Lost in Translation

I've been confronted with a very real cultural difference. Perhaps I should say "personal arrogance." I was expecting that we would easily receive our Colombian visas because "why wouldn't they want us in their country?" But isn't that how we tend to look at things? But I've heard what it's like on the other side, at least in Costa Rica.

Costa Ricans have to set up an appointment at the U.S. embassy at least a year in advance, sometimes more. Then they pay $100 just for the opportunity to present their need for a visa. If they don't receive it, they lose the money. And a hundred bucks is not small change.

The Ticos also mentioned that the atmosphere was anything but "light" or "fun" at the U.S. embassy. Now, that's a good thing for national security purposes. But contrast that with my attitude towards the Colombian embassy. I expected them to just give me the visas without any trouble at all. But God wanted to teach me a lesson about humility and understanding that He is in control. Not me.

We have this coming week to receive the documents we need from Bogota, which requires faith and patience. Then we need to go to the Colombian consulate here in Chicago to apply for the visas.

But, God is in control.

I was typing this on our laptop the night before we left Costa Rica. Unfortunately, our Internet service provider shut off our service at 12 midnight about five minutes before I finished. I'm going to leave it just as I wrote it. We're in MN right now, enjoying time with family.

December 19, 2005

Wow, it's almost midnight here, and we're putting the final touches on a change of country. The bad news is we'll be leaving at about 5 a.m. tomorrow, and the good news is that we'll be getting back to Iowa about 3:15 p.m., si Dios quiere (if God wills).

Quick updates. Just a few quick thoughts before I get back to helping Holly finish the packing. First, my last weeks of school went well. I was asked to give a testimony at the graduation (in Spanish of course), and it went well. Also, my exams were relatively enjoyable.

To borrow the words of another missionary, the Colombian consulate took round one in the battle for religious visas. We didn't have the right authentification on two documents, so we'll have to wait until we get to Chicago to see how round two goes. It's possible that some government offices may be closed in Bogota, which would slow the process. Please pray! We already have tickets for January 10th, but without the visas we'll probably have to delay our flights. By the way, this whole process has taught us to trust God more. "Why Lord?!?" "Oh, that's right, You're the sovereign Lord of the universe . . . a couple of stamps on a piece of paper don't thwart Your plan."

Special thanks. We've had to say goodbye to many good friends in Costa Rica, and we're very thankful to God for His faithful servants here. We're also thankful for each of you who plays a vital role in God's ministry through us. More than anything, we're thankful for Jesus Christ who died in our place and rose again.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Jonathan, Holly, Lucas, and Eliana

P,S. We plan on being in Iowa, Minnesota, and Chicago for the three weeks we'll be in the U.S. We'll be updating our blogs on a regular basis when we get to Colombia, so we invite you to follow the first steps of our transition to the country.

Yesterday I went with another missionary to "los Guido," a marginalized barrio on the outskirts of San Jose. We walked down an embankment littered with garbage. We saw houses (shacks) built with scrap metal and wood. Little kids playing in the garbage. A little stream of filth. You get the idea. The majority of these homes don't have a father or husband. The missionary introduced me to a young girl of probably nine years old who acts as the mother to her four younger siblings while her mom works. This is life in los Guido.

This leads me to ponder something. What is the relationship between a person's physical and spiritual needs? Or another question: Can we minister to someone's spiritual needs without caring about their physical needs?

Now, I know that many organizations have gone the way of the "social gospel," in other words they forget about the spiritual needs of people to focus only on the physical needs. Obviously, God's Word teaches that is wrong. The need for salvation is infinitely more important than any physical need.

But what about Jesus? In my Bible it says: "And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick" (Mt. 14:14). In the next chapter Jesus says, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And I do not want to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way" (15:32). Jesus was not indifferent to the physical needs of the people. How can we see the needs and not be moved to compassion?

