About a mile high.
Pomegranate. 80’s during the day,
40’s or 50’s at night. Yes, it’s
probably safe to drink that. Another
short while and we’ll arrive in the village.
You know, I have no idea.
Can you guess what I’m doing this week? Yep, we’re hosting a short-term team from the
States, and I am answering the same questions we are frequently asked.
What’s the altitude here?
What kind of tree is that? How
hot does it get here? What’s the coldest
it gets? Do you think they boiled the
water they used to make this drink? How
much further until we get there?
I’m okay up to this point (as long as, in fact, it is a
pomegranate or jacaranda or one of the other two trees I can actually
identify). Then we get into regional
birds. “Yes, that is a bird.” (No idea what variety or species or however
you identify such things.) Then I resort
to a long string of “I have no idea” answers until they finally stop
asking.
Just between friends (shhhh!), I confess I may at times make
up a plausible sounding answer just to avoid yet another admission of my
ignorance. I shudder to think of
visitors passing these fabrications as the truth. Lord, forgive me - after You stop
laughing. (He gets my wacky humor.)
Personally I am always relieved with the visitors who
consider what it would be like if I came to their neighborhood and asked them
to identify all the flora, fauna, and the warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates
with beaks and feathers. Probably they
don’t know the population of every surrounding neighborhood, the daily income
levels, and the occupations of each person on a given street either.
So why do I end up feeling unintelligent when people ask me
all these things? It’s just silly. I don’t know.
I never have known. Even if I
learned it once upon a time, I probably forgot.
I can identify the few trees
and most of the flowers in my garden, and usually I can call each of my
children by the right name. With that, I
want to be content.
After being on the field all these years, you’d think I
would know more than I do. The fact is
that the more I learn, the more I forget, and the more I discover that things I
thought I knew were not exactly what I thought they were anyway. Does this make any sense at all?
This how it goes in my Christian life, too. The longer I live, the more I see how much I
still have to learn. There is no point
of “arriving” – at knowing everything.
IRL* Having teams is a humbling reminder of how much I have yet
to learn.
oh my goodness! Thank you for this!! I've been experiencing similar frustrations on my first furlough. Every. Single. Conversation I have, it seems like people walk away thinking I must not know ANYTHING about the country I'm going back and have called home for awhile now... blah!
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you, Crystal! Yeah, you never knew how much you didn't know, did you? :)
DeleteI can absolutely relate, 100%. What a riot! I can relate with Crystal Lucas too about the way it relates to furlough... And I often dream about turning the questions on them... how do you feel about your job? You must love what you do! How much do you make? Are you short on salary? Are you children well-adjusted? Do you have a close friend? How do you get spiritual nourishment? What book are you reading right now? Do you have a timeline for when you plan to leave your job and find a new one? Etc. SO missionary like of me (oops). Someday I hope to meet you Jamie, I also work in Mexico.
ReplyDeleteGood to see I've struck a nerve. And I hope to meet you, too, Debbie!
DeleteI tell all short term teams upon arrival that they can ask me any question they want as long as it has nothing to do with plant or animal life. It just doesn't stick. My husband will make up answers for them if he doesn't know so I warn them about asking him too :-). One of our returning teams brought us a book called the "Birds of Central America." Love it!
ReplyDeleteHa! That reminds me - I suggested my husband carry a walkie-talkie in the other car so that anyone on the team in my car could have direct access to the answer man. :) He conveniently forgot to buy batteries. Right.
DeleteIt would be interesting to flip things around. Why can it be so hard for us to look at things from the other person's perspective. Many of those questions your visitors could of looked up prior to coming. If we were their neighbors they would not generally ask us these types or questions or expect us to when visiting would they? Maybe a homeschooling family who ask questions a lot. I/we should make it an school assignment to research these questions and make up an information handout for visitors, at least then some of the answers would be facts and not fabricated. Chin up-we know you're smart.
ReplyDeleteYou mean my dumb act isn't working any more? Darn.
DeleteYou remind me of another answer I have used with teams. "I'll tell you like I tell my children. That sounds like a good question to ask our friend Google...."
I like the suggestion to make our own kids look up these research questions so we are prepared for future teams.
Truer words have never been spoken! And I love what Debbie M. says above - wouldn't it be nice to turn it around and start asking probing, personal, and ridiculous questions of the teams - see how quickly they become offended. My favorite is when someone asks a question for which I do know the answer and they not only look at me as though I should be "fired" from missionary work, but they go so far as to ask me what I actually do with my time if I can't answer their questions - yes, that has happened to me. I also agree with Kris above and think they should take some responsibility for learning about where they are going before they get there. For years now I've felt stupid and humiliated when I couldn't tell them what they wanted to know or when they overstepped boundaries by inquiring about personal matters that are none of their business (finances, next career path, or one of my all time favorites - "How is it that you have such a nice dress to wear on Sunday when everyone around you is so poor?"). I could go on forever...but I won't. Nice to know it's a shared frustration.
ReplyDeleteYikes. "What do you actually do...?" I can't imagine.
DeleteThis team was really truly great, which is why I could afford to post this particular topic, even knowing they might read it. :)
In college, I went on a summer mission trip to India. I spent the six months before the trip reading everything I could find on India, including the past 30 years of NG articles. I found myself very disappointed when we arrived and stayed with a national family to find I knew more about their history, and the other religions in their country than they did. Bummer!
ReplyDeleteI get lazy now that I've been in Mexico so long, and don't keep up on cultural things like I should. Thankfully, God has gentle ways of reminding me.
I do get annoyed at "dumb" questions by teams, but I LOVE going into teacher mode and saying, "I don't know. Why don't you look it up when we get back to the house and then you can tell all of us." (That usually stops the questions right then and there! Ha!)
Beth
Yes, that's it exactly. I love, love, love the internet and the possibilities for answers. Today I discovered that in fact, the tree I showed them does have the largest diameter of any living tree. (I told them it did. Whew) Most people would totally forget to ever look it up once they get home. It's best for me to learn so I can answer with authority that is based on truth.
DeleteLove, love, LOVE this post!! I seriously thought I was the only missionary out there who feels that way. Especially because it seems like the other missionaries on the field in my area seem to always have the right answers while I'm left stuttering and hhmmming out my "I'm not quite sures".
ReplyDeleteThat's why I highlighted this, Michelle, to remind us all that we are not the only ones....
DeleteToday as I was saying goodbye to the team at the airport, I confessed our little "insider" humor, how "All teams are a blessing - some in their coming, and some in their leaving." They cracked up over that. It's true, though, isn't it? This team was truly a blessing from the beginning to end.
Wow this really has me thinking as a statesider (but we HAVE had two expat assignments so I do know 3rd culture living).
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I would even know what to Google before going - sometimes those things just come up in the experience, ya know?
And I think the visitors are trying to make conversation, get to know your life there - in other words, they're interested in YOU - which has been a complaint on this blog during furloughs, no?
So it's a bit of da*ned if you do, da*ned if you don't....