TRANSCRIPT

HANS FINZEL: Hi, this is Hans Finzel, President of WorldVenture based in Littleton, Colorado. Our website is www.worldventure.com. Welcome to our radio program Missions on the Frontline. This radio program is part of our initiative to make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions. WorldVenture supports over a thousand mission projects and missionaries in over sixty-five countries of the world. We’ve been sharing the good news of Jesus Christ around the world since 1943. And we can always use more people involved in praying, giving, and going to missions. Today, I’m excited to have Jonathan Finley with me in the studio. Welcome, Jonathan.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Thank you, Hans. It’s good to be here.

HANS FINZEL: Jonathan is a WorldVenture missionary. He has been with us for fifteen years. And we are going to talk today about cross-cultural living and cross-cultural family living. You joined WorldVenture as a single man. Right?

JONATHAN FINLEY: That’s right. I’m from California…

HANS FINZEL: Where in California?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Born in Los Angeles

HANS FINZEL: But you have also spent some time here living in Colorado, living up in Summit County.

JONATHAN FINLEY: I went to high school and junior high in Summit County, Colorado…at the foot of Keystone Ski Area.

HANS FINZEL: So you are obviously a skier.

JONATHAN FINLEY: I am a skier.

HANS FINZEL: Do you prefer skiing or snowboarding?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Ah…I’m more of a skier…. It gives away my age a little bit…

HANS FINZEL: Ha, ha, Ha… Yeah. Well, let’s begin at … you joined WorldVenture at what year was that when you first started?

JONATHAN FINLEY: June, 1995.

HANS FINZEL: Yes, so back in ’95… back in that decade… what motivated you to decide that you wanted to be a missionary?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, I was a student already at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California … a school that you know. And I was studying with a professor that you know, Bobby Clinton….

HANS FINZEL: Yes, great school and great professor!

JONATHAN FINLEY: J. Robert Clinton. It was a leadership class…. And I had never really considered a cross-cultural ministry at that time, but those guys were passionate about the world and the second week of that class Bobby had us pray for France. It was the first time that I had ever heard that the population of France was less than one percent evangelical.

HANS FINZEL: Wow!!

JONATHAN FINLEY: And, I was shaken as we prayed for France and that summer after my first year I got a brochure from… at that time CBFMS… now WorldVenture, inviting me to an internship in Paris, France.

HANS FINZEL: So you went over on a short-term?

JONATHAN FINLEY: I was willing to let God do anything he wanted with my life that summer.

HANS FINZEL: OK! So you went over there that summer…

JONATHAN FINLEY: I went over there with no real intention of staying. You know, I was there in July so I got to see the Tour de France arrive in Paris. It was great fun. I had a lot of fun working with people from all over the world. I took a French class that I essentially blew off and…

HANS FINZEL: ( Ha, ha, ha)

JONATHAN FINLEY: …couldn’t imagine that I would ever need French in my life. So, I went to class but mostly hung out with the other students and visited Paris for the whole month of August. It was a great experience. But, of course, the Lord had other ideas for me.

HANS FINZEL: Now, I’m a big believer in vision trips because, I think, that’s how God calls people into missions. And this was a vision trip.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Absolutely.

HANS FINZEL: It must have messed with you because now you’ve been involved with France for fifteen years. So what happened that summer to give you a continued interest in France?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, I made friends. That was important. Friends that have become lifetime friends. And also God continued to work in me in terms of the need. You know I could have continued through seminary and become a pastor on a staff church somewhere and, you know, in the United States where there is an evangelical population of about thirty-three percent. Or, I could go and discover France and… learn to live there and incarnate Jesus in a culture that needs it more than the San Francisco Bay Area even.

HANS FINZEL: It’s interesting because Americans don’t necessarily see France at the top of the list of mission fields…but it really is. And that is what you saw by being there.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, yeah… and it’s just simply a fact in terms of needs. I mean…there are over forty thousand towns of ten thousand people or more that have no evangelical witness in France. So there is a tremendous amount of work to be done. We need leadership development, new pastors. Just like in the United States the Baby Boom is retiring so we have a lot of leadership positions to fill. There is tremendous work to be done in France.

HANS FINZEL: So what happened next after that summer in France?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, I came back and continued studying at Fuller Seminary. But I got interested [in France] and so I brought teams back from my local church three summers in a row. And then I was appointed in 1995 for Long-Term service. The Lord had gotten my attention by then and I decided to be a little more serious about learning the French language and moving to France.

