Not Wrong. Just Different

If you’ve ever experienced life in another culture, you know how different it can be. Everything is so strange and new. A lot of it isn’t wrong or bad. Just different.

We’ve been here a month already. Enough time to realize how much we love it, but also to see how different it is.

For instance, people here view work very differently than we do. In America and in most of the Western world, time is of the essence. We praise efficiency and hard workers. Here, it’s very different. They value people far more than work. It’s very common for people to take breaks from work to interact with each other. They may be building a house, but it might take them a week to accomplish what we could do in a day because they value the relationships more than getting the job done. It’s a huge compliment here if they tell you that you are a friendly person and smile a lot. They love for you to just sit and spend time with them. It’s not wrong. Just different.

This is why it’s SO important for us to study the culture here and not just the language. If we present the Gospel in a Western manner, it probably won’t really resonate with the people. Of course, God can use any type of presentation. But the most effective way to share God’s Word is in a way that relates to the hearers.

Being in another culture also challenges me to really think through things I believe and value as an American and hold them up against the Bible to see if they are really in line with God’s values. That’s one of the reasons why I think diversity is so awesome, especially in the Body of Christ. Yeah, we may be different and it may be hard and frustrating at times to understand why they do things the way they do. But it’s so neat to realize that where my culture fails, they may be able to pull me up.

So my view on culture study? Bring it on!!!

Kyler loves helping Daddy study :)