How Local is “Local”?
Lebanon is a small nation. But while southern Lebanon and northern Lebanon are not far apart, the former is controlled by terrorists while the latter was the site of one of my family’s three-day vacations—safe and beautiful! I was raised in a farming community in western Michigan. I attended an all-white high school. Because of a heritage of Dutch influence, people in my town were at least religious and moral, if not born-again. So imagine the culture shock I experienced (although, in truth, I didn’t know that was what I was experiencing) when, in 1981, I was called to pastor a church in northwestern Indiana. I was thrust into an urban, multi-cultural, multi-linguistic environment in which the economy was driven by the steel mills and unions. And our relocation covered barely more than 100 miles!
