We quickly discovered, on our walk from headquarters to the Bazaar (the downtown area filled with thousands of little shops where you can buy anything you could ever imagine except for size 13 sandals–I’ll explain this later) that Pakistan is not a tourist country. I’m sure that for them to see four tall Americans walking down their streets was like something out of a movie.

Let me tell you what I saw.

I wasn’t looking for them at first, but I found myself drawn into their eyes. Where I am from, people are in a hurry scuttling from point A to point B and are to “busy” to look up and see the people that they are walking through. When I am in the big city here, I notice that people keep their eyes down so that they won’t be noticed nor will they have to notice anything around them. I am sure that people that I walk next to walk from point A to point B without looking up once (there is a significant spiritual implication to that).

I was startled by how many eyes that I saw. This may sound strange–who takes note of such a peculiar phenomenon? It wasn’t just their eyes that I was drawn to, though–it was stories that their eyes told.

Curiosity, Anxiety, Trust, Distrust, Appreciation, Indifference, Innocence, Relief, Pain, Friendship….

We were looking for chai and a gas stove and found the people of Pakistan to be nothing like what we were prepared for them to be like. I was expecting to help people, not to become drawn into their story. I think that there is a big difference between the two. It is easy to show up in a different country and be unimpacted by what you see and experience. It is easy to live in Pakistan for two weeks with an American perspective, on an American timeline, eating American food, hanging solely with American people. Where is the fullness in that? What a mistake it would been to brush past the people that we saw in those streets just like we brush past the people in our country that we walk through day after day after day. Their eyes yelled stories to me–stories that rang of pain, desperation, appreciation, and kindness. Stories that they couldn’t nor wouldn’t share with me but that I was able to experience in those few short moments.

As I look back on those initial encounters in Manserah, I am overwhelmed with what I really learned. I discovered what these people were going through, how they viewed me, and what it was going to mean for me to make a difference in my time there. The difference made was going to have little to do with building shelters and much to do with building relationships.

I’ll never forget their eyes. From that moment on, I trained myself to intentionally look into eyes to “hear” their stories. Hardly could I understand their language, yet much could I understand their story.

Imagine if we lived that way every day in this country….

Once loaded (much like mustard sardines are packed into tins that are much too small for them) we were soon to be on our way. Unforunately, as we made our first official count, we weren’t sure exactly what our number was supposed to be. Sometimes the count came out at 39 and other times at 40. We decided that it sounded close enough and departed. While the counting was happening, Jeff, being a bit of a busy body (he could never sit in one place while others wasted his time) decided that he was going to buy our first taste of Pakistani naan. Naan is a delicious, doughy flatbread meant to be used to scoop up other more liquidy foods. The people of Paksitan do not use silverware, they just always have naan, chipatti, or brata available. This naan was especially tastey (and oily) and was the last real memory I had before arriving in Manserah (a 2.5 hour drive from Islamabad).

I really wanted to see Pakistan, but try as I might, I simply could not keep my eyes open. Luckily, I was sitting next to one of my newer friends from South Carolina (Chris) who happened to have shoulders the size of throw pillows. In some sub-level I must have decided that his shoulder looked really comfortable, at least more comfortable than the metal bar in front of my face.

I will speak in depth later about what road transportation in Pakistan is like. For now, let’s just say that there are no discernable laws and if you do not have a horn, you might as well not drive…because you will die! I will also elude to the sensation of traveling by vehicle. Your insides move from side to side so suddenly that you’re afraid to throw up becuase you might lose a dislodged intestine, kidney, or lung. I don’t know if my guts have ever moved from side to side inside of my body like they did in Pakistan. Passing is a full contact sport and requires much courage and seemingly a lack of common sense. All I remember from our drive is three feelings: Feeling number 1: the aforementioned feeling; Feeling number 2: my legs falling asleep but not being able to do a darn thing about it; Feeling number 3: my face bouncing off Chris’s shoulder and into the metal bar. These were all equally uncomfortable but there wasn’t a darn thing I could do about them so I slept.

