Living In The 3rd Culture: Elisha

It took us longer than we wanted to collect our last two bags and get through customs and immigration at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, With the two hour delay we finally stepped outside the door and met up with my brother and his wife who had arrived shortly before us on another airline. Together we headed to a waiting van driven by a Kenyan named Elisha. After squeezing all our bags in the vehicle it took us almost another hour just to negotiate the traffic fighting to get out of the parking lot!

On the one and half hour drive to Kijabe, Elisha negotiated stalled trucks on the road and a police stop where the officers where looking for a late night tip - "lunch money." They didn't get anything from Elisha and we arrived safely at

about 1:30am. We used Elisha's services three more times in the coming weeks and on each occasion he took great care to get us to our destination safely and graciously. On the morning we left to return home, he picked us up at 3:45am, and as he delivered us back to Jomo Kenyatta Airport he told us his story.

Elisha who is now in his 60’s was the youngest of 14 children and grew up in an impoverished family. By the age 2 his father contracted a disease that left him paralyzed from the neck down and unable to care for the needs of his family. In an agrarian society this meant immediate poverty leaving his mother in a desperate struggle for survival. Over the coming years she lost 7 of her children to malnutrition and illness. Elisha often went without food.

When he was eighteen he had a dream where he was told that he should go to Kijabe, because the missionaries there were kind and would provide him with food, education and a job. Though he lived a considerable distance away, he obeyed what he was told in the dream and started walking. The journey through perilous territory took him three months relying on the kindness of strangers for food and lodging.

Due to security concerns a gate was in place at the entrance of the mission station and no one could enter who had not been invited by someone living or working there. Elisha knew no one! He was obviously very disappointed. Nevertheless, something inside him prompted him to ask if he could see the list of those who lived there. As he read through the list a name jumped out! It was his oldest brother whom he had lost track of and was now student a Moffat Bible School. Elisha not was only permitted on to the station, but he had a place to stay!

Several days later his brother took him to meet a missionary by name of Herb Cook – a close friend of my father – who had been praying for a young man to help at the Kijabe printing press. Elisha was given the job and thrived! Over the coming years he moved on to work in the operating room of the Kijabe Hospital where he sterilized surgical instruments for my childhood doctor, Doctor Bill Barnett. Dr. Bill taught him to drive, and he eventually became the driver for the hospital. In time he started his own business van service, transporting scores of people who come to work and volunteer at Kijabe.

Elisha prayed for a Godly wife and later married Esther, a jovial middle school teacher who radiates a love for people and the Lord. He also prayed “Lord, I want my children to have a good education and not just any degree, but advanced degrees." He and Esther were blessed with four children: Three sons who are respectively, a lawyer, a research scientist, and in upper management with an MBA. And a daughter who is a dentist and married to a pastor. Most important is that his children all love Jesus. Elisha concluded his story by saying something like this, “All my life I say, ‘God this is job, this business, this money, is Yours and I am trusting You to bring business to me'. This is His business.” An amazing story of God’s grace, by a man who genuinely gives God all the glory!

Third Culture Defined

The term “Third Culture” has been used in various ways. One “Third Culture” group “consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectuals in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.”Another common use of “Third Culture” in fact describes my personal experience. The term was first coined by sociologist Ruth Hill Useem, professor emeritus of sociology and education at Michigan State University. She used the term to describe children growing up outside their citizenship countries because of a parent’s work abroad. A “TCK or Third Culture Kid has since been defined as, “someone who as a child has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own, thus integrating elements of those cultures and their own birth culture, into a third culture" Though I am a TCK, it is my desire to use the term in referring to the people who make up the true Christian Church (Theologically defined as the “Invisible Church”). In other words, the Church is a Third Culture. Scripture teaches us that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law and the punishment of Hell, and through faith in Him we become citizens of His Kingdom, receiving not only the full benefits of citizenship in His Kingdom, but indeed the right to become sons and daughters of God. The moment, we step into this Kingdome we experience a new and different culture. We are no longer in the kingdom of darkness, but now live in the kingdom of light and that changes everything! At the same time we never went anywhere physically as we continue to work, live, and play with the same people as before, we see the world differently, we no longer truly fit – we are “in the world, but not of it” -- we have a new culture. For most of us this life changing experience occurs within our birth culture and our Christian experience is saturated by those influences. For those who grew up in non-Hispanic White North America, Christianity is uniquely different than those who grew up in an African American context. Our birth culture effects how we live out our faith in the Kingdom of Christ. Yet the Kingdom of Christ requires one more cultural shift and that is away from birth culture and into a culture made up of people of every ethnic and cultural group that has ever existed on the face of the earth. This Kingdom is no more North American than it is Tanzanian or Tibetan. It is a unique or shall we say a “Third Culture” that integrates elements of all cultures into one new and better one, where there is no Jew or Greek, slave nor free, male nor female“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal 3:26-298). In fact Revelation 7:9-10 gives us a description what this will look like one day:“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." A Third Culture Perspective is one that understands and appreciates that God gathers people from every ethnic and cultural group and brings them into the new culture of His Son Jesus Christ. It is a perspective where birth cultures are appreciated and respected as coming from God, but none are superior. It seeks to have a deeper understanding of the Gospel, pays attention to culture, our own as well as others, and then attempts to bring them together. It is a perspective that “seeks first His Kingdom and His Righteousness” and lovingly and passionately enjoys and glorifies God in all we do. It is a perspective that welcomes immigrants….

Elisha

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