Tick Tock, Tick Tock....

Many years ago, in my pre-Honey days, I was actively seeking a position with a ministry entity which would require me to live and work in another country. This had long been a desire of my heart, so I was quite excited about an interview with a representative of a ministry I was researching. All these years later, I can not remember the man’s name but for the sake of this writing, I’ll call him Bob. Long before Bob was a recruiter for the organization, he spent decades in the mission field. I found his stories and experiences fascinating.

Since we both had been in Africa, I joked about learning to live on 'African time’. Basically, time as we know it means nothing to the average African. If you are told it will take an hour to get somewhere, you can expect the trip to be longer. Waiting for services, forget about it! You’ll get it when you get it. No amount of urgency or frustration on your part will speed up the process. You’re on African time.

Bob smiled, nodding his head. The difference, he explained, is that Africans do not base life on the almighty 24 hour dictations we do. Tapping his watch, he said we Westerners live by scheduled time, it’s important to us. We need it because we have created our lives around it. But in Africa, relationship is more important, not the hours in the day.

For instance, in America if we tell people we are having a party at 7 o’clock, people start showing up around 7 o’clock. In Africa, the party does not start at 7 o’clock on a timepiece. Their party starts when they meet their friends on the road walking to the destination. The party is not limited to festivities at a destination. The party starts on the journey with friends. Their party begins before ours and probably lasts longer; they do have the walk home.

People oriented vs. Time oriented. Life takes on a slower pace; a more relaxed mentality prevails. Perhaps, our advanced Western civilization needs a time out from time constraints. I rather imagine that’s how it was when Jesus walked the earth. He walked everywhere with people along for the journey. Relationships happened, ministry happened, miracles happened and not a Timex in sight.

Tick tock, tick tock, it is not about the clock……