Emerging from the Shell, Part 7: From TV to Scenery

So, sorry for the hiatus! I am writing to you on an absolutely STUNNING day in Oxford--so stunning, in fact, that it has all the native Brits somewhat befuddled. I simply cannot remember the last time we had rain, or even a fully cloudy day, and I'm a little worried that all the sun is going to start affecting the people. Who knows, maybe they'll start being, heaven forbid, emotionally demonstrative! My Irish friend frankly admitted that all the sun was making her uncomfortable, but I must say seeing the sun glint off of the shimmering vermillion hues outside my window, or running through blankets of cherry blossoms, or challenging geese for dominance at our picnic spot along the river Thames--well, I can imagine worse fates.

But I must get back to Macedonia, before I forget about it! I believe I left off (roughly) on Thursday. This was our second day of lectures, featuring Deborah on Milton and Helen on TOEFL prep. But the evening was the main event: the Veritas Forum, the very public inaugural launch of the Balkan Institute for Faith and Culture. The mission of the BIFC is, as I may have stated earlier, to bring Christianity out of the shadows into the public discourse. Nowhere was this more explicitly manifested than in the Veritas Forum, a Harvard-founded program that has spread across the globe, bringing Christians and non-Christians together in dialogue on issues relating to faith. For our incarnation, Jonathan gave a fascinating talk about his research into the intersection of spirituality and film. Art, and this medium in particular, he argued, has a unique ability to act as a conduit for profound spiritual experiences. We have all been touched by a particular movie, and many people can relate to the possibility of film as a life-changing experience. God, in other words, can act through art, using people's expressive gifts to communicate important, otherwise inexpressible truths.

It was a fascinating talk, even when broken up by translation. It's just too bad that Jonathan's respondent, a Macedonian academic, couldn't have been disrupted likewise. We had utterly no idea what he was saying--well, except for when we caught words like "Nietsche," or "Marx," etc. Before my mind started to cloud over, and before we all fell into giggling fits at Christian's Macedonian "translation," I caught a surprising number of such words. Evidently, we heard later, the professor went on a long, meandering "who's who" of philosophical thought in response to Jonathan's talk (which only put the latter's presentation in a better light, incidentally).

The Macedonian-speaking audience clearly did not have trouble following the discussion, though, since the question and answer time was active, engaged, and abundant--not just in terms of thoughts, but of people! There must have been over 200 people in the meeting room of the Skopje Holiday Inn (a very nice establishment, by the way), including some inquisitive students who we had spoken with earlier in the week at the Nova School, and who were eager to continue the discussions started there. It was a great cross-section of people, of all demographics, from Christians whose extended lifespans had given them much opportunity to come to know God, to young people who were still exploring matters of faith. Furthermore, the talk was filmed by national television, and since there aren't that many programs to fill its roster, the people of Macedonia will have many more opportunities to hear Jonathan's paper!

The forum was therefore a fantastic experience, not just for the discussions started, but for the exposure it gave to the BIFC. Hopefully Kosta and Nada will now be able to build upon a public perception positively enhanced by the talk.

Friday dawned, though, and with it a whole different experience of Macedonia. From issues of media and culture, disseminated by national television, we went to probably the most distanced place from it: St. Peter's Monastery, an orthodox brotherhood perched high on the side of one of the Macedonian mountains.

Emerging from the Shell, Part 6: Finding Unity

One of the most amazing parts of the trip, though, was the fellowship we were able to have with Christians (I'm going slightly out of chronological order, but hope that my attempts at thematic cohesion will make up for it.). On Tuesday night, right after our meeting with the MP, we headed over to Exodus, the undergraduate Christian fellowship with which Kosta and Nada are affiliated. Unfortunately, we hit exam time, so the attendance was a bit lower than normal, but there was no way we could have predicted this. You see, at least at Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, there is no pre-ordained schedule for exams; students don't know when they're going to occur. Imagine the horror of opening your email box to find a message from the Macedonian version of Robert Bromfield: "In t minus two weeks, you will be called up for examination..." Gah! It utterly blows my schedule-dependent American mind! Of course, as one student pointed out to me, no one would start studying for the exams before that point anyway, and this allows the university to maximize the limited space, once they know which rooms are available. But it would hardly sit with my neurotic tendencies.

Nevertheless, we filled the small Exodus room's bright reddish-orange chairs to capacity (largely due to our group), and it was so amazing to sing, pray, and talk with believers who, though may speak a different human language, speak the same spiritual language. Peter brought his guitar and his songsheets, and had sat down with our hosts to see which songs would be familiar to all. At this point, much of the Macedonian Christian music repertoire relies on translated material, so the Macedonian students' gusto matched, or probably exceeded, our own. Then Matthew and I gave short testimonies. I talked about how my faith provides me with a unique critical perspective on the seventeenth-century literature that I study, and how I see this as part of God's calling in my life. Much more even than with the less overtly Christian talk at the Nova School, I am so grateful to have been able to share with these students, if for no other reason that it forced me to see my academic path as a single, cohesive spiritual journey; Princeton forced me to reevaluate why I do academics in the first place, and showed me how God can use it for His glory.

