Soccer, Kebabs, and Injil, 06: Hospitality

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Soccer, Kebabs, and Injil, 06: Hospitality

Posted by Justin Long ⋅ July 1, 2008 ⋅

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This series has been generously contributed from a booklet by Stephen Jordan (pseudonym) entitled “Soccer, Kebabs, and the Injil.” Jordan spent a year in ministry among Muslims in a Central Asian country, and jotted down his experiences and interactions in these brief chapters. The lessons learned demonstrate that, given an open heart, a humble spirit, and adequate preparation, short-term missions among Muslims can still have a fruitful impact on listeners and evangelist alike. We are happy to make this little volume available to you in the hopes that it will 1) show what daily life is like for many Muslims, 2) encourage prayer for unreached people groups, and 3) perhaps even motivate many to go and be a part of what God is doing in what are usually referred to as “creative-access” situations. If you would like a copy of the printed version of the booklet, or you would like to be placed on the mailing list of ReachAcross (formerly Red Sea Team International), please contact info.us…@reachacross.net.

Adam’s son had accepted Christ several months before, and was struggling mightily in his relationship with his father. Adam resented any Christian influences on his son, and was not happy that he was hanging out with foreigners on a regular basis. I don’t think he knew that his son was a follower of Jesus, but he had told him to get rid of the English bible he kept in his room. Although I had never met Adam before, I had the impression that he would not be overly friendly should we actually meet. A surprising supposition, as Adam had worked for several foreign organizations in the past, and had many friends in the foreign community.

One day, a group of us foreigners decided to go visit an ancient historical site nearby, and who turned out to be our guide but Adam himself, around sixty years of age, and in considerable good health at that. He was a good friend of one of the foreigners in the group. We struck up several conversations during the day, and built up a good rapport. Towards the end, he insisted that we visit his gardens at the other end of town. After living in dry and dusty surroundings for months on end, this sounded like an awesome idea, although perhaps too good to be true. Our expectations were put to shame – I had not seen such an array of fruits and flowers in a very long time. It almost felt like we were getting a taste of paradise. He then insisted that we return at some point in time, and then come to his house for a meal. We agreed whole-heartedly according to the local custom, for to do otherwise would have been quite rude and off-putting, even though we did not have any definite plan to visit him again.

In the meanwhile, Adam’s son did come to visit off and on, and relationship with his father seemed to have improved. At one point he was on the verge of getting kicked out of the house, but now things were smoothening out. No doubt an unexpected but well-paying job that brought cash flowing into his father’s purse certainly did not hurt to this end. Maybe he had started to act more respectfully and responsibly toward Adam as well. Who knows, and I certainly did not know everything that had transpired in this father-son relationship, beyond the beginnings of faith in Jesus. The situation was certainly fascinating: we were closely related to Adam’s son through his faith, as he would come for encouragement and support more or less regularly. And this faith seemed to be the main point of friction in Adam’s relationship with his son. And now we were getting quite close to Adam himself, who seemed to go even beyond local cultural politeness in extending hospitality towards us.

Before my time was up, we indeed visited Adam for a meal at his house, and we did not find it wanting in anything either. A group of ten of us were fed all sorts of main dishes, and the quantity of it all would have been more than enough for double our group. Nothing dishonors a host more than lack of food. And nothing delights a host more than pointing out that a local would have been able to eat three times as much as us foreigners could – notwithstanding the fact that I had so far successfully kept up a reputation as a hefty eater. We had hardly eaten half of what was offered to us, however delicious it had been. And for this our host was reproaching us. I knew full yet, though, that this was no unusual occurrence. In this country, large dishes of various kinds of foods are prepared for parties or official events, with the expectation that much would be left over. Afterwards, a family might subsist on just those left-overs for days and even weeks. The unwritten code of hospitality, ingrained in people’s hearts and minds, demanded that the host offer all had.

In a place were the standard of living was well below anything I had faced before, and hunger was certainly not unknown among its people, the principle of hospitality trumped al this concerns for meeting daily needs. For what does a man have, if he has lost his reputation and standing in society? All the food and money in the world would not be able to even remotely serve as an adequate substitute for the honor a family could lose by displaying less-than enthusiastic hospitality. This is a lesson that should be well learned by anyone considering spending all or a part of their life in the Muslim world. We must be prepared to sacrifice our personal convenience, which is perhaps the most important value of our Western culture, in order to effectively reach Muslim people groups for Christ. For how can they even remotely begin to understand and accept a message from people who do not meet the minimum standards of kindness and righteousness.