Experiencing Foreign Culture in Chicago

I've completed another week of training, and wow, was it exhausting! This week was the first half of the middle "A3" session of training focusing on cross cultural awareness more and also self discovery. We are doing a thing called "LifeMap" where we examine our personality, passions, strengths, spiritual gifts, values, past experiences and a few other things to help us determine where we can best be used in ministry and help us to plan how to get there.

We spent a great deal of time this week learning about the Islamic faith, including a visit by a local Kuwaiti born Christian who has devoted his time to ministering to Muslims in the area. Some Muslims (usually scholars) are very confrontational about debating the Bible/Qu'ran, so this guy has devoted the past 14 years to studying common arguments and has been given an incredible gift of knowledge of both books enabling him to refute all of the common Islamic arguments and even point out a few fundamental flaws in Islam, praise God for that! He has posted all of these arguments as well as other information about how to minister to Muslims on the site www.answering-islam.org.

Yesterday, we went to a Hindu temple nearby and it was a very awkward experience. Having just studied spiritual realities including warfare, we learned about spiritual oppression and I think we all experienced a little bit there since Hinduism is a very spiritual religion. I felt a strange fatigue last night, almost like I had run a marathon from the conflict spiritually.

And today we went to Devon St. in Chicago, the Islamic/Hindu area of downtown Chicago. We visited the South Asian Friendship Center, a ministry of I-Teams that works with local Hindus and Muslims. There we received a full presentation on Islam in the United States. I learned the following:

• Islam is the second largest religion in the United States and growing
• Chicago has the highest concentration of Muslims in the country
• The South Asian Ministry Center is the only ministry in Chicago reaching out to Muslims, although other churches from time to time have groups do work
  

After the presentation, we went to an Indian restaurant, where I had my first Indian meal. It was rather interesting, but I like spicy food, so it was pretty good. I got to have tandoori chicken, curry chicken, and some rice, spiced cauliflower and nan, the flatbread they make which somewhat resembles a tortilla, but in strips rather than round.

In the afternoon we went to a mosque, one of the oldest in the Chicago area. For Muslims, Friday afternoon is their big day of prayer, so we attended a prayer service which was interesting. Their leader was talking back and forth between English and Arabic about Ramadan and then after about 20-30 min, they had their prayer time, which lasted maybe 10 min. After this, they had a special funeral service for a well known elder who had passed away last night. It was an interesting experience all in all, but not nearly as oppressive as the Hindu temple since Islam is much more materialistic.

I'll certainly have a very relaxing weekend . . .

What I have learned thus far . . .

Greetings from Chicago (or Elgin to be precise)! Training has been fabulous thus far, I have learned SO much, my brain is on information overload. There have been some very interesting things brought up thus far as people have given presentations on ministries, and other mission oriented topics. Here are some interesting facts I've learned thus far:

• It is estimated that there are 14,000 people groups in the world that have been discovered over the past 20 centuries and at this point all but 2,000 have been reached with the Good News (most of this growth exponential in the last few centuries). Most of these 2,000 lie in the "10-40" window (North Africa, Middle East, South Asia), basically the Muslim world
  
• American Christians account for 80% of the wealth in the Christian world
• 70% of all Muslims that become Christians have some supernatural experience (dream, miracle, etc) that leads them to Christ
• 50% of all people in the world are under age 25
• 70% of all Christians accept the Lord between ages 10 and 20
  

I don't know how this rests with you, but for me it raises a lot of excitement, but also a bit of frustration. It is exciting to know that we are so close to fulfilling the Great Commission (some even estimate it could happen during this generation's lifetime). But, the last little bit like climbing a mountain will be the hardest because it is the most resistant cultures in the world that are left. I can tell that God is gearing up for the final push, so many churches are becoming more missions oriented, not just in America but worldwide. More missionaries are going out from Latin America, the Philippines and other third world areas. It is also so great to know how important youth ministry is in the world, that's what I'm doing in Bolivia! The one frustrating thing is learning how much wealth American Christians have that they are not using towards things like missions and Christian development in the church. Pray for people to loosen their pocket books and give more . . .

As I've learned more about International Teams, its core values and beliefs, I am more and more admiring it for being a biblically grounded organization and one that focuses on enhancing the relationship between church and missionary, not hindering it.

Pray for the final push of missions, the job is almost done and soon Jesus will return to bring us home . . .what a wonderful thought.

High Tension in Bolivia

Two months after a positive election result and nearly four weeks after the kickoff of the constitutional assembly, it has already hit a roadblock. Members of President Evo Morales' MAS party who have a majority want the assembly to have unchecked power to adopt whatever comes out of the assembly as law. Opposition members view this as a power grab by Evo's party to further centralize government. Street protests have broken out over this attempt and several shoving incidents have occurred in the assembly this week. In addition MAS wants to pass a motion saying that only a majority will be necessary to make changes, leading to further suspicion that a power grab is in the works. Read the full article on CNN World.

Please pray for Bolivia, it really is again approaching the brink of revolution, and despite the previous non-violent resolutions of conflict, I think they are way overdue for a good fight. Because I don't know what's going to happen, I don't know what the future holds for my missions plans. I definitely will go somewhere, but the location may change if Bolivia becomes a warzone. Fortunately, I'm not planning to leave until January, so things could be resolved by then.

In other news, I am leaving for training next weekend and I couldn't be more excited. I'm ready to meet the other staff members of I-Teams and the other missionaries who will be working in various parts of the world. I promise a full update once it's over.