I'm living where?

In preparation for my sabbatical, several people have asked me where I will be living. It's a reasonable question and so I wrote my friend Iyad in Bethlehem who made the arrangements asking him about the specifics. I was eager to google the address so I could figure out how to find my apartment, plot out my first trip to the open air market, and find my way to church.

Iyad wrote me back and told me that only the major streets have names and since everyone knows one another in Bethlehem, all you have to do is tell someone who you want to see and they will direct you to their home or place of business. I'm thinking, but how will anyone find me when no one knows me? Then, sensing my anxiety, he wrote:  "Don't feel bad. I'll create an address just for you. Here it is:

Karkafeh Street (no number)
Armenian Housing Project (no zip code)
Neighbor of Iyad Shreydeh

After I stopped laughing, it dawned on me that I am really walking into a very different culture. Home will no longer be identified by technology (a street, city, state zip, address) but by my relationship with others. How Un-American! Yes, I'm stating the obvious but I'm beginning to realize more deeply that I'm going to be living in a completely unfamiliar reality. No Peets, no IPhone, no google maps, no anonymity. That last one is very intriguing to me. While so much is familiar here in the Bay Area and I have gobs of friends, I can move rather anonymously through my neighborhood. Other than my public license plate (rev deb), no one knows what I do or has any inkling of who I am unless I tell them. I live in a world where I control what is known about me and who knows it. Of course, my vocation as a pastor has a very public dimension but being known in that way involved my choice. In Bethlehem, where I know only one person and nothing is familiar in this Palestinian town of 30,000+, I will not be able to navigate life apart from being connected to others. By choosing to live there, I am giving up part of my autonomy as an individual and will not and cannot be perceived, understood, or known apart from family and community.

And what will I learn about being interconnected in this kind of community where Christians are a small minority in this Muslim region? What will it be like experiencing this kind of interdependence with people who love and work under oppressive conditions, where freedoms are limited and my unconscious American privilege will undoubtably be challenged? How will faith be deepened and revealed in a "body-of'Christ" reality where the individual cannot be understood or experienced apart from another?

I find myself wondering if I can I prepare for what's ahead? On one level, yes. I can be intentionally attentive to the disconnects as well as the places of deep resonance. I can be open-hearted to what is being challenged and revealed. I can willing to learn and trust that God is with me, in this place, and on the road with me. But can I prepare for (think manage) the experience itself? No, I think not. I need to start the journey and see what unfolds. I may not be fully prepared but I'm ready. I wonder where this will take me.