One of the things orientation tries to do is expose people to different cultures around the world. They do this many different ways, but two of the ways I have experienced in the past few days are Cross-cultural Ekklesia (look that word up in Greek J )and cultural meals.
Sunday evening, at Cross-cultural Ekklesia, our focus culture was the Americas, which include Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, and South America. On the way in the door, we were greeted with a big Hola! and from then on were "in" a Spanish Ekklesia. Songs, communication with the Father, testimonies, and sermons were in either Spanish or Portuguese. Pretty much I had no clue what was being said. Occasionally, I would hear "uno" or "padre" and I was like, "I know that word!" However, even though I couldn't understand the words, I knew the Spirit was there. When reading the Word, I could follow along by their intonation and pausing. I'm sure that where I am going I will have much of the same experience. What an amazing thing about the Father's Ekklesia—no matter the different cultural ways or the different languages being spoken, we can all praise and communicate to the Father in Spirit and in Truth.
Yesterday, we had a cultural meal for lunch. I knew before hand it was going to be from the Europeans but that was all. We at borscht (beet soup) with optional sour cream and rye bread. One thing about me is that I am a very adventurous eater and love trying new things—even if I don't really like them. The soup was very, very good. It almost tasted like cabbage soup. Problem is, I also like to eat…a lot. I had my bowl of soup and probably the equivalent of two rolls of rye pumpernickel bread…and was still quite hungry. I think that was one of the things that we were supposed to learn from this meal: What does it really mean to be satisfied? What is it like to eat a meal and still be hungry?
Today we had another cultural meal from the Middle East area. I don't remember the exact names, but there was something like meatball soup (quite a bit of oil in it), flat bread, and cucumber, onion, tomato salad. Everything tasted fantastic! The trick with this meal though was no utensils. I really enjoy eating with my hands, so that wasn't a huge deal for me. However, what made it even more difficult was that I could only use my right hand. I am left handed to the extreme. I find it difficult to brush my teeth with my right hand and eating with it requires a bib. So, I sat on my left hand and ate with my right. I got along fine except for when it came to tearing the flat bread. I have a challenge for you…try to tear a tortilla with your non-dominate hand and not using your other hand at all and see how you do. I'm sure I looked ridiculous with my whole body twisted and my face contorted so I could tear bread. Scooping the salad or soup up in my bread was also a challenge. The bowl kept moving! I was chasing the bowl around my small area of the table trying to get something on my bread and into my mouth. Finally I gave up on the bread thing and just used my right hand to go directly into the bowl and eat. It was much easier that way, but after looking around the table I realized that everyone else still had a relatively clean right hand and I had a very dirty right hand. Oh well—I did avoid getting any on my white shirt! I'm definitely doing to have to practice because in South Asia the no right hand rule still applies. It is almost time for dinner (American style), so let the fun being. I'm going to eat using only my right hand—and we'll see if I still have a white shirt at the end of itJ.
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