I am drawn to the green sign with that distinctive green Siren with a crown on her head, like a moth surrendering to a hot bright light. My favorite coffee is made differently in Starbucks in Indonesia, but its still a Starbucks cup delivered up by young smiling faces who want desperately to write my name on their cup. A few minutes later, they yell out the name on the cup, in the crowded coffee shop, to the best of their ability. Its worth the price of the cup of nectar to hear them attempt saying my name out loud in their native accent. I love this place. I look around the Starbucks and smile back to young people smiling at me. They nudge their friends who smile and wave. I wave back. As I sit there, I notice that everyone looks the same here, in Indonesia, as they would in the USA. Young people, professionals, couples, and families with kids, all enjoying their time out. Most people in the shop have their phones out and are texting and surfing the web. Some laugh out loud and show their friends whats on their screen. Some professionals work on important things, or at least things that make them look important...Same as they do back home. I love Starbucks people. The more I enjoyed my time watching them, I thought, that most Americans should spend more time abroad when ever possible so that we can see other cultures apart from the image we are fed on all the media networks in our beautiful USA. I love my country of birth. At 78%, Indonesia is the most populated Muslim country in the World. So, as I look around the coffee shop and the busy mall where it occupies a space, I notice that we are a lot more similar than we are dis-similar. Muslims here, as most, want safety for their kids, getting paid for their work, having a dry place to go home to, food on the table, some time to spend with friends, and a nice cup of Joe every now and then. I love a good cup. We need to be very careful not to put all Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, Catholics, Methodist, Christians, Northerners, Southerners, Latins, and so on, or any other group of people, into the categories that we are fed 24 hours a day through our media systems. The main thing I pickup on when I occasionally watch TV is that, there are a lot of bad people out there, and they are out to get me. I dislike media gossip very much. What we need to remember, especially us Christ Followers, is that there are a lot of people out there, who are more similar to us in more ways than dis-similar from us, and just one of the Lords many instructions to us Christ Followers was, Acts 1:8 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” It seems, to me, that the media would have you stay scared and stay put. They say watch out for all those different people, and Jesus says, go find and talk to all those different people. We will never change them all to be like us...but we may find out that we like them, most of them, for who they are. “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the World.” Wick Jackson, In Indonesia
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 13:50:00 +0000
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