HANS FINZEL: And today you are totally fluent in French and you have a French family. So when did you actually land in France. Because I know you had to raise your support.

JONATHAN FINLEY: I arrived in ’97 and I married my boss’s daughter eighteen months later.

HANS FINZEL: So you fell in love with a French woman.

JONATHAN FINLEY: I fell in love with my French woman. And something that I would say even for people that don’t fall in love and marry somebody from the culture that they move to, is that the best way to learn a new culture is to fall in love. And I certainly have. And we now have a French family of five. So I went a single guy and brought home five people. We have nine passports.

HANS FINZEL: No kidding…

JONATHAN FINLEY: The five of us…. Karen now has a Green Card and the possibility of becoming an American citizen, but we’re all … the boys and I are all dual citizens now…French and American.

HANS FINZEL: That is amazing. So you married Karen and that’s what we’re talking about… cross-cultural family living. You fell in love with France and then fell in love with Karen and then starting having kids and…

JONATHAN FINLEY: And, Hans, it would really be too bad to do all this talk about the French language and not hear it and not have our listeners hear the beautiful French language. So I would like to read a text…it’s actually Paul quoting an ancient Christian hymn in his letter to the Philippians chapter two which really talks about incarnational ministry and God himself adapting to the human condition…so this is what it sounds like in French. This is Philippians 2: 6-11…. (Jonathan reading Philippians 2:6-11 in French….) So that is what Philippians 2 sounds like in French.

HANS FINZEL: Awesome! I think it is so cool how you have become so cross-cultural. How did you end up learning the French language?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, I think what is interesting about the time we live in is that you don’t have to change countries to become bi-cultural. I mean, we all live … if you live in a city you are confronted with different cultures…different languages everyday. And I think mission, in a very important sense, is following Jesus’ example… Jesus who was fully God… who chose to become fully human… born as a baby and grew from a baby to a man. Any time you learn a new culture you have to be willing to humble yourself and learn like a little child. One thing you know for sure… when you move into a new culture… is that you don’t know anything. And that is the best place to start. So I had that experience. I moved to France after having not studied French…

HANS FINZEL: … Yes, you must have gotten serious about language school…Ha, ha, ha.

JONATHAN FINLEY: I got serious about it.

HANS FINZEL: Ha, ha, ha….

JONATHAN FINLEY: I also had good training at Fuller School of Inter-cultural Studies. They not only trained me to communicate the Gospel cross-culturally but to “woo” cross-culturally.

HANS FINZEL: Ha, ha, ha…

JONATHAN FINLEY: So I was able to woo my wife…. It’s still amazing to me that she chose to marry me. But we got married eighteen months after I arrived in France and we have always both spoke in French to each other. So we’ve been married for eleven years now.

HANS FINZEL: So your language with each other is French…

JONATHAN FINLEY: Yes, language with the whole family is French. My three boys also … now they are learning English, but they still refuse to speak English to me. So, we’ve become a French speaking family.

HANS FINZEL: Now, didn’t you have … or don’t you have a practice where one parent speaks English to the children and the other speaks French?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Yes, you have to be very disciplined to do that.

HANS FINZEL: So what is the approach that you try to take? Which one of you does which language?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, we both … we all speak French at home. As a family, we only speak French.

HANS FINZEL: Ok. But now you’re living here in American… in Denver, so how is that working?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, it’s just like many North American missionary families tend to speak English among themselves in the country where they serve. Well, we speak French here in Denver.

HANS FINZEL: So, how are the kids learning English?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, my wife is teaching at Denver International School, which is a French immersion program, and as part of that program they also have English as a subject. Then as well, because they live….

HANS FINZEL: … So your boys are in the school?

JONATHAN FINLEY: The boys are enrolled in the school. And because the children live in the United States on the playground, they all tend to play in English.

HANS FINZEL: Um-hum.

JONATHAN FINLEY: And, as well, my whole family speaks English so there are Grandpas and Grandmas and cousins and so English is their second language …but they’re mastering it. Samuel, my oldest boy has started Spanish this year. He’s nine years old and working on his third language.

