Culture Clash

To think that we have been living in San Julian for 4 months now is hard to believe. In some ways it seems like only yesterday. In other ways it seems like forever. Along the way we have experienced a wide range of emotions…joy, fear, sorrow, excitement, frustration, disappointment, hope. One of the more challenging aspects, though, is adapting to a very different culture. For me, one of the largest cultural gaps is in the thought process.

Before leaving for El Salvador I had a conversation with a dear friend who himself had been on the mission field in a foreign country for years. He told me that understanding this cultural thought gap would be a challenge for me. At the time I heard his words but I didn’t fully understand what he was trying to communicate. He said that in America we have a mind-set or attitude that we can do whatever we set our minds to do. If we have a goal to achieve or a need or a problem to solve we are confident that we can find and implement a solution. America is, after all, the home of the brave and the land of the free. It’s a country where you can rise from poverty to success if you only try hard enough and don’t give up. It’s a culture that for the most part doesn’t care where you came from as long as you know where you want to go. At least that was my experience. Here, I find a different cultural attitude. One that often says “what can I do about it – I’m only one person.” Or, “this is the way it has always been and the way it will always be.” Or, “this is just the way we do it here…don’t rock the boat.”

I drive a Mustang!

Laundry Day

Recently I was asked to teach at an all city church service on the topic of what it is like to be a missionary. The cultural experience was to be part of the discussion. But in preparing for this I had to ask myself if my own cultural thoughts were correct just because they were mine or were “American”. As a Christian, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions: What is God’s culture? What does God have to say about this or that issue? Is my thinking in line with God’s thoughts as revealed in the Bible?

Frequently when we read the scriptures we superimpose over them our own cultural belief system; often without realizing we are doing this. There is even a tendency to change or ignore what Jesus said because it is hard to understand or fit into our own culture. For example, Jesus said this to the crowds that were following him:

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple…So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:25-26, 33

As a disciple, I have been forced by these words to ask myself if I place anything or anyone above Jesus. Am I willing to renounce ALL that I have to follow Jesus? Now that, my friends, is a cultural clash!