Thoughts before leaving...

Hello friends

I created this blog to record my thoughts and experiences while traveling in the Middle East.  I am studying with a group called the Middle East Studies Program.  I will be studying alongside a group of 28 students from Christian universities in the USA and Canada.  We will be staying in Jerusalem, Israel for the first and longest portion of study.  During this portion we will take trips to Jordan, Tel Aviv, and various Palestinian territories. The second portion is located in Istanbul, Turkey.  We will finish our semester in Cairo, Egypt.  The focus of the trip is on understanding the modern Arab world and it's cultures, religions, governments, etc. with an emphasis on seeking mutual respect and even reconciliation.

This blog was created for a few reasons: 1) to force myself to critically reflect on what I am seeing, hearing, learning, and experiencing  2) to help friends and family back home stay connected to those experiences  3) to share any insights, revelations, knowledge I might receive on the trip  4) and finally, to offer my experiences as a fresh and real perspective on what might be one of the most captivating, most talked about, and most misrepresented and misunderstood regions on earth, the Arab world.

I suppose I need a reasonable answer to the question, “Why are you going?”  Why would I leave the love of a community (Bethel University) of my closest brothers and sisters?  Why would I willfully travel to a country where in today’s headlines (Aug 20) deadly terrorist attacks have been committed in three of the four nations we will be living?  My first reply to the question of “why” is simple: adventure… Here are some other answers my parents and professors might appreciate more.

I want to understand God and his work with a global perspective.  How does God show up in regions void of faith in Jesus Christ?  Does the Holy Spirit only work in people who profess the name of Jesus Christ? If so, how are we to understand the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.) visible in many of these “unbelievers” lives?  Are unbelievers not able to connect with God?  I am tired of the assumption that non-Christians and people of other faiths understand nothing about God.  I am not of the opinion that the worship of western Christians is the only form of meaningful worship.   Let me be clear, I am traveling to the Middle East with the assumption that God is present here and at work.  It is my desire to see Him and witness His work already occurring here.  I affirm wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ is the only one worthy of worship, but I think the question of how and from whom he receives worship is worth discussing.  We are saved by a diverse, wondrous, indescribable God, and I do not have so much hubris as to believe I have Him all figured out.  I have no fear in asking tough or taboo questions of God; it is for this reason He has equipped me with His Word, His Spirit, and a mind capable of reasoning.

I want to be placed in a culture where my ethnicity, religion, and language are in the minority.  In my life I have seldom felt the pressure of feeling like an alien, like I’m in an environment that was intended for a different group of people.  This is similar to the experience of a recent immigrant struggling to function in an unfamiliar culture, or of a handicapped person trying to navigate an unfriendly shopping mall, or of an African-American who is forced to buy band-aids that don’t match his or her skin color.  I assume my white skin, clear English, and Christian faith won’t buy me preferential treatment or unfair advantages in the Middle East like they do in Kansas and Minnesota.  If I wish to be an ally of the under-privileged and aliens in American society—which I do—then I must be able to empathize with their experience.  In order to begin understanding their experience I must intentionally place myself in situations where I am in the minority, where my groups and practices don’t dominate and set the norm, where I feel the weight of society pressing down from above instead of giving me an unfair boost.

This is a unique experience for me to break out of the reality in which I have lived my entire life, a reality that I have begun to view as normal, proper, or “the way things should be.”  I have only known one way of living, one way of worshipping, one way of viewing the world and it’s people.  This is a beautiful opportunity for me to venture outside the bubble I have lived in my entire life, a similar situation to Jim Carrey’s character in the final scenes of “The Truman Show.”  I am utterly excited for my Arab brothers and sisters to introduce me to their life and their land.