At last we pulled into Manserah where the headquarters of our NGO (non-government organization) were located. For the sake of confidentiality I will never mention the American organization nor the International organization that we were working with on my blog.

Those of you who referenced my last post were introduced to the mindset of our team. Compound all of that with a short night sleep and finally arriving at a destination where people knew something. Here we were–40 American men in northern Pakistan ready to make a difference with visions of helicopter rides to the top of some remote mountain. (In reality, the mindset was certainly that of serving the people of Pakistan. It wasn’t like we were all there trying to prove ourselves or be especially impatient. We wanted to be a part of making a difference/saving lives/serving these people/building shelters that might help these people through the winter. We realized that we were there for a short time and that it was getting colder and colder in Pakistan.)

Before I continue, I feel the need to bring you up to speed on how so many men heard about this opportunity and ended up in Pakistan. This will help you understand why our first moments in Manserah were difficult moments.

Shortly after the earthquake destroyed much of northern Pakistan, an individual who acted as a representative for one of the organizations that we worked with sent out an email that was entitled, “Come Before Winter”. This was an emotional appeal sent because the need was so great in Pakistan and so few people even knew about it. Later, we found out that this email was sent enmasse to churches all over America without the organizations that we were working with being in the know about it’s existance. Thus, no one was prepared for an overwhelming response. On the bright side, the email worked and got 40 of us to Pakistan in the first of three waves. On the not so bright side–no one in Pakistan was ready for us!

Back to the story:
A representative met us at the gate of our headquarters with the following words, “Men, thanks for coming. You have two hours to get settled here…orientation will begin promptly at 1:00pm. Oh, and get comfortable because most likely you won’t be leaving for a day or two.”

We all understood the first sentence but none of us knew how to process the second. We had all read the “Come before Winter” and knew that we were in a race against the clock for people’s lives. What we couldn’t understand (because we didn’t know the above information) was why they weren’t ready for us. It seemed like a perfectly good way to waste time and potential for all of us to stay put for “a day or two”.

I think that God wanted all of us to know that we were their because of Him and that we were on His timeline and not ours or any other American timeline.

Luckily, Jeff, Justin, Ben and I were all the type that adapted quickly to information like this and decided to spend our next couple of hours becoming assimilated to the culture of Manserah. We all figured that if this was going to be our home for the next day or two, we might as well figure out where everything was.

We quickly stowed our gear and left the compound in search for a propane stove and a cup of chai–not necessarily in that order. Did I mention that none of us spoke a lick of Urdu or Kohistani?

Landing at Islamabad Int’l Airport was like landing in a different world. There were no fancy walkways from the plane to the terminal. There weren’t dozens of planes lined up to be boarded and get on their way. There were two other planes (small ones), buses waiting to drive us from the runway to the terminal, and several airport security personnel fully loaded with machine guns. Welcome to a country that isn’t big on, nor used to foreigners!

We cleared customs, exchanged our American dollars for ruppies (60 ruppie to $1.00) and were standing outside of the airport looking to secure a couple of buses to get us from there to a hotel somewhere. It was already 1:00am.

As we walked out of the airport, the first thing that I noticed (other than the fact that it was really cold) was that all of the televisions were broadcasting American All-Star Wrestling. I’m not a big fan of All-Star Wrestling so I have no idea who was wrestling or what organization it was, but a couple hundered men were wrapped in blankets watching what appeared to be their favorite American wrestlers competing. Seemingly, watching wrestling isn’t a passive experience for the men of Pakistan, rather it was quite an active one as men would shout, punch each other and cheer on their favorite wrestler. I got more of a kick out of watching the men than what was on the television.

Here was the mindset of the men that I was traveling with. Ah–before the mindset, first the type of man that was on this trip. The majority of men that were on this team of 40 were type-A, All-American business men that were used to being the leader. Now picture that scenario, only add 39 hours of non-stop traveling in uncomfortable quaters and you can probably imagine the mindset of the majority of the team. We were tired, stiff, in a new world that none of us knew anything about, and ready to get to work. This scenario made securing our bus from the airport to the hotel quite an adventure. Hopefully my friend Corey from South Carolina can chime in on that adventure as he was attempting to point lead the entire experience.

