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Nothing New Under The Sun

The Bible tells us there is nothing new under the sun in Ecclesiastes 1:9 :

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

This also points to the fall.  By their own admission, evolutionists say that ancient man was smart (they built stonehenge).  They did things we couldn’t do today (like build the pyramids).  Interestingly enough, while they don’t have the answers, my Biblical worldview does.  The closer to creation one is, the smarter, in general, one would be.  Why?  The effects of the fall and curse would have less of an affect on their bodies.  Proof?  Well, stonehenge is one (if we get smarter and smarter, why don’t we know how it was done?).  People’s ages are another.  Look in the Bible…the closer to creation people were, the longer they lived (measured in hundreds of years…not tens of years like post flood)

 

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Cross Cultural Adaptability

As I was reading my Bible Study today, I came across 2 Samuel 10:1-5

1 And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead.

2 Then said David, I will shew kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father shewed kindness unto me. And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David’s servants came into the land of the children of Ammon.

3 And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee, to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?

4 Wherefore Hanun took David’s servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.

5 When they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed: and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return.

I thought this was a good example of the importance of how important culture is in communicating with people. It isn’t just about learning a language…you have to say things the right way too. Look at what happened:

David wanted to honor Hanun when he became king because the former king was good to David.
David sends his servants with gifts
Hanun’s advisers and friends tell him that David is really trying to dishonor him by not coming himself.
Hanun agrees and shaves off 1/2 the hair on David’s servant’s heads.

David wanted to do good but did it in a way that wasn’t “right.” (Right in the eyes of those he is trying to reach. I’d like to note that this is not a right/wrong truth thing but a perception/cultural right/wrong). The king ends up and doesn’t like it and so the gift doesn’t have the effect that David wanted/hoped for.

I just got done reading a good book on this topic several weeks ago. It is called Cross Cultural Servanthood and I would highly reccommend this book to anyone who wants to work cross culturally. The basic idea is that “help” and “serving” needs to look like those two things to the people who are being “helped” and “served” or it isn’t “help” or “service.”

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Smiling, Nodding, and Drinking Coffee

Well, this evening we went to meet some of our neighbors. We had met her in the hallway and so we said…let’s go there. We took our gift of a chocolate bar (you always take a small gift the first time you come to someone’s house in Serbia) and went down.

Her husband answered the door. I had to pull out my cheatsheet, but I managed to say something along the lines of:

Good Evening (Dobro Vece)
We are Matt and Cyndi (Mi smo Matt & Cyndi)
This is our daughter Lydia (Ovo je nasa cerka Lydia)

They invited us in. We tried to say hi, thank you, etc… After lots of nodding and smiling, we sat down to some orange (I think) marmalade, water, and spoons (you take a spoon of marmalade–VERY GOOD–eat it, then drink the water). We made some pointy talky, found out they had a daughter living in Belgrade who would be in on Saturday (and she teaches English at a university there!). They made some phone calls and had a neighbor come over who speaks some english. We did more pointy talky. Eventually, right as we were getting ready to leave, the neighbor’s son came over. He speaks english very well, and through him, we confirmed what we thought we knew about the daughter, said thanks, and that we needed to leave because it was Lydia’s bed time. Overall, we were there about an hour or so.

Eventually (once google video gets on the ball), I’ll have a video to show you of the man playing with Lydia and singing a tune. It was neat.

In the meantime, we will be going back sometime Saturday to meet with them and their daughter. Pray that we are sensitive to them and their situation. Pray for opportunities to share our witness with them.

 [Update 05-14-2008 08:42:04] Google Video finally has the video posted.  Here it is:

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First Lesson

Well, we had our first language lesson last night. My accent is horrible (and that is an understatement). Cyndi’s is ok and much better than mine.

Want to hear the alphabet? Click the play button below:

{enclose http://media.maxsons.org/SerbianAlphabet.mp3}

Download

(Taken from Teach Yourself Serbian).

There are two alphabets in use in Serbia (and that means two different alphabetical orders). One is a latin based alphabet and the other is a cyrillic based alphabet. The mp3 above is in the latin based order.

