Missional Explorer

The Power of Travel

Read a great quote in a travel magazine the other day which interviewed actor Matt Damon on his many trips to Africa in support of digging wells for local populations, a practice which has profoundly changed both the Africans he comes in contact with as well as Damon himself.

"Damon believes in the power of travel to transform people.  He wishes that Americans were less insular, and quotes the fact that only 21 percent of Americans have passports.  "I think many of our problems as a country would be solved if people had thick passports," he says.  "There's just not substitute for actually going and seeing things". 

Our family would say a resounding "YES!" to this sentiment.  As our closest friends will attest, our travels abroad to England, New Zealand, Fiji, Mexico, Israel, the West Bank, and Costa Rica have transformed our lives beyond words. . . and all in the past 3 years.  Traveling abroad as "experiential tourists" has powerfully changed our view of the world, the U.S., and ourselves!  In fact, in our opinion, one cannot truly understand the United States until we have looked at the U.S. through the eyes of "others".  Going further, I strongly suspect that at least some of our current struggles here in the U.S. stem from the fact that only 21% of our population travel abroad.  Like Damon, I think our problems would be greatly helped if more of us had "thick passports"!     

"Windows on the World"

In a previous posting I mentioned that Linda and I had been invited to a wine-tasting party hosted by a former student of mine, Micah McKinnies, plus a good friend and pastor Joe Beach and his wife, Karen.  We had an unbelievably good time and, since that party 6 weeks ago, I admit to having become hooked on researching and buying quality wine at value prices.  It has been a great hobby which I've really come to enjoy.  I've set limits on myself by not spending over $10 on a bottle of wine (actually I haven't spent more than $7.99 yet) and have even purchased a wine rack and ordered a small wine refrigerator in order to keep some of the wine at proper temperatures.

Micah recommended an awesome book: Kevin Zraly's Windows On the World:Complete Wine Course which has really helped me understand the wine industry in general as well as come to appreciate how wine (like our enjoyment of rugby and soccer) truly does provide us a "window" to much of the rest of the world.  So far, I've acquired wine from 7 different countries: the U.S. (California, Oregon, and Washington), New Zealand (perhaps our favorite import for the obvious reason that we lived in the Marlborough region around Nelson which is world famous for it's quality Sauvignon Blanc), Australia, South Africa, France, Spain, and Chile.  I hope to add to our collection from a host of other countries in the weeks ahead.  In fact, I find myself scanning/researching weekly wine sales at several stores looking to find the "buried treasures" among all the sale items.

All in moderation of course but wine-buying and tasting has truly become a fun distraction with all of the other stressful things going on in our lives.

Beyond Theoretical Faith

On a very personal note, our family is walking an unparalleled journey of trust at the present time.  Not wanting to go into much detail in a public blog, I can say that most of the earthly props that we all depend on are significantly up-for-grabs.  That includes work, income, insurance, home. . . all the things that not only give us security and sometimes the illusions of "ownership & control" of our own lives but things that can actually take the place of God.  Ironically (or perhaps not), all this is happening when our oldest son, Adam, is (a) on the verge of graduating from high school and entering college and (b) facing possible heart surgery to replace a bad heart valve which doctors have insisted could be "just around the corner" since he was born.  Now the doctors are saying that Adam will probably need surgery in "another year or so, perhaps as early as next summer".  We are therefore asking ourselves and God many questions as we continue to sow seeds, some of which we have a vital hope that God is going to water. 

"Trust" for us then is not some theoretical idea or concept but something that we are having to choose on a daily basis!  Who are we gonna trust?  If it's to be is it up to me?  Up to Linda?  At the end of the day, Linda and I have discussed that books, ideas, theology, even cool stuff like Missional living goes out the window if we can't live out FAITH in this present time & context in a very practical way.  I can't tell you how difficult and scary this is but there are no shortcuts to faith when everything appears to be stripped away. 

Yet, in the midst of this uncertainty, Linda and I are also affirming each other that God has always been faithful. . . faithful in general but also faithful in all kinds of specific situations in our lives (often when we didn't even know how badly we needed God to be present).  There are far too many cases to recount here save for one very special event in December, 2005.  Some of you may recall that we had worked on plans for our New Zealand stay for the better part of that year.  Planning to leave on January 9th, 2006 all of our work was aimed at traveling to either Christchurch or Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand.  We had no place to live or work but for some reason we did not find that troubling at the time.  Then on the eve of our trip, we "happened" upon a wonderful couple from Fort Collins here in Colorado who not only owned a home in New Zealand but had just renovated their bottom floor into a rental flat with two bedrooms, a separate entrance, a kitchen, and even a washing machine.  As I had not ticketed us beyond Auckland, we quickly changed gears to live in the city of Nelson, on the northern end of the South Island.  And what an answer that turned out to be!  We lived right on the Tasman Sea in an absolutely stunning setting, Linda found work as a nurse, and we all made friends as we never would have expected.  So, God provided in ways we neither sought nor expected nor were even aware that we needed.  In hindsight, we have often said to ourselves "what were we thinking at the time?".  But, the truth is, those remembered events are now more important to us than ever. 