To make a long story short, we secured our buses, had to figure out payments and how to pay the five guys who volunteered (we thought) to load our luggage, and were on our way to the hotel. We arrived around 1:30am, got into our rooms and most were asleep by 2:00am. We were set to wake up that morning at 5:30am so that we could get back on the buses that would take us up to Manserah.

I slept hard for those 3.5 hours, woke up, washed up as best I could, and took the advice of my wife who knew what traveling by vehicle in a country like Pakistan would be like. Her number one advice to me before I left was, “If you know that you are going to be taking a vehicle, take Dramamine!”

I did…good thing!

From this point, I will begin to quote my journal from the trip. When I quote my journal, it will be in italics, giving me the ability to elaborate beyond my writings (in normal script).

December 1, 1:28am

An interesting thing happend to me on the flight from Bangkok to Pakistan. After an hour of the flight, I met a guy on the plane named Hassan. I was the minority on this flight and everyone noticed! I had pulled out my immigration form for Pakistan to begin filling it out. Hassan noticed and asked if he could see the document that I was working on. He noticed that I was American and wondered if it was my first time to Pakistan. I told him that it was and we proceeded to have a 2-hour conversation about life, faith, politics, and family. It was amazing! We ended by exchanging email addresses. Here’s the funny part–as soon as we landed in his country, he pretended that we hadn’t even spoken to one another. It was as though he didn’t even know me. Nonetheless, I plan on emailing him when I get home to see if we can build on the friendship that we began on that flight.

Hassan said something to me that I’ll never forget and that I would hear again and again as I was in Pakistan. He said, “On this plane, it makes no difference what your faith is and what mine is. We can be friends anyway.”

It was then that I made the most valuable discovery of the trip: I am polluted with the American Narrative.

With 9/11, the War in Iraq, the war on terrorism, the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the price of gasoline, the Al Queda playing cards, the political cartoons, movies depicting Arabs as angry and anti-American etc. etc. etc. (the list goes on and on) the narrative of America has become, “Muslims are the enemy.”

Now I didn’t think that I had ever bought into that reality. I follow Christ right? I have no enemies. How deceived I was and we all are in this country.

Let me ask you a question and I want you to answer honestly to yourself. When you are sitting on an airplane and you see an Arab man get on, do you take special notice?

I would make the bold statement that you are lying if you say, “no”.

I never considered Muslims my enemey, however the American narrative (I began to understand to my horror) had woven its way into the way that I thought about these people. My conversation with Hassan proved the opposite to be true. Whatever the reasons that he responded the way that he did when we landed, I’ll never know. What I do know is that I had a deeper, more meaningful conversation with him than I had had with anyone on a plane in the longest time (if ever).

One thing that you need to understand about me is that I am not into the 4 Spiritual laws (at all) or forcing a spiritual conversation on an airplane. Many “Christians” salivate when they think about airplane conversations (conversions). As if for some reason they think that the person sitting next to them trying to read is dying to get into a “religious” conversation with them. I also don’t want to discount many important moments that some people have experienced on airplanes. Some reading this might have come to say yes to Jesus in just such a moment. All I am saying is that this is not my style. Airplane time for me is highly introverted. It is 2-4 uninterrupted hours that I have in silence to read, write, or think (unless a “Christian” tries to convert me–believe me, this has happened before!).

All this to say, I don’t get on an airplane to prey on whoever is next to me. If God opens a door to get to know the person, great! If not–great!

That is why my conversation with Hassan was such an eye-opener. Not only did we get to know each other, I learned about the worldview of Muslims and discovered that they are kind, tender, hospitable people–perhaps more so than most Americans. Did I mention that he had volunteered to help us secure taxis and a hotel if we needed help in the terminal?

Maybe some of the misconceptions that he had about Christians and Americans were altered in those two hours as well. Who knows–God does I guess.

By the way, if you are reading this blog and don’t consider yourself a “Christian” that is okay. You might even want to read my post, “The difference between church people and followers of Jesus” October 2005. Know that in Pakistan and any other Muslim nation, you are considered “Christian” simply because you are from the west.