Neighborhood BBQ

I have to be honest... I was sceptical about how "successful" our bbq would be. Mike, Sam and Carol said that last summer they invited all the neighbors in our culdasac for a bbq at our place and it was a lot of fun. Still, Lance and I haven't really gotten to know any of the people in the surrounding houses since we've lived here (7 months), so I wasn't sure who was going to come and I had the feeling this was going to be a very awkward event.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I hadn't volunteered to be the one going around knocking on doors to invite people, honestly because I was scared to. I was scared it would be difficult to communicate with people because English isn't everyone's first language. For the most part, everyone seems to be fairly quick to move from their car to their front door... there really isn't much lingering (if any) that I've observed between houses and people in our culdasac. The one exception has been with the families who live in the house to our left who have taken in Jocie from upstairs as a little sister. Kevin, Lilian, Tony and Vivian are all in elementary school and they love Jocie. They have been in our house to play with Jocie and have spent quite a bit of time with Sam and Carol upstairs. But other than that... I'm not sure anyone in our culdasac is friends with each other.

It might change, though...

That Tuesday night BBQ began with Sam, Kate and I sitting in our driveway, looking quite pathetic I must admit. We'd set up a bunch of chairs (which were empty) and we were just kind of staring at each other, each taking turns pouncing on neighbors as they drove into their garages from work... "Hi, are you gonna come get some food later? Please stop by... oh, you have something you have to do? No problem... just come by later!" The three of us were quite a combo...

Slowly though... one by one, people started coming. First Ken, whom I'd never seen before that moment, from across the street strolled over with a plate of lamb risotto and a bottle of white wine. I learned that he is working on his MBA and opening a restaurant and that he used to work at PF Changs and a chef. He was very kind and right around our age... I was starting to think that there might actually be some people in our culdasac that we could be friends with. Who would have thought. Then, Tony and Lilian's mom shows up with them, their cousins, Kevin and Vivian, 2 other kids who were friends of theirs from school, and more food than we could have ever eaten in one night. She had a tray of salad, a tray of watermelon, a box of at least 40 cream puffs from their bakery, a tray of Vietnemese egg rolls, and a 5 lb bucket of marinating teriaki chicken ready to throw on the barbecue. It was overwhelming. She said, don't worry, my whole family will come... and they did.

The ball was rolling... more neighbors dropped by and slowly I began to realize how many assumptions I had about my neighbors. Assumptions that weren't true. I had assumed that I'd never be able to remember their names. Wrong. I'd assumed that it would be unbearably awkward trying to communicate with them... wrong again. One of the most humbling realizations I had during our BBQ was that in each house, I had peers who spoke perfect English. Why had I assumed that everyone around me would be hard to relate too? I don't know, but I was embarrassed with myself for assuming otherwise.

One of the most interesting parts of the night was when the parents of Tony and Lilian's classmates came to pick them up. MiMi said... "I don't know them" as if to apologize in case they were odd or something. We told them to come on over and eat (since we had over 5 lbs of barbecued chicken and countless sausages). Kate was talking to Amanda, the mother of the friends of Tony and Lilian, when Amanda discovered we were all Christians in our house. She was so excited and eager to tell us about their church and the upcoming international youth conference her son is going to in Thailand... and the short term mission trips she and her husband have gone on to Thailand. It was almost overwhelming having such energized conversation with such random people... all of whom were of different cultural backgrounds than myself.

Finally the evening ended up with the neighbors to our right coming home from church and joining us for awhile from 9:30-10:30 or so. This family together lead/run a small Guatemalan congregation near our house... and I knew they were Christians and it seemed that there are people around our age that live there, but we're always so quick to go into our houses. Well, I learned there are 5 siblings/spouses who live in the house between the ages of 21-mid-thirties. They are all involved in leadership at their father's church working with the youth, kids and leading worship. Really, it is uncanny how much we probably have in common with each other, yet how easy it is to overlook the possiblility of friendship because we are busy and because we are afraid of those that are different from us.

Really... this is just a snippet of the night. There are a dozen other stories and moments from the evening that made me smile, laugh and swallow my pride.

I just wish I could have had a video of the event from start to finish. It would make a great lecture for an intercultural studies or sociology class. In the end, there were at least 6 different cultural/ethnic backgrounds represented... and we enjoyed each other's company immensely.