Contrary to what we often think, what separates us from the abyss is not our work, income, cleverness, or control.  What separates us from the abyss is our need to live an embodied walk of faith.  If we cannot live out something as simple as faith in the basic presence and goodness of God, all of our belief statements, theology, doctrines, ideas, and whimsical fantasies don't amount to a pile of manure.    In his writings, Stanley Hauerwas suggests that, contrary to Western sensibilities, God would rather find us faithful to Him than effective at whatever we do.  Personally, I see his comment as not only reflective of Scripture but highly missional.  Seek God first and everything else will fall into place.  The scary part is that we want to know/see it now.  Yet faith doesn't seem to be faith unless, at some point in our lives, we are willing to go beyond ourselves and certainly outside of our comfort zone.

So how will I be blogging this time period 6 months from now??? 

New Zealand Top 5 in Index of Economic Freedom

One of the more interesting perceptions we've run into since returning from New Zealand 6 months ago is the often heard comment: "Oh, New Zealand, they are that socialist country down by Australia, right?"  I can't tell you how many times we've encountered this perception. . . and it makes us laugh if it wasn't so ridiculously off base.  Don't get me wrong.  Kiwis have plenty of misconceptions about the U.S. as well (everyone owns a gun, right?  all kids belong to gangs? how many times have you been sued?) but the perception that NZ represents some kind of socialist nightmare is just plain ignorant foolishness!  And, frankly, it hacks me off.  So I was delighted beyond words to read in the newspaper the other day the just-released Index of Economic Freedom list for 2007 which ranks 157 countries as to the relative level of economic freedom their citizens enjoy.  Turns out that New Zealand is listed as #5 on the list behind only (in this order) Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and the U.S.  And the UK, which is often perceived as being even more suspect in American eyes is listed at #6, followed by Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Canada.

In any case, good on ya, Kiwis, for putting up with this American ethnocentric foolishness.  We see and will always remember your country as a wonderful community with freedoms (and risk-taking abilities) we don't even have here in the States.  We walked as a family along a cliff on the Tasman Sea near the Farewell Spit in Golden Bay.    The wind was howling as we stood at the edge of the precipice with the water far below and seals swimming in the waves.   As I sucked in my breath from the stunning scene of it all, I couldn't help but be convinced that we would never have been allowed to walk this risky path in the states.  There would be railings, cement walks, legal warnings, and/or barbed wire fences all for liabilities sake and to "protect" us from accidents.  Was the setting somewhat dangerous?  Yes!  But I loved reading recently the common Kiwi perception  that "if you somehow get hurt, its your own damn fault" not the fault of your neighbor or the government or whatever.  So, Linda and I go on giving our fellow Americans a reality check re: NZ whenever we can.  And would gladly (and right now eagerly) trade our currently drab Colorado winter for a few weeks of stellar summer in New Zealand!!!

Oh yes. . . my son, Adam, is hosting a event this Friday in what has become an informal Friday Night Movie Club.  His movie of choice that he'll be showing?  The World's Fastest Indian, a true story partially filmed in NZ (down by Invercargill) of a Kiwi who successfully broke the world's land speed record for motorcycles with his homemade invention in the 1950's.  I hope to join my son's friends for the occasion:-).   

The Brit Lord Ernest Rutherford?

Just one humorous example of how our New Zealand experience stays with us.  Our oldest son, Adam, was in chemistry class the other day when they read in their textbooks about the famous Lord Ernest Rutherford from England who is considered to be the "Father of Nuclear Physics".  "Excuse me", Adam insisted, "Lord Rutherford is not only NOT from England but was born and raised in Nelson, New Zealand and is therefore a Kiwi through and through.  He even graduated from Nelson Boys College where I was able to attend for a few days.  Hope you don't mind, but I'm gonna cross this out in my textbook and write in the truth" which he proceeded to do.  A great example of (a) how we continue to talk about New Zealand daily (b) how textbooks must always be questioned as part of the critical thinking taking place in any quality class.  More on this later.

