The power of love speaks volumes in any time and place. Everyone wants to hear a good love story! Last week, we learned how the Telores’ love for the people of Kolhapur, India was intensive, powerful and even all-consuming. So, you might think the “I like you” ending for this title is really lame, but liking someone is a big part of loving them! For me, hearing “I like you” means I’m accepted, respected and cared about just as I am, not “in spite of” any glaring flaws (though there are plenty of those), but for my actual characteristics. To me, “I like you” means there are actually things about me to like.

In a sense, “liking” is an even deeper kind of love. Both loving and liking are needed to have a positive regard for people, the next step of the Process of the Gospel. Having a positive regard means to see the positive aspects in every person with whom we work, or in every group in which we find ourselves. For the missionary in a foreign culture, it means having a positive appreciation for the culture in which he or she lives, not looking down on its people and customs because they are different from one’s own. When we first moved into Boston, we found it to be a very fulfilling experience because we loved the city, and in loving it, we found our own identity in it somehow. It’s a wonderful thing when we can positively appreciate the context in which God has placed us to live and work.

In primary cultures with extended families, people would have positive regard for hundreds of people; it wasn’t just “I love my wife,” but a love for many people. We also see this in Biblical times. In the New Testament, Paul writes letter to whole cities; he cared about all the believers in that city. But really, how does one love a whole city or care about an entire social system? Of course, there is love of country, but here, I’m not talking about patriotism. Hudson Taylor fell in love with inland China; John Knox cried, “Give me Scotland or I die!” In a sense, when you live in and do ministry in a city, that city and even its region takes on a personality to you; it’s like it becomes a person to you, a person you can love.

We are given the ability to express this kind of broad-based caring to both individuals and the social systems in which they live, so that not only do we love people, but also their environment. We love individuals from various cultures and their cultures as well. Caring deeply not only for them but also their environment is a different level of love. Saying we love an individual person can be phony if we don’t love the person’s identity as a part of a people.

In expressing positive appreciation, we have to go beyond caring for individuals, as important as that is, and see the ability to love far greater numbers of people as our goal, so that we love not only the person, but also the context in which they live. As Paul did in his epistles, we must love people in their broader context. We cannot love a Jew without loving who he or she is within the Jewish culture, nor can we love someone who is Puerto Rican without knowing about that person’s island nation and how it is a whole system.

Visiting our friend’s homelands with them has given us a great opportunity to express our love and positive appreciation for them and their countries. We’ve been blessed to visit India, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Greece and the Philippines with people from those countries. Now, when I mention a local place that I have actually visited, such as Arecibo or Ponce in Puerto Rico, or Bois de Bouquet in Haiti, or Tai Tai in Manila, or Katerini in Greece to someone from that country, it communicates to them on a deeper level that I understand a little more of where they are coming from. Somehow, when people know we have been to their home place, have walked on their streets and have eaten their food, they feel we care about them in a deeper way than just our saying, “I love you.”