As mentioned previously on this blog, I bought a car back in
January of this year. It is a bright red Toyota Vitz, which has served me well,
especially in reaching with greater expediency the distant reaches of our
English and Chinese territory. The car’s fuel economy was probably better in
its younger years (it’s 16 years old), but that could no doubt be said of us
humans, yours truly included.
However, there is an observation I would like to make—and
would welcome any comments from the readership of this blog, which may be
international (to some extent) in scope.
I take the car out, on average, four days a week in the
ministry. It has been a real help, when you consider the time saved and what can
be accomplished. But operating a car is expensive in Africa. Gas (petrol) is
twice the cost of what it is in the U.S. So, when giving others in the
congregation rides, I notice that rarely does anyone offer a contribution.
On two occasions, when conducting the meeting for field
service, I pointed out what was stated in the March 1996 Kingdom Ministry, “Question Box,” about the appropriateness of offering
to contribute for transportation provided by others in the ministry. I said
that being in a foreign-language congregation or group naturally entails higher
transportation costs. Unlike publishers in local-language congregations who
walk everywhere in their close-by territory, we end up taking buses, taxis, and
motorcycles more often. So, when someone gives us a ride, would it not be a
loving gesture, as the Kingdom Ministry
mentions, to offer a contribution to the driver?
Well, after these meetings for service, nothing changed.
Hardly anyone offered to contribute for rides. Okay, operating my car is
certainly not ‘breaking the bank.’ Yet, it is a considerable expense. And the
publishers and pioneers take public transportation all the time, every day, so
it is not as though they are destitute. (If you are in the English
congregation, presumably you have ‘counted the cost’ of serving here in the
first place.) They could offer to a car driver after a day in the ministry what
they would have normally paid to take public transportation. But this is not happening.
Then, the thought occurred to me that possibly this may be
due to a cultural difference. Back home, in the U.S., when I was in the Chinese
congregation—and our territory was very large, the entire city of Sacramento—it
was almost a standard thing to offer a contribution to a driver. It need not be
large, but it nevertheless is a gesture of appreciation.
But, here in Rwanda, I had an experience recently that may
explain the difference. I was picked up at the airport at 1:00 a.m. by a
brother (and three others) in his car. Of course, I had asked the brother to do
this for me in advance. But when I tried to give him some money to cover his
expense—and because he had to come get me in the middle of the night—he refused
to accept it. He, and the others, said that it would be uncomfortable to accept
money in this situation because it would be as though I was ‘paying’ him for
the service. And since we are friends, he wanted to help me out—and who pays a
friend for a favor?
So, is there
a cultural difference? Or maybe—picking someone up at an airport is a one-shot
deal, but giving someone rides regularly in service are two different
situations?
Readers of
this post, what is your observation on this?
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