 

The Haka Comes to America

This is for my Kiwi friends.  I was fascinated this week to read a full length front page newspaper story about how the haka (a ritual war dance originating among the Maori culture on New Zealand over 200 years ago) has now come to the U.S.   I had heard rumours of the haka being performed prior to a rugby match at one high school here in Denver but this is this first verifiable article I've see about it elsewhere.  It seems that a Tongan player (among 24 Polynesians on this high school football team--Kiwis call it gridiron--in Texas) saw a video of the haka ritual being performed as has become custom before an All Blacks rugby match (the New Zealand national team--currently the best rugby team in the world).  After consulting with local Tongan community leaders and teaching it to the team, the haka was performed at a local boosters club and has now become custom to peform, as with the All Blacks, before every football/gridiron contest.  While the haka originated among the Maori in NZ, it has since been adopted by a number of Polynesian cultures, including that of Tonga, an island kingdom in the southwest Pacific east of Fiji.  While performing the haka before athletic contexts is not without controversy (including a recent brewha over a new All Blacks haka with a throat-slitting motion before the end), it has become a source of pride among the local Polynesian community.  "We do the haka to ignite the breath of competition.  It means that I have your back and you have mine" described one player.  After showing a videotape of it's performance to a group of local Tongan residents, Ilaiasi Ofa, the executive director of the Voice of Tonga (a local advocacy group for Tongan immigrants) told how he had "two older men with tears in their eyes tell me afterward, 'after seeing that, we know that our future generations wil be accepted here'". 

Americans know that football/gridiron has a cult-like following in West Texas so the integration of this Maori ritual into one section of rabid American culture is indeed worthy of a front page article in the newspaper.  Just as an aside, the Trinity Trojan high school team won the Texas 5A championship last year.  So, for Kiwis in general and Maori in particular, I wonder if offense has been taken now that the haka as crossed over to the States by way of Tongan immigrants in Texas.  For those of you who have never seen the haka performed, I suggest you to go to www.allblacks.com and click on the haka in the left sidebar.  Our family has been able to watch the All Blacks rugby matches here in Denver even after returning to the States and we always gather around to watch this awesome piece of NZ/Maori tradition.  It reminds of us the incredibly great time we had in NZ for the first 6 months of this year!!!

Good On Ya, Kiwis

Yesterday, I had to make a phone call to New Zealand to cover an administrative matter.  The bloke on the other end of the line was Kiwi through and through.  And I chuckled with pleasure at hearing the accent for the first time in almost 3 months.  I know, I know. .  . we Americans are the ones with the accent but how special it was to relive a bit of our status as "experiential tourists" in New Zealand all over again.  We miss it every day!  Cheers, mate.  It  was "sweet as" to talk to you on the phone yesterday.   We're watching the All Blacks at every opportunity and looking forward to the Super 14!  What's more is that we're expecting snow in the mountains here in Colorado for the first time this weekend. . . a sure sign of fall and winter around the corner just as you in NZ are coming into spring.  Can we figure out a way to go back. . . say around January???

Comparing Health Care Systems in the U.S. and NZ

For the first time in years I wrote a letter to the editor of our local Rocky Mountain News after a commentary editorial was printed yesterday implicitly critisizing health care systems in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand.  Printed under the banner headline (in our paper) "Health-care Horror", I was shocked at how he compared the U.S. health care system to those in Canada, the UK, and New Zealand.  Granted, every country has problems in health care delivery but, after living in New Zealand for most of 2006, I found Mr. Murdock's comments ignorant, arrogant, and plain wrong.  You can read his original column in full (under a different title) at http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/11723.  The following is my response.  We'll see if it gets printed.

Responding to New York commentator Deroy Murdock in his ill-informed and culturally narrow column headlined by Health-care Horror, it would appear that Mr. Murdock has not worked within an actual health care system be it ours or (to cite his anecdotal examples) systems in Canada, the UK, or New Zealand.  Coming from a different perspective, my wife has worked for the past 25 years as a registered nurse at Denver Health Medical Center and, together with our family, just returned from a six month stay in New Zealand motivated at least in part by our desire for her to work in a health care system different from our own.  We know some of the advantages and disadvantages inherent in our own supposedly free-market approach to health care (which, truth be known, already includes “socialized health care” in the form of Medicare and/or Medicaid for a significant percentage of our population).  Having worked to acquire a NZ nursing license, we were very curious as to the strengths and challenges inherent in a more “nationalized” approach. 

It should come as a shock to no one that, as a scarce commodity, all countries ration health care!  The question of the moment, of course, is how or upon what basis such health care is rationed and what unavoidable inequities/inefficiencies are incurred as a result. After working at two hospitals in New Zealand’s more nationalized system, we found that contrary to Mr. Murdock’s inference of mediocrity where compensation is lacking, Kiwi patients generally receive excellent health benefits from caring professionals whose teamwork approach to health care is, in many cases, superior to our own.  The inequities/inefficiencies of this model exist in the form of waiting lists for some surgical procedures although, in the Kiwi model, private insurance is available for those who can pay.  Yet ALL citizens have equal access to the basics of care.  Contrast this model with the strengths and inequities of our U.S. model where, despite our perceived edge in terms of infrastructure, research, and technology, a significant percentage of our own population remains uninsured for even basic health care, playing a daily game of “Russian Roulette” with accidents and illness. . . risking, praying, and yes gambling that without health care affordability (one of the ways we ration health care) the unforeseen accident will not happen to them or to their children because, if it does, the consequences will be catastrophic in every way imaginable and are certain to last a lifetime.

