What's the Difference?

Let me share a few of the differences between the cultures of the Czech Republic and the United States.

Here, you pay for:

• shopping carts (refundable upon returning the cart to the corral)
• the use of public toilets (nonrefundable, though at McDonald's you get a coupon for that amount off your purchase...just make sure you go to the toilet first)
• water in restaurants (also ketchup, tartar sauce, etc. etc.)
• pizza boxes (which I've never yet seen anyone refuse when taking out pizza...)

Here, people routinely cram into trams and buses until the doors can barely close and you are nose to nose with complete strangers, but you can get yelled at for standing within the 2 meter "privacy zone" at the post office or bank window.

Here, you might not find eggs or milk some evening at the grocery store (Why bother to restock in the afternoon? You'll just have to do it again in the morning...) but you can find dusty bottles of year-old Dr. Pepper hidden on the bottom shelf of a little corner market.

Here, vegetables are either marinated in something or they are potatoes (or they are potatoes marinated in something). I have yet to find an explanation for this phenomenon among the highly health-conscious Czechs. Fortunately, the abundant fruit and veggie markets are full of very yummy fresh produce, so somebody besides Americans must be eating veggies. They are just keeping it a secret from the rest of us...

Here, people sometimes regard underwear as perfectly acceptable outerwear should the weather be warm enough. After all, pants are just too restrictive and hot when you're doing hard labor like roofing your house...

Here, it may cost us $8 for a gallon of gas, but it costs way less to make a movie here than in the U.S. Besides being home to it's own thriving movie industry, this country is home to--among other things--a part of Narnia. Who wants to come visit now?

Yet, in spite of having a bit of Narnia to it, it isn't quite another world. Kids still like to swing and splash and turn paper towel rolls and cardboard boxes into art. Teenagers still argue with their parents about piercings and dating and curfew. College students still fret about what to do when they enter "the real world." Grandmas brag about grandkids and make old family recipes. People go to movies, go to malls, go to McDonald's.

The difference is that, in a place full of the same daily grind and the same physical needs and the same spiritual malnutrition as you see everyday walking beside you on the sidewalks of Anyplace, USA--in a place where people really aren't so different from you--there is an average of 1 library for every 1300 people but 1 church for every 18,000. To put that in perspective for you: In Bartlesville, OK, where my parents live, there is 1 library for 34,000 people but 1 church for every 1000 (conservative estimate). If with that many churches the people of Bartlesville still have a deep need for God's people to be reaching out for the lost, how much more does the Czech Republic need workers taking part in sowing the seed here?