And how that glory is revealed in Macedonia! I am always amazingly touched whenever I go overseas at the incredible unity of believers. There is something about hearing "Here I am to Worship" sung simultaneously in two different languages that makes it so easy to believe that one day every knee will, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The Macedonian students we met come from such different backgrounds; the girl in my disciplinary group at Exodus, studying translation, faces such different challenges than I and my compatriots do. For us, higher education--even in the humanities--is a relatively smooth progression from one level to the next, with resources available at every level, at least to some degree, in our own countries; work hard, study hard, and one can commensurately rise. But in Macedonia the situation is so much more complicated, with exam results based on your status and who you know just as much as what you know. As the students explained, hard work may not lead to success, and if it does, that success likely lies outside one's home country, so what impetus is there to try and excel? It's truly a depressing situation that I cannot fully appreciate as someone who has not experienced it firsthand. But at least we can sing in unity together in Christ, in whom there is neither Jew, nor Greek--nor American, nor Macedonian.

To judge from the hospitality of the Macedonian believers, they have fully imbibed this concept. By the time Kosta elucidated the tenets of traditional Macedonian courtesy to strangers to us, we were already convinced of its truth. For example, on Thursday afternoon (I believe), the predominantly teenage members of the church's cooking group served us a DELICIOUS traditional Macedonian meal--at the traditional lunch hour, evidently (3 o'clock!!). As was to happen so often during the trip, we ate too much thinking that the (exceedingly satisfactory) first course was the main one. But it's easy to be deceived when the first course consists of traditional Macedonian salads of fresh vegetables, the colors of which are as much a measure of salivation as fresh healthfulness. After the traditional cucumber, tomato, and onion salad with a light olive oil dressing ("Macedonian salad"), paired with a light chicken soup, we were presented with large plates of roast chicken and the best rice dish I think I have ever eaten. Kosta told me it was a traditional method of preparation, in which the rice is fried, boiled in the chicken stock left over from the main dish, and then baked with vegetables in an oven. "Just like my mother used to make," he said. Well, it's amazing he's not 300 pounds, because it was absolutely delicious! (Bonolo and I quickly availed ourselves of the spice mix when we went to the grocery store) I really think the belief espoused by my beloved Princeton friend Avital holds true: you can taste love put into food. The time these girls had devoted to make the meal for our huge group, and the care with which it was served, was a beautiful testament to their spirit of servanthood.

We saw many of these girls again on Sunday (yes, I know it's out of order), when we attended the morning and evening services of Skopje's evangelical church. We, again, provided the speakers, but we still got a wonderful taste of the Macedonians' spirit. Their worship team was wonderful, even in the rather small multi-purpose sanctuary (the same room in which we ate our meal), which was completely overcome by the joyful noise produced in multiple different languages. The speakers themselves also spoke to this unity across international boundaries, as Bonolo (South Africa), Matthew (Singapore), Graham (England), and Deborah (India) gave personal testimonies to how God has worked in their lives, coupled with sermons given by Christian (Austria) and Jonathan (England).
Especially meaningfully for me, though, was the chance to actively contribute via a short a cappella solo. After hearing me sing the day before to a Macedonian dervish (don't worry, I'll get there eventually!), Kosta asked me right as we went into the service if I would sing something. This prompted a flurry of activity as I tried to find an appropriate song to which I also knew all the words. "What wondrous love"? Too depressing, not especially meaty, words-wise. "Amazing Grace"? Something a little more unusual would be better. My favorite hymn, "It is Well"? Not great as a solo. I ended up settling on "Be thou my vision"--which, I learned to my chagrin, has to be one of the most difficult-to-remember of all the foundational church hymns; all the lines are interchangeable! Thankfully, Deborah and her iPod came to my rescue. I didn't realize until later how stupid it was to choose a hymn that was written in antiquated English, but I trust that God used it somehow. It's such a blessing to sing in such a setting, as it facilitates actually thinking about the words, versus just singing them. "Be thou my vision," then, is an absolute gem, as it speaks to an issue that is for me a chronic one: putting God first, not "man's empty praise," or some ideal set up by the world. How easy it is to forget in our materially and prestige-driven society that God should be our vision!
 

Our hosts: Danny, Julie, Nada, and Kosta

After the service, we then went over to the house of some church members for an absolutely fabulous Sunday lunch! Actually, the word "lunch" is a bit of a misnomer, as to call this anything short of a "feast" does not do it justice. Our hosts, Danny and Julie, wanted to show us the height of Macedonian hospitality--and they certainly did! This time, our team's chronic strategic eating issue emerged even more forcefully: they told us that they would serve some food first, and then top it off with freshly roasted lamb afterward; sounded pretty straightforward. But the main course was much more than just lamb! We're talking a whole pot of Tavče Gravče, the stewed bean dish I talked about earlier, loaves of bread, roasted potatoes, roast pork, FABULOUS roasted sweet peppers...I can't even remember everything! And this was on top of the round of cold salads that we had been served earlier! And then there was dessert--one of the best cakes I have ever had, decorated with the logo of the Balkan Instititute for Faith and Culture, and homemade baklava! Troy was especially excited about this last item, as he had been talking about it the whole trip.

Baklava!

We stayed at Danny and Julie's house all afternoon, lazing about in the sunshine and talking about the state of Macedonia. The evangelical Macedonian church, we learned, is amazingly small--only about 1000 in the whole country! There are other Protestant groups who have been in the country much longer, for the last hundred years or so, but many of these, such as the Methodists, are shrinking year by year. The evangelical church, however, largely borne out of the internal schisms within these other Protestant groups, is growing--no doubt in part due to the incredible faith of people like Kosta and Nada. I will share a little bit more about that in my next few posts. I'm afraid now, though, that my fingers are suffering from keyboard rot. So until next time, chao!