What Do You Worship?

A recent Men's event: rich, important men up-front

I’ve been reading a good book recently by Tim Keller.  In it, Keller says, “Everyone has to live for something, and if that something is not God, then we are driven by that thing we live for...”   Shortly after, Keller quotes the author David Foster Wallace who famously said in a commencement speech, “Everybody worships.  The only choice we get is what to worship.” Keller goes on to use this insight to think about his own context in New York City and how important it is to understand what exactly people around us are worshiping  So it got me to thinking, “What do islanders worship?”  After a moment of reflection I concluded, they divide their worship between God and The Rich Man and these in equal proportion.  In many ways, the island way is to offer God His due, through prayers and certain sacrifices and then the rest of life is yours to do as you please.  As long as God is given the proper amount of respect, you may run after the big house, the luxury car, the beautiful wife and the status that comes with it.

How do I know this? After living here almost ten years, there are many examples to pull from but some of the most striking evidence for this have come through our regular administering of English exams.  Just yesterday we were giving exams and the final question on those exams is the simple question, “What are your dreams?”  Now, I realize this is not a fair spectrum of the population as most of our students are young, college-aged, and inexperienced, but the responses are still revealing.  There will be the odd student who will tell us of their dreams to be a doctor and help their country, but by and large the most common response we hear to this question is, “I want to have much money [sic], a big house, big car, and be famous.”  Yet, in an earlier question when we asked, “What is a good thing to use your money for?” Often students will reply, “To help others, because this is what God wants.”  One of my students threaded the needle perfectly yesterday when she replied, “In my opinion it is good to use your money for buying anything you want and helping the ones who don’t have anything.”  I didn’t push her on it, but in my experience, there is not usually much money left for the poor once you’ve bought everything you want.

Tom & short-termer about to give exams

But I had another realization as I considered this question of worship.  Do island women worship the same things as men?  The culture and answers I just described are most often heard and seen among men.  In reality, island women are very different.  Island women hardly worship God at all, at least in formal practices.  In talking to my female teammates, it’s clear that women’s lives revolve more around marriage and motherhood.  Their worth, status, and joy seem to be wrapped up in these things.  Can one worship motherhood? Could a wedding ceremony become a form of idol worship?  What happens to the childless woman?  What hope is there for the poor, plain girl?  Of what importance is a good versus a bad husband when marriage and children alone are the goal?

It is not hard to see that the things islanders choose to worship are no less empty than the things Keller talks about us giving our worship to in the West: fame, career, family, money, beauty, art, comfort, the American Dream.

 In his speech Wallace went on to say,  “The compelling reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship...is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”

Keller saw this in New York City.  We see this on the islands: People being eaten alive by their idols.  The same questions that challenged Keller challenges us. There is something better, more fulfilling, more eternal, than the idols we have chosen to worship. How do we get people to stop chasing them? How do we talk about the one worthy of our worship in ways that can be relevant, appreciated, understood, and felt?  This is the challenge.  This is the goal.

Kids on island Independence Day

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our colleague (and former short-termer) on the small island was able to get her year-long visa without problem! Elewa’s pain has decreased and there might be a good opportunity to travel to mainland Africa in the coming months for her to get better medical advice and treatment. Megan’s phone hasn’t been recovered but we were able to order a replacement phone that her parents will bring out to us. Our teammates are all feeling better now. We had a meeting trying to act as mediators. It went okay, we hope that the openness to forgive that was expressed was genuine (we will see!).

PRAYERS REQUESTED
One of the strongest groups on the islands (who meets multiple times each week to study together and encourage one another) was just warned via a neighbor that the police said they have to stop meeting. They aren’t sure if this threat/warning is real or just a neighbor causing trouble, but either way, help them to have guidance about how to proceed. That they would not be governed by fear but would still be wise. It is going to be a busy week for us- pray that we can keep good priorities and do what we need to do. One of our island sisters is traveling today on her way to mainland Africa (where her husband is from) alone with their two young kids. She is pregnant and hopes to give birth there, but her husband won’t be with her so she will have to navigate the rest of her pregnancy and two kids without knowing the language or without many contacts. Pray that she would see God providing for her and that all the logistics would go smoothly. May she be encouraged. At the end of the week we will head to the big island for a day and then onward for some vacation. One of our teammates will travel at that time back home for her brother’s wedding and our short-termer will move to the small island. Pray for all the preparations, goodbyes and travels. We hope to have our boys meet with our friend the speech therapist while we are on the big island (who has been helping us remotely), pray that we could find a good time to meet and that the boys’ speech would continue to improve.