This missionary does not speak Spanish very well at this point. But as we walked everyone greeted him with smiles and kisses. Why? Because he has shown love to them. Many children had fallen down the side of the embankment when it would rain. Keith knows how to build, so he built over 300 steps going up and down the steep hill. He had a missionary team come and help him build a bridge over the stream because young children had drowned there before. Hundreds of people use these projects every day, reading the letters in the concrete "Un regalo de Dios" (a gift from God). Has this missionary sold out to the social gospel? Hardly! With every project, more people have come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. This missionary works under the umbrella of a church in San Jose, and they have started a church in los Guido. When we went, there were about 200 people at the service, the majority of whom have been touched by this missionary's ministry.

This morning we went to Cartago to see the basilica. Cartago has been the center of Catholicism in Costa Rica for years. Supposedly, a black image of the "Virgin Mary" appeared to a a lady here in 1635. Three times she took the image home and each time it reappeared in the exact same spot she had found it. The basilica shows some of the interesting contradictions in Catholicism. Below you can see a depiction of the coronation of Mary as "Queen of Heaven" by God the Father and Jesus. We asked a man outside if he could ask God to answer his peticions. "Oh sure," he said, "but we also ask the Virgin. She's healed me of various infirmities. You just have to have faith in her." Below are several pictures from my experience. You can see people walking on their knees to the front of the building . . . whether out of gratitude or in hopes of receiving a favor from the Virgin I don't know. There's also a photo of the holy water, which the Virgin supposedly supplies. We saw several people come down and wash different parts of their body with the water.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to watch 90% of all movies with either subtitles or dubbed voices? If you don't speak English, that's what you have to deal with. Now I'm no defender of Hollywood, but I think this example illustrates a larger point about culture from a Latin American perspective.

How would you feel if you had to buy toys or computer software whose packaging is in a language you didn't understand (German, French, English, etc.)?

This is life in Costa Rica. Now, I can think of at least two advantages to this situation. First, it encourages people to learn another language, usually English. In Iowa and Minnesota, I didn't have much daily motivation to learn another language (except my Greek and Hebrew professors). Another positive is that the translation from English to Spanish usually makes for better dialogues in the movies. In other words, the translators usually don't translate all of the utterly useless and predictable swear words of Hollywood. I'm not sure if there are less swear words in Spanish, or just that they are looked down upon more here, but most movies soften the crude language from American movies.

Costa Ricans probably live a more "globalized" life than many Americans (note: they are actually Americans too . . . in Spanish, there is only one continent here--America, whereas in English we differentiate North and South America). You can take a 10 minute bus ride from my house to San Jose center and see Germans, French, Chinese, and gringos any day of the week. And when we've gone on trips around the country the tourist locations are even more international. They don't just know about people from other countries from books or movies. They rub shoulders with them on the way to work each day. Now that's no different from Ames, IA, but it's a lot different than Hibbing, MN, where I grew up.

I tend to think that La Nacion (the most respected paper here) has more articles about international events than most papers in the States.

What does this have to do with missions? Understanding the motivations of the people helps immensely. In order to more effectively minister, I have to begin to understand the differences in thinking. I even have to open up enough to allow my own thinking to be changed on some things that I'd never personally seen or experienced.

One quick example: I'd never thought about what it would be like to need a pair of glasses to see but not be able to buy them. Or to need 50 cents for the bus to get home but not have it. These are eye-opening experiences.

Why should a missionary have a blog anyway? I've been thinking about that a bit and have changed the name of the blog to match a slight shift in purpose. From "The Boyds to Colombia Weblog" (very boring sounding) to something that expresses my experience in Latin America, "Lost in Translation."

Here are a couple of possible uses for a missionary weblog I can think of:

1) Inform people about their ministry
2) Journal about experiences in order to have written record of what has happened
3) Put ads on the site in the hopes of getting rich through Google's Adsense program
4) Write stories about life in order to entertain people
5) Explain things from the host country in the hopes of spurring on the readers to greater faithfulness to Jesus Christ where they're at

Obviously #3 is out! I want my blog to be a mixture of some of the other elements, but I'm most interested in how a person living in another culture gains a new perspective on his own culture and his own life.

We talked about this in my class on culture at the language school. A person who doesn't have any influence from people in the process of growing up (there was one case of a boy who grew up without any influence from people in France years ago) becomes severely limited in his ability to interact culturally. I postulate that a person who knows two cultures would have more understanding of his native culture than the person who has never experienced more than one.

