Phill Sandahl

The essence of being a tentmaker is to live an integrated faith in all that you do, whether at work or play, so that others will see the work of the Father through you. This is true whether you are living in your birth culture, or as a guest in another culture. Living in another culture just adds another layer of complexity.

Interpersonal relationships are a big part of taking Christ to the nations. Holidays and celebration days are especially rich opportunities for building and extending those relationships. One might say it is peak “fishing season” for fishers of men. There are more opportunities for connecting and people seem to be in a more open and receptive mood.

Recently I came across some good lists of practical suggestions for how to share ones faith with neighbors and another one focused on the workplace. While there were a lot of useful ideas I quickly realized it was written by, and for, North Americans. Some will work, and some won’t, in multi-cultural settings. They are starting points to discover some of the best ways to engage people naturally in your specific workplace.

 These are my top 5 ways to engage cross culturally in the workplace:

 1. Share stories about your/their family traditions related to the holidays
 2. Share food from your/their cultural tradition
 3. Attend their parties – invite them to your
 4. Find out when there are special events in their lives (birthdays, etc) and seek
    to recognize and bless them
 5. Go out of your way to recognize the people who are often overlooked in the
     workplace. Learn the names of all the people in your workplace and pray for
     them.

Holidays offer increased opportunity to build relationships for those who are open to seeing them. It is “open Season” for fishers of men. It may not even be a holiday where you are, but a holiday of your host culture, which you are not accustomed to celebrating. Either way you win. There are twice as many opportunities in a multi-cultural setting.

 The Novena

An air of expectancy filled the neighborhood. The celebration of Quito’s Independence Day had passed and people were preparing for Christmas. Ecuador, having a long catholic tradition, has a celebration they call the Novena which takes place for the nine days leading up to Christmas. Each neighborhood wanted to do something together to recognize the season. Ours was no different.

Often Novenas just become pretexts for drunken partying completely missing the original purpose of preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus. With Ecuadorian friends we set out to redeem the time. We gathered all the adults in the neighborhood together and made our proposal. Each night we would have a party for all the children in the neighborhood. All of the families would contribute food and help with games and activities including the launching of brightly colored hot-air balloons which sailed off into the night – a favorite of all Ecuadorians.

The Christmas story was told in 9 installments, one for each night, accompanied by singing and visiting. Everyone had a wonderful time.

It was so successful that when the next major vacation event came along – Carnival – the neighbors said they wanted to do something special for that occasion as well. In the end a bus was chartered and the whole community rented a retreat house on the beach where all the families hung out together for a whole week.

 Strangers Bearing Gifts

There was a knock at the door. Who could it be? Diane was not expecting visitors. When she opened the door she was shocked to see a whole family of Indians with an armload of wrapped gifts. She greeted the strangers and asked how she could help them. Perhaps they knocked at the wrong home. No they explained, they had come to the right place.

We are your neighbors from the next block over, and we have been curious to meet you and know why you have come to our country. Though Christmas is not practiced in our land we know that in your country it is a time of gift giving, so we have come to give you gifts and meet you.

This was the beginning of an unexpected opportunity to share about Christ with the people of India with whom they had come to work.

 Cookies in India

Baking and sharing cookies with the neighbors during the holidays was a family tradition in our home. So when my grandchildren moved to India, they continued the practice there. They found it took on a new cultural twist. You can’t just drop the cookies off and leave. You are always invited in to visit. First you have to explain what the strange practice is and why you are giving things to your neighbors. Of course, there is also the serving of tea and conversation. Each visit will last from one to two hours so you need to allow lots of time and several days to complete the project.

At this time of the year it is easy to get caught up in buying and giving gifts. Perhaps one should ask instead, “How can I bless the people in my life?” then instead of focusing on buying and giving one might find that the best way to bless is to give of your time and energy. This is the real spirit of the season. “For God so loved the world, …He gave His Son…” because He wanted a relationship with us.