Christian Living

A Tale of Two Cultures

by Honey Stone
12/29/17
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Lessons from the Surgery

The Atmosphere of God

When I was in the hospital recovering from my surgery, I tried to get to know the nurses and so I asked about their families. I was looking for some opportunity for evangelism perhaps through some need they may have. One of the male nurses must’ve heard that I was asking about all of their families so he just started talking about his wife and psycho cat. 

He shared that when his cat got hungry it got really angry and would attack him but never his wife. He was going on and on about how vicious his cat was when I asked: “Do you want me to pray for your cat?” He turned to me with tears welling up in his eyes and said, “Would you?” 

That’s when the emotions got thick in the room and so I squeaked out, “Would you like me to pray now or in my quiet time?” And he scratched out, “In your quiet time.” as he rushed out the door. I felt like he wanted to leave so he could bawl in solitude. 

It reminded me of a time on a missions trip when someone gave me some money to pay for a mom and her kid’s food at McDonalds. I stepped up to the mom and told her that I wanted to pay for her meals. Both the cashier and the mom started to cry. The emotions amongst us got so heavy that I thought I was going to lose all composure. I dashed away without saying anything about Christ. 

I told the story to the guy who sent me on that mini-mission and gave me the ten dollar bill. He said that sometimes you don’t need to say anything. Sometimes God just shows up and people know it. 

Between Two Burdens

One of the most memorable parts of my healing was talking to two women from Eastern Bloc countries. One was a nurse and the other was my aftercare doctor. 

The nurse saw the books I was reading and turned one book over called Broken for a Reason. She looked me in the eye and said, “This one is good.” and from there we had a easy conversation about faith and Jesus and her homeland. We talked about the two culture syndrome. 

I was talking to my aftercare doctor about being disappointed because I believed that I was going get healed but I had to go through the surgery. She could see from my medical history charts that I’ve been healed of many other things. She said that we don’t know why God doesn’t heal everything. She asked me if I had a support group and I told her I belonged to a ministry/prayer group. She said that it is documented that Believers recover twice as fast as non-Christians from surgeries.

I had never had a doctor that I trusted until Olga. 

What I realized about the two women, Olga and Lena, is that there was easiness for me to be with them like I had not known with others. It was like there was a mentality bridge. I come from a Finnish sub-culture and so I came to believe that it was the combination of the strong faith and a similar cultural mentality and even the fact that we are women. 

It seems like Eastern European countries have the belief that the group is more important than the individual and that’s why communism is an easier route for them. There are the White Finns (Socialists) and the Red Finns (Communists) 

I began to realize some of my frustration with the American church. Believe me when I say that I love individualism. It is what makes me excel as an artist. You can’t be a conformist and be an artist at the same time because you have to be able to have original thoughts and you have to be in tune with your emotions. Emotions are not a liability like in other professions. It’s one of the few spheres in life where emotions are an asset. 

What made sense to me was my desire to always see a group move in the Spirit during worship or even while flowing in the prophetic. It was what I grew up with. There certainly was more of an emphasis on the Holy Spirit than on the Bible to the point that the Bible was almost overshadowed. 

In American culture, because of the individualistic emphasis, order has to be established one by one. People compete for the spotlight. That makes me yawn especially as people have to learn to be concerned more about the group. This is a long process. I went to art school to learn how to be individualistic and that process took time. Now I swing between both mentalities. 

In the more group-oriented church cultures, God can flow freely in spontaneous ways through a group. People are comfortable with something happening over here and also over there because somehow it all intertwines. Nobody is worried if others are out of order because it is the unspoken rule to be more concerned about others more than one self. No so with Americans, they always have to be reigned in. 

I dread hearing those group prophecies that say: we need to quit being so prideful or so focused on ourselves. Then I have to ask God if this applied to everyone in the room or those who are heavily influenced by American culture? 

I always have to take sermons and ask if this applies to my experience or just the typical American experience. Any time a preacher says: We need to _____. I always have to discern if that really applies to me. 

Quite frankly I get tired of how people judge my actions based on their Western thought when I am constantly and consciously going back and forth between Eastern and Western processing throughout my life and they are always only soaking in the spirits, strongholds, mentalities, and emotions (actually lack of) of the West. 

It is said that Finnish people come from the tribe of Issachar who have the prophecy: Issachar is a rawboned donkey, lying down between two burdens; He saw that rest was good, and that the land was pleasant; He bowed his shoulder to bear a burden, and became a band of slaves” Genesis 49:15-16. 

Quite frankly that scripture resonates with me.