As we were standing in a parking lot, trying to decide which restaurant we should eat at, Matthew looked around and noticed right in front of us a huge, and I mean huge, Chinese restaurant. "Let's go there!" Matthew said.
I eagerly agreed because the two kinds of foods I love the most are Japanese and Chinese. Matthew, well, he likes martial arts, so he thought it would be cool to try out an authentic Chinese restaurant for the first time.
When we went inside, we were absolutely shocked! There were almost two hundred Chinese people inside, and just about every table was occupied. And this was lunch time during a week day! As you can image, it was extremely busy. Chinese waiters and waitresses were everywhere wheeling around carts full of different kinds of food that we were unable to recognize. These waiters and waitresses moved fast too! We later found out that the foods on the little plates in the carts were called "dim sum", but I still don't know what that means.
As soon as the shock wore off, we became slightly embarrassed and felt uncomfortable because we were, well, not Chinese. We definitely felt out of place, but we decided we weren't going to walk out and offend anyone.
When we sat down, we got even more nervous because there were no menus. We had no idea what to do. Then the Chinese waiters and waitresses started to come by showing us their food, speaking the Chinese names for the food items on the cart and looking at us for a response. I shook my head and said, "No, thank you." I figured if they didn't know English, they would understand my head shaking.
Looking dumbfounded at Matthew, I asked, "What are we going to do?"
Matthew responded, "Just pick anything, whatever looks good."
Then an older Chinese waiter noticed our predicament. (I think we stood out.) This waiter came up to us and recommended a meal. He was so nice! He came back with some forks for us too, when everyone else was using black plastic chopsticks. That was all that was on the table. I guess they have forks set aside for inexperienced people like us. I still don't know how chopsticks can pick up tiny grains of rice.
When the food arrived, we weren't always sure what it was, but it was awesome! We had five different dishes. We were stuffed afterwards.
Matthew and I really enjoyed ourselves. It was like we had flown off the continent of Canada and landed in China. Even though we looked different and spoke a different language, all the Chinese waiters and waitresses treated us with kindness and respect. When we left, we no longer felt different or uncomfortable.
Matthew and I would like to go there again sometime soon and try out their shark fin soup.
After our experience at the Chinese restaurant, I couldn't help but think how newcomers must feel coming into a church for the first time. Do we even notice them? And if we do notice them, do we go out of our way to make them feel comfortable and accepted?
The Bible says that with God there is no partiality.
"For there is no partiality with God."
Romans 2:11
As Christians, we need to show God's love to all strangers, but first we need to look around and be aware of them. Then we need to do all we can to make them feel welcome.
Don't stick with your cliques or you will turn precious souls away.
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