The end of part 1

Coming to the end of 8 weeks now and how the time has flown by. I feels like we have just arrived and now we are preparing to pack and head out. I don’t know how to describe how hard it will be to leave some of these girls behind. We have bonded so well and now, for 3 and ½ months we are forced to part. I’m so excited about how this group has bonded so well and how we look out for each other and long to spend more time with each other.
Over these last weeks we have started to focus on some classes that we will need out in the field. We have been learning how to teach ESL classes, how do deal with the 3 stages of culture-shock, and learning a drime to help us when we are put on the spot and we have to do a church service or just on the street.
Culture-shock is a very real experience we will experience sometime or the other. What is culture-shock you may ask?! It is the experience frustration from not knowing the rules or having the skills for adjusting to a new land. For a demonstration, the interns put together a game for us to learn a little about being disoriented. We were put in our teams and headed outside. One person on each team took a stick and had to put their forehead on it and spin 8 times, head up a hill, and find a country on a map that was given to us when we got up the hill. The spinning part had some effects on a few. While I was spinning, I got my legs knocked right out of underneath me! Running up the hill has harder then anyone ever expected. There were trees every where and that was freighting to some.
We headed back in and discussed the activity and found out that, how we felt after spinning, will be a small part of the feeling we will feel on our assignment. Maybe not the dizzy part, but the confused, disoriented, out-of-place feeling. We have to realize that this is for real and that how we handle the culture-shock will effect the rest of our trip and the others on our team.
Bryan Born spoke on ‘Connecting Across Cultures’ and he gave us an article called ‘Leave Your Baggage at Home’. Its an article written for youth workers planning short-term missions. Its like seeing in the eyes of those at the receiving end of missions. I highlighted some major points.
‘… But please stop grimacing when you eat the food our people have prepared for you. Our food is an extension of us.’ That is a great way to look at that. How often do we go somewhere and just say we hate the food? Do we ever think about how that makes them feel? We would want people to try our food if we where on the other end. We should try and do the same. Just try new things. Embrace the chance to eat new food.
‘… We welcome your hard work. But do it along-side of us -- with us -- not for us.’ How often do we go down help people and we think our way is better and completely forget that they built things before we got there and they will continue. Our way isn’t always the best. We just have to keep that in our minds and take that into consideration.
‘… You’re not bring Jesus to us. He’s already here. In fact, He’s doing some amazing things here.’ How often do we forget that where we go… God could be doing more there then he is where we are from. Just because we are on a ‘Mission Trip’ doesn’t mean that the people we are serving are going to be the only people who gets served.
That was really neat to hear and a new way to look at the things we do for missions. I never saw it that way before and its good to see it through the receivers end for a little. We need to take that into consideration next time we plan to go ‘Take Christ to People’!! God is already there. We just need to show the people the love of God more and more. Being God’s hands and feet.