HANS FINZEL: In case you are just joining us, this is Hans Finzel, president of WorldVenture and you are listening to Missions on the Frontline. I am speaking today with Jonathan Finley. Jonathan and Karen are long-term missionaries with WorldVenture in France. If you want to see this beautiful family you can go to WorldVenture’s website, worldventure.com, and go to the Missionary tab and click on France or Finley, either one, you can find them. What has been the impact on the boys on this cross-cultural living? That’s really what we want to get into on this program. How are they different than the normal French kid or the normal American kid?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, I asked Samuel who were the French kids in his class? He thought about it and he said, “Well there’s just me and another boy…” I think he said…Simón. And so…

HANS FINZEL: They see themselves as French kids, obviously.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Yes, they’ve always lived in France until just this year. They know they have an American dad, but one of our goals with this time we’re spending in the United States is to be able to go as far as we can in the other direction. Cross-cultural living does not mean that you leave behind entirely one culture, and become one hundred and fifty percent people…where you have to give up some of your own culture to translate yourself into some of the new one. But, you don’t give it up entirely. It takes work to continue to move in both directions as much as possible.

HANS FINZEL: So you’re trans-cultural. I grew up in a home like that. I’m pure German and in my family we only spoke German. Yet I was growing up in Alabama. So I’ve ‘been there…done that’ … and it’s a wonderful experience. I tell people…. And I’d like your comment on this as well… I mean your kids are still little, but I think it is just such an enriching experience to grow up cross-cultural and not just be locked to one little place and one little culture. What are some of the benefits that you’ve seen not only in your own children, but with you colleges and friends and other missionaries to being a cross-cultural person?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, I think the most important benefit, to me…I tend to think of missions as… coming to know Jesus better. And if you only stay in your own culture and, for instance, you only read your Bible from only one cultural perspective, you miss out on a deeper understanding. I think, perhaps one of the most beneficial aspects of my own spiritual life…really in the last thirteen years… has been re-reading my Bible in French, getting to know Jesus in French. Whatever Americans might think about French people, our God speaks French. And he speaks to me in French and so my language of intimacy has become the French language. It is the language I speak with my wife and my children, but also with my God.

HANS FINZEL: No kidding! That’s amazing.

JONATHAN FINLEY: So, that’s the most obvious benefit for me. I think we can get so focused on learning culture that we forget that it’s just a means in what we do. The goal is to make disciples…that’s our aim. So we put aside the things of our own culture that don’t make sense, in order to make sense to other people… and incarnate Jesus, in order to make him real and present in every day life. So, as important as learning a language and culture is, it’s important not to lose focus of that fact that it is a means to planting churches, to making disciples, to training leaders. It is a means…a tool…by which we go about our work in missions.

HANS FINZEL: One of the reasons I love to bring up the value it [cross-cultural living] is to our kids… is that a lot of people are afraid to take their children to another culture to be missionaries. They are afraid…you know… what will happen to my children? To me… it’s the opposite… it’s such an enriching experience for children to grow up in other cultures. Statistics show that missionary children are among the highest achievers and in the top of their class when they go to universities. So it is a great experience.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Yes.

HANS FINZEL: Let’s talk a little bit about reaching France. You’ve already shared the tremendous spiritual need there… and I’ve learned some cool things as you’ve been my intern this year here at the home office. You’ve already taught me some pretty interesting things about France.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Yeah, we’ve done quite a bit about the French speaking world. There are over twenty African nations that speak French as their official language. Which means, if you try to image the global French speaking church…this Sunday, most of the people listening to this radio station will be listening in English somewhere. Well, this Sunday, imagine all of those worshipping in French…imagine that the entire global French speaking church was in one room together. How do you imagine that church… what ethnicity… what’s the demographics…of that church?

HANS FINZEL: Well, I would think of a French couple….Pierre and whoever and…

JONATHAN FINLEY: And you imagine baréts and baguettes… and riding bicycles…

HANS FINZEL: Exactly…the typical French people.

JONATHAN FINLEY: But just in terms of shear numbers, if the entire global church was in one room you wouldn’t even notice the white people. The French speaking church…the global French speaking church… is an African church. So the greatest missional force in the French speaking world is coming from the southern hemisphere… from Africa. It’s something I had to discover through experience. We moved into the multi-cultural suburbs of Paris, towns that we thought had absolutely no evangelical witness in those towns. Well, as we began to meet people, we also met Christians. Where were these Christians from? Many were first, second and third generation Africans that were delighted that they wouldn’t have to take the subway all the way to the center of town to go to church and they came shoulder to shoulder with us and began planting a church in the town where they lived. So, a lot of missionaries imagine, before they go out, that they are bringing Jesus some where. Of course, we don’t bring Jesus anywhere…

HANS FINZEL: He’s already there….

JONATHAN FINLEY: We follow Him there. So, I followed Jesus to Paris, France where I met many other people who may have followed him for other reasons… economic reasons…for some, the strife and turmoil we know happens in Africa, has pushed people out across the world. God has many ways of sending his missionaries; and he certainly sent missionaries from Africa to France.