Here are they, just in case you want to see them:

Latin Based Letter Cyrillic Based Letter
A А
B Б
C Ц
Č Ч
Ć Ћ
D Д
Dž Џ
Đ Ђ
E E
F Ф
G Г
H Х
I И
J J
K К
L Л
Lj Љ
M M
N H
Nj Њ
O O
P П
R P
S C
Š Ш
T T
U У
V В
Z З
Ž Ж
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Why learn the language?

Why is it important to speak the language?  Why would one not use an interpreter?  Watch, listen, and learn.

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Two weeks…well, almost

Well, we have been here in Serbia almost two weeks and wanted to write a short update that would kind of sumarize everything.

We left Dulles 27 April 2008. We had so so so so much stuff. We took up two of the Smarte Carte things they have at the airport. After I figured out how to manuver those through the airport, we were ok. God was watching over us even in a seemingly little thing: they had scales outside of the line! We were able to weigh and twek our bags before waiting in line! We ended up and had some extra weight (about 5 lbs) we could have used had we known. Oh well.

We arrived in Belgrade and were picked up by several teammates. They then took us to Cacak where we moved into our apartment. Cyndi (and I, but mostly Cyndi) began unpacking stuff and figuring out where to put stuff. I did things like take a picture of the sunset.

The next day we started walking around town, registering with the police, etc…. We have noticed many things the same, but many things different than when we were here two years ago. So far, we have settled into a routene where we spend a few hours walking around, come back for Lydia’s nap, eat lunch (around 3pm), then go walk around town for an hour or so more in the evening. We have also tried to meet our neighbors. In this process of going around town and meeting our neighbors I have already committed several cultural blunders. On the other hand, Cyndi was able to carry on a conversation in French Can you believe it…come 1/2 way around the world to Serbia, learn Serbian, and speak in French!?

While walking around town we decided to start a contest of sorts called “Where’s Lydia?” Every week, we’ll post a picture of Lydia and you guess on where she is. You “enter” by posting the correct location to the comment. If there is no winner, we may pick one based on the funniest or most off the wall answer. So, be creative!

We had an interesting time figuring out how to do laundry. Cyndi has finally caught up and settled into a routene with that. Along those lines (the being clean part) we had one night where we forgot to turn on the hot water tank (read more about our apartment to see why and how we do this).

Technology has allowed us to keep in touch with many people since we have been here. God has certainly made it easier for people to move around the world and keep in touch with others from “back home.” I know, it isn’t the same as being there in person; however, it is much better than 50 or 100 years ago when things took 3 to 6 months on a ship. If you ever want to call us, visit our vonage page to call us for totally free or simply dial 1.304.521.2416 and ring our phone for just a long distance phone call.

We took an evening and just relaxed at home a few days ago. We decided we were going to have something sweet. We decided to get Plazma Cakes and Eurocrem.

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Parlez Vous Francais?

While I have many posts yet to write about all things Lydia, I thought I would share a quick note about something interesting that happened yesterday.  We went down to the piazza (farmer’s market) and wandered around for a while before stopping at a couple of vegetable stands.  Matt successfully negotiated for tomatoes and cucumbers at one before we headed to another a couple of stalls down.  The ladies greeted us in Serbian, but we quickly exhausted our short list of phrases and stood there looking confused and trying to figure out what they were telling us and how to ask for what we wanted.  Then, one of them started listing some other languages she spoke, including French.  I happened to take 3 years of French in HS and even a semester in college, so we were able to have a short little conversation.   She was telling us that Lydia’s legs were cold (because the way I was holding her had caused her pant legs to ride up).  We exchanged some pleasantries and she even gave Matt some green onions gratis (free).  Merci!!

It was kind of a surreal moment, but it was also so cool.  I never would have thought that the little bit of French tucked away in the recesses of my brain would turn out to be useful in Serbia!  It’s amazing how God prepares and equips you in so many ways…ways you never would have imagined…to face the task at hand.  He is so good!

And if Serbian sticks half so well as the French I studied over a decade ago, then I just might be fluent this time next year :^)

 

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Kids

There are usually kids around the front of our apartment building riding (or as they say…driving) rolera (Roller Blades). A few days ago, I took my flash cards, went down, and began practicing my alphabet. They came up and wondered what I was doing. They ended up and were very patient while I went through the cards a few times. Of course, they laughed at me and my bad accent and how I couldn’t tell the difference between a ch and ch sound (honest…they sound the same). Anyway, I asked if I could take their picture.

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