claim just 10 minutes before they did, said hi to my parents and boyfriend, and then said hi to them. I can't remember how long it's been since I had seen them, but it was amazing that I was able spend Christmas with them.
I spent my first week in Georgia with my family, and had a wonderful time seeing everyone. I can say that I'm 21 and have never missed Christmas with them, which is such a blessing. As you can see from my previous post, I was having trouble working out a lot of things like, why God wanted me in Israel, what that meant for me, how I needed to change my attitude about it and how my perspective was already starting to change... things like that. Going home didn't help that along at all. I think it only confused me more. There were definitely times when I wondered if going home was the right decision. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that I was with my family for the holidays, but I think it slowed down the progress I was making in figuring things out. Or that's how I felt at the time. In retrospect, I really needed that break from being in the Middle East and I needed the rest and support from everyone, but I also wonder how I would see things here, if I had stayed, instead.
Our church's Christmas Eve service was on the 23rd, instead of Christmas Eve, and we were out for a family dinner that night. Not to mention, I would have felt weird going to a Christmas Eve service on any night but Christmas Eve. So, come the night of the 24th, we went to a local Presbyterian service, instead. Can we say culture shock? My mind was flooded with so many thoughts and questions and judgments. Here's what I wrote on my bulletin during the service:
How much did this church building cost? How many of these people attend church regularly? It feels empty and lacking in joy. Do these people have any real problems outside created social issues? I understand it's all many of them know, but there's something unfortunate about that to me. There's something about our world that seems too easy and unrealistic. This is our land of “milk and honey” in an unbiblical sense. We live in a protected bubble of ease. Where is there room for God in any of this? O Come, O Come Emmanuel and rescue captive Westerners.
Just to decipher that a bit, this church was large and ornate and beautiful. Now, I've seen larger and more ornate church buildings before, but that's not the point I'm making. The point is that, in Jerusalem, Protestant believers often take houses and turn them into their churches and they really don't have much of a sound system or pews or acoustically sound stages or anything like that. They only have what they can find. I hadn't had the chance to go to church that often during my first semester, because we were gone every weekend, but I knew enough about being a Christian overseas to know that our Western mentality felt wrong. I'm not saying that they should deprive themselves of space that they need to worship in, but instead of upgrading a nice church into a nicer one, why doesn't that money go to missionaries, or an organization in need? Also, the church was packed full of people and I had to wonder how many of them were regular church goers. I admit that I'm guilty of not going every Sunday, myself, but that's not what I mean. I can go on facebook and over half the people will have listed their religion as “Christian” when they only go to church on holidays and they only open their Bible when they're down on luck or accidentally knock it off their book shelf. And the worship at the church was so solemn. Come on people! This is Christmas! Have a little joy! Instead of standing still, grabbing onto the pew in front of you, and maybe daring to sway back in forth, how bout really praising God and letting His love flow through you and out of you? I don't mean that we all have to get charismatic or gospel style, but at least feel something. Don't just say the words on the projector or hymnal because it's what everyone else is doing. God doesn't want that and it's painful to watch. We create our world so that we are in control of every motion and event that we can. It's like David Platt says in Radical, where we even set up church and make sure we have as much entertainment fascists as we can to bring people in and enough people tithing to pay the leader's bills and then some, that there's no room for God to work in that environment. It's so frustrating to me! If you can't tell by this little rant, hah.
Anyways, so those were my thoughts of being home. I spent the next week in South Carolina with my boyfriend and friends. I got engaged (yay!). And I didn't have too many other thoughts, not too much culture shock other than that it was really shocking to suddenly be around so many people that know me and love me and support me. It was also really weird to get into my car and drive places and have any sense of freedom. Oh, and I took a hot shower every day just because I could...
No comments:
Post a Comment