What's this mean? I hope to share things from my experiences in Latina America from a missionary's perspective. How often we take the blessings we have for granted! How often we don't see the need around us! May God give us eyes to see the need of our neighbors, our coworkers, our country, and that of other countries and cultures in this world!

Not too much unusual or exciting has been happening in our lives lately. Studies continue, and they're going well. I taught a lesson last week on Bible translations in Spanish. Interesting stuff. The Reina-Valera 1960 Bible is the most common Bible used by non-Catholics in Latin America. I personally tend to prefer the 1995 update to that Bible because it's essentially the same Bible without as many archaic words and with better Spanish grammar. I was floored to hear that some people (King James only people) say that pastors who use the Reina-Valera 1960 are heretics. Wow, these issues make no sense to me. While we argue about what translation is best, more people die without knowing Christ as Savior.

We purchased tickets to return to the States on Dec. 20 and fly to Bogota Jan. 10.

I've been trying to think of a new name for this blog; probably something in Spanish that gives the essence of the blog. Nada se me ocurre en este momento (Nothing occurs to me right now).

Here's a nice meditation on Proverbs 18:13 for anyone interested:

Ten Reasons to Listen to Questions Before You Answer.

We spent an hour of class today analyzing condolences sent to La Nacion (the paper of middle/upper class Costa Rica) for people who have died. How interesting!

Apparently, it's a "social obligation" to publish a note of condolence in the paper. Some companies use it for advertising (obviously they wouldn't put it that way). For example, Dole (the fruit company) had a note of condolence for the sister of a coworker. Never mind that the Dole logo was bigger than the headline.

For Catholics, they use these notes to tell people about the masses that will be held for the deceased. The more people that come, the more indulgences are acquired. Thus, the person's time in purgatory is shortened. Did I mention that the Church receives money for each mass? Interesting how that works.

I've had the great privilege of being one of Roberth's students this trimester. In many ways he reminds me of myself . . . well, okay in one or two ways. He has a love for learning, reading, the Bible, the ministry, and teaching. We've talked about things in his class as diverse as the rise of gangs in Central America to the nature of prayer according to the Bible.

On Wednesday, I went with him to his ministry in a poorer neighborhood of Cartago, which is about 30 minutes from San Jose. As we pulled into the neighborhood, which lay at the beginnings of the mountains, the roads became ravines, mitigated by the occasional boulder. We walked around on a muddy path to reach a house, constructed from corrugated metal. The washer, sink, fridge, table, and stove were all situated in the main room of the house, leaving just enough space to navigate through the room. A mother and her three children lived there. She made us some fresh tortillas and some agua dulce (hot sugar water), while Roberth talked with the kids. I tried to give any input I could, but I obviously don't have the social skills of a native speaker yet. I noticed the fourteen year-old girl looking at me shyly, probably because she found my blue eyes different than what she was used to.

Roberth told me that he makes a special effort to affirm young girls like that one in front of their mothers. He made several comments about how smart she was, etc. He told me that many girls her age end up pregnant. They don't have many godly male role models in their lives, so they don't know how men and women can relate in a good way.

Later the four of this family squeezed into the back seat, and we drove to another house to study the Bible. Roberth talked about prayer. It was excellent! He's never studied the Bible or the ministry formally, but obviously God has taught him a lot. The whole trip brought me back to the south of Bogota. The sights and sounds were very similar, as well as the people. I could get used to ministering in a context like this.

I just received my copy of the latest Evangelical Missions Quarterly journal. It's my favorite journal because it keeps me up-to-date with what's going on in the field of missions, stretches my thinking, and convicts me. Here are a few convicting quotes and questions from an article I just read about the culture of the cross:

"Is Jesus the center of my thoughts and conversations?"

"What percentage of my personal life and my ministry is a work of the Spirit?"

"Our action-oriented culture conditions us to be disinclined to spend significant time surrendering our needs and concerns to God in prayer."

"Do I follow him [Christ] to the boundary of suffering and then hold back?"

God has really been working on me lately through a Bible study I've been doing and also through extra reading such as this.