We care passionately about the present heath care situation in our country.  Like every country we know of, modern health care delivery lives in a state of crisis every day.  Contrary to Mr. Murdock, we are not advocating one system over another and, although we could offer plenty of anecdotal stories to rebut his claim of American superiority in the field of health care (as a more “market-friendly” system), we will offer only one.  One year ago next month, we lost a very dear friend to heart failure who, we found later, was secretly struggling with all the identifiable symptoms of heart failure yet, without affordable health insurance, could not see a way to get his heart checked out.  Mac was a 35-year-old employed artist and father of three.  If he lived in New Zealand, Mac might still be with us today.       

Evaluating Our Overseas Experience (OE)

In my fondest hope that some of you may plan your own OE (Overseas Experience), let me briefly evaluate where we have been delighted with our recent trip and where have been challenged to re-think some things for our next international trip. 

We are delighted that:

1.  We followed through in taking the trip.  I think you can tell through this blog that our OE was a life-changing experience.  Our cultural exposure to three different countries was incredible and we loved the opportunity to learn by doing. 

2.  We stayed in one place for so long.  In looking back, we combined the best of both worlds by calling Nelson, New Zealand home for almost 5 months yet still were able to "hit the road" for extended trips on both the South and North Islands of New Zealand as well as two weeks in and around London (UK) then finally 5 days in Fiji.  We loved every minute of our trips but are still very grateful we spent so much time in Nelson where we could put down some roots in getting to know friends and Kiwi culture more deeply.

3.  We experienced an enormous learning curve re: traveling internationally and are eager beyond words to apply what we learned on another trip.  Among so many things, I/we learned how to navigate issues of finances, communication, technology, transportation, cross-cultural learning, and maintaining a home in another culture and country.  Contact me if you want more details on any of these for your own OE.   

Based on our recent trip abroad, we would rethink:

1.  Everything connected to immigration.  We were definitely caught off guard by the complexity of immigration issues especially where/when we wanted to stay beyond the time frame of a typical tourist (New Zealand).   We would now begin planning for visa realities a full 18 months prior to leaving.

2.  The implications of culture shock and time zone travel.  Prior to this trip, we were intellectually aware of what this would mean but, in the future, we will be better prepared for the realities of living as an "outsider" in another country/culture (culture shock) as well as the temporary though highly disorienting nature of traveling across so many time zones.

3.  What we took with us in terms of personal possessions.    On the recommendation of several friends, we tried to travel as light as we could but, after reflecting on this trip, we now feel like we have much better grasp of necessities vs. hindrances.  Again, contact me if you want more details in this area.

Finally, with a sense of humor, I learned that:

1.  Americans have accents!  2.  Sports is highly dependent on cultural context! (The Soccer World Cup is only one example) 3. Rugby is an incredible sport! (I am missing NZ rugby in a huge way as both a Kiwi cultural icon as well as a fascinating competition--thanks Nick and Karel!)  4.  Don't travel in the London Underground with heavy luggage--it doesn't have elevators!       

Cheers!

This may be my final posting for several weeks as we slowly make our way back to the States.  A friend and former student in London recently emailed me this comment which will provocatively occupy my thoughts over the next few weeks: “I'll be very interested to see how your family’s thinking progresses and how your life is changed after first getting back, and then in six months, and then a year. Will you take new opportunities you wouldn't have otherwise? Or will it just change the way you do what you already did before?”  Awesome questions!   It will be interesting for us to see life unfold after this trip, too.  Yet, we leave New Zealand completely unsure of the answers to these questions (I desperately hope it’s both). . . and are a jumble of emotions this morning as we say (good-byes), savor (memories), sort (5 months of life here), give away (what we can’t take back), pack (“Dad, can’t we find room for that?”), wash (glad it’s going to be nice day for hanging laundry—clothes dryers have never caught on here in NZ), clean (fortunately a small place), “shift” (Kiwi for “move” into Nelson tomorrow) and leave (on Saturday). God only knows what the future holds.  It’s been fun writing a snapshot of words in this blog over the past couple months, trying to capture our journey so far. . . our journey here in NZ and our journey in life.  In fact, keeping a blog seems to be much like what we’re doing this morning. . . . using words in a very public way to “say, sort, give away, pack, wash, clean, shift, and leave”.  Thanks for your thoughts, email, and encouragement in this process.  If you have a chance and want to continue together, check back on this blog occasionally over the next few weeks. . . when convenient, I may try to post some new entries along the way. Kia Ora!  (Maori for greeting and/or farewell!)