HANS FINZEL: We know that Africa has been one of the most responsive continents to the gospel; and I think we know it’s because of poverty, war, suffering. Jesus said, “It’s harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” It’s true when you’re wealthy, and rich, and affluent… you don’t perceive so much your spiritual need and so it has been exciting to see the progress of the gospel in Africa. You’ve spent some time in Africa haven’t you? Tell us about your experience in Africa.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, as I began to understand the importance of Africa … especially West Africa, Central Africa, the Congo… to the French speaking world, I became curious. I became convinced that I needed to know more about Africa in order to do my job in the Paris region. So when we talk about being cross-cultural now, we have to become multi-cultural. We’re pastoring churches where the members of your board come from Madagascar, Congo and Togo. You need to learn something about Africa in order to function as a team. So, I had the opportunity, the last several springs, to go to the Ivory Coast and teach at the Bethel Bible Institute at Karhogo, Côte d’Ivoire, which is in the north of the Ivory Coast. It has been an exceptional experience. We now have… this coming May…the 12th through the 24th , we have two teams coming from two churches in Paris, France, joining with Americans to help build new classrooms for that Bible school.

HANS FINZEL: So you will be in on that?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Oh, yeah!

HANS FINZEL: That’s Awesome!

JONATHAN FINLEY: And if you want to come, by the way…

HANS FINZEL: I’ll see if I can fit it in…I think I’m in Europe at that time.

JONATHAN FINLEY: Well, maybe some of our listeners would like to join us as well…

HANS FINZEL: Yeah…

JONATHAN FINLEY: They can find information about it on either the Journey Corps website, or, soon there will be information up on our worldventure website. … so use the Keyword Function “Finley” and you will get more information.

HANS FINZEL: So that’s at worldventure.com Keyword F-I-N-L-E-Y. So, one of your strategies is to train these African French speaking Christians to go up and reach France …is that part of your…

JONATHAN FINLEY: That’s certainly the end goal…

HANS FINZEL: That’s the end game.

JONATHAN FINLEY: That’s the end game…and immigration is an issue. A West African can’t simply just get on an airplane and go see the Eiffel Tower like you and I can. It’s much more complicated to receive legal access in to France. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t thousands and thousands of Africans moving to France. But there are serious challenges to systematically send missionaries…like those I have been working with at Bethel Bible Institute. But certainly, you’ve had Keo Kognon, the Director of that Bible institute, on your program. He certainly dreams of the day when we will send cross-cultural sensitive Africans who are sensitive to European cultures… willing and ready to plant churches and to communicate the gospel in France and in European French speaking context… Belgium…Switzerland…

HANS FINZEL: That’s cool. The last thing I want to ask you about is your Church Association you work with in France. Because I think it is really neat that you work with … well, of course you are home in the US for a while, but you have been working with a well established French Church Association. Is that correct?

JONATHAN FINLEY: Yes, it’s been a really great process that has to do with when I arrived in France. WorldVenture and its partners planted seventeen churches in the eastern suburbs of Paris. Now, I’ve been part of three church planting teams in that area. In 1999 those mission initiated churches fusioned with an older French Baptist denomination that is known as las association de Baptiste. They have adopted our churches and, really, they are initiating the church planting leadership development activity now for the region that we’ve been working in since the late ‘60’s. So it has been a great opportunity to work with them, and work under their leadership. I was involved in leading evangelism campaigns; and then also directed the regional youth association for several years. I think they are doing a fabulous… fabulous job; and have really seen the full circle of seeing the handing off of mission initiated work that is now under the full leadership of our French churches.

HANS FINZEL: The reason that I wanted end there is because we want our listeners to know that there are some very strong national French Church leadership in France that we are now submitted under; and they are leading and we are serving. That is the way good missiology works.

HANS FINZEL: Well, Jonathan, it’s been great having you on the program today.

JONATHAN FINLEY: It’s been great to be here today, Hans. Thank you very much!

HANS FINZEL: Thanks for listening today. This has been Missions on the Frontline. We’re here to expand your vision and make you aware of ways you can be involved in missions around the world. Be sure to visit our website… worldventure.com for more information and the latest news and updates. And, again, if you want to learn more …or to connect with the Finleys…. Just go to the key search word “Finley”. Don’t forget to drop us a note. We’d love to hear from you. You can e-mail me at Frontline at worldventure.com. This has been Hans Finzel and you’ve been listening to Missions on the Frontline. See you next week.