for that day

I have had a garden here for about a month now, but now, finally, I've actually got something growing in it!! The two gardeners gave us some plants and their expertise!! These are little bok choi plants with these cute little tents made from leaves to provide them shelter from the devastatingly hot sun! The fence is to stop the chooks from indulging in my little plants.

But that's not the point of my blog today. Last night we went to youth group because the youth had put on a culture night. They had split into groups to present dance and costumes (and quirky facts) about other 16 different cultures. I was amazed at how much they could do with the little they had. It really was a dessert for the vision - a Japanese lady, walking sedately, fanning herself accompanied by a ninja! A Maori woman doing a poi dance with a warrior doing the haka (as a kiwi this was very fun to watch!). Dancers from Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Fiji, Vanuatu, all clothed in various types of grass skirts or flowing gowns, but all showing their unique differences. A tea-towel headed Saudi Arabian man with his completely shrouded wife. A Kenyan woman, tall, brightly coloured, with all the regal splendor that comes with a African nations. The rappers from the USA and the giggling girl in jeans. It was amazing seeing how these Solomon Island youth from our church transformed themselves to dress and dance like other cultures.

There were two things that really struck me that night, apart from the wonderful performance.

After each pair from the different cultures came in, they showed a few slides with information about the flag, the population/language/currency, what the country is famous for, what their religions are and what their prayer needs are. What a novel thought! Praying for a country. Can't say I'd really thought about that before. I mean, not just prayed for the persecuted people in a country, but prayed, about a problem in a country. Anyway, the thing that struck me is this. That of the sixteen nations that were represented, most of them (apart from Saudi Arabia and Japan, I think) had high percentages of "Christianity". Solomon Islands was 97%. Other Pacific Islands had similarly high percentages. USA was 70 something, NZ 40 something percent. Now I don't know where they got the numbers from and it's obvious that none of them are accurate. You can't look at how many people tick "Christian" on a poll and say, well that's the percentage of Christians. I mean, why would I be in the Solomon Islands if 97% of the people were faithful, God-fearing Christians?!! In addition I highly doubt if NZ even has 20% of people who are faithful to God.

One of the locals had told me that a New Zealander had told her recently that NZ is predominantly Christian. Well, you've got to be pretty blind to think that's true! We might have some kind of lose Christian historic heritage, we might have public holidays on Easter and Christmas, but you ask anyone on the street (let alone look at their lives) and you can bet on the dirt underneath your boots (not that we bet...), they won't be living a life that honours Jesus as their Master. The closest they may ever have come God is going into a remodelled church building that has become a classy cafe,

My point is that it just struck me how easily we accept those stats, or how easily we think, I live in a Christian country when there are so many people blindly walking to an eternal fate of damnation! I think those statistics lull us into thinking that the problem is not that bad. Anyone would believe the world is predominately Christian and yet it is painfully obvious that this is not so. Maybe it's one of Satan's tactics to make us lazy. There's no work to be done - everyone's already a Christian! Little do we know...

Secondly, and more hopefully, at the end of the individual country displays, each of the representatives of the cultures came on stage and dramatised a song about how one day on that day, when Jesus returns, people of every culture and race will gather together praising their King. What an inspiring message that was - seeing those people dressed as Tongans and Africans and Indians and Arabs and Asians joined in a dance depicting the way we will all bow down in praise and adoration of our King. (It also reminded me of how deluded we can be to think that most of the Church today is white... I can't remember the facts, but I think there are more Asian Christians than white ones!) Oh what a glorious day that will be, when our cultural differences don't separate us because we will truly be one people of God. It made me long for heaven, again, and filled me with joy at the prospect of bowing before God, in utter, sheer amazement, together with everyone else in God's kingdom, of different colour or culture, but now to find our unity in the Kingdom of God. Will every country be represented on that day? will every city in every country be represented? Will every family be represented in that city on that day? Lord of harvest send forth reapers!

This week I read that Martin Luther had only two days on his calender. Today and that day. "I want to live today for that day".