Village Vista

As I was talking with a mutual friend today, the copier repair man, yes I see him a lot (lol), I was reminded of a subject that I have been giving a lot of consideration to lately. The struggle to communicate across cultures. There have been scores of books written on the subject, concerning the land mines, helpful pointers, and even explanations about how other cultures think (i.e., other culture's worldviews). I have read several of these books, however, I have never understood the challenges of communicating in another culture, as much as I now do, having lived in another culture for almost 3 years. Don't take that to mean, by any stretch, that I have figured out how to handle it, quite the opposite. I guess more than anything, I have learned that I have much more to learn. Somedays I wonder if I will ever really figure this culture(s) out.

You see the country that we now consider to be our home is a mix of cultures that we are confronted with everyday. Each of them are unique and special, and each of them offer great challenges to understand. Some of these cultures are first world, some of them are third world, and some are somewhere in-between! How hard is it to tell the mechanic what is wrong with your car? Well it took mine several minutes before he figured out I was talking about the central locks and not the headlights????? How difficult should it be to transfer money between bank accounts? It seemed fairly easy, until I did what the banker told me to do, then I discovered that they really couldn't do it that way after all. So, now transfer the money to another business who will send the money to another institution, who will HOPEFULLY make the transfer for me :-0. Now, the worst part is that these 2 examples are dealing with white folks in this culture who think and live in a half-similar manner to ourselves.

NOW, imagine trying to deal with the majority culture here of African folks, whom we love so dearly, yet so often fain to understand and vice-versa. For example, one guy (african) gives me his resume to type up so he can find a job. But, I notice that he has given me 2 different copies. One has more qualifications listed than the other. I interpret that to mean, one is older than the other. Let me combine the information on the 2 and make 1 perfect resume. When I give him the copy back, he asks....'why did you only give me 1, I gave you 2 different ones to type?' I explained my reasoning to him. He replied, 'well the one with fewer qualifications is for applying for general labor positions, the one with more qualifications is for applying for a higher job position'. In other words, if I find a job for cheap labor, and I give them a resume with too many qualifications, then they won't hire me because I'm overqualified? Ok....my head is still spinning from that 'logic'. But, that's just the problem, that was perfectly 'logical' in his mind....that's fine, but my mind doesn't process information that way!

The paradigm shift in worldview thinking is absolutely critical on our part if we are going to be effective in reaching these souls with the Gospel. If you don't understand how a person thinks, it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to give them understanding of spiritual truths. However, most of us have never thought about how we think (i.e., our worldview). We just assume that everybody thinks like us, or at least they ought to if they don't :-). Until we first define our own worldview, we will never be able to gain insight into how other cultures think (i.e., their worldview). In some further posts, I would like to try and paint a picture for you of a typical american worldview and then a typical african worldview.