The Cultural Criteria

       Good morning everyone! Sorry for missing last week. Jonathan and I were going to write a post together but as life would have it, we never had two minutes to sit down and actually do that. So, we are trying again this week. 

        A mission team from South Carolina came down a couple weeks ago to do VBS and painting with some of the churches here. Our house and church was one of the projects and we are forever grateful! Being 6 months pregnant my stamina is very low so after a full day of teaching, the last thing I have energy for is painting! However, my house was half painted and half gray, patched plaster. The team finished painting the main living space and painted the outside of my house as well as the interior and some of the exterior of the church. This was more than a physical help to us, but also a much needed spiritual encouragement. I will explain why later on. 

        

        The head of the mission also brought us a monetary gift from someone in the states and with that money we were able to purchase a changing table for Amos! It was on discount at IKEA and was exactly what I was looking for. Living in such a small space, condensing down into as few pieces as furniture as needed, is key. This changing table is also a dresser and the top folds out for the changing station. I am very pleased with it. Also, someone has blessed us with a free baby bouncer, car seat and crib, which has been a huge help. The only thing left to buy is a stroller! We are very blessed and grateful for all the help.

       Amos is strong and healthy (praise Adonai!) and he has certainly found the use of his hands, elbows, legs and feet. He hits me regularly (like now) and responds to Jonathan’s voice for sure. He likes our Phillips, Craig and Dean CD best of the selection we have and even seems to have a favorite song on the CD: “Let Everyth
ing That Has Breath” but he also responds to a couple others. I am working on some medical symptoms I am showing (nothing major right now) so I am immersed in the Dominican healthcare system once again. I am so tired of doctors (American or Dominican, doesn’t matter, doctors just aren’t my thing) and I am so ready to just be left alone! But, baby first! 6 months down, 3 to go.

  

Now, on to the main point of the blog; “The Cultural Criteria”

       As I mentioned above, the team coming in and painting our house was not just a physical help, but also a spiritual encouragement. We have been hit repeatedly, and hit hard since we have been down here. And not just from the Dominican side, but also by (I am assuming) well-meaning Americans. Just having these people that don’t know me at all, and barely know Jonathan dedicate a whole day of their lives to put paint on my gray plaster walls, just to help and bless us, was/is a huge encouragement. There are people who care, that are spiritual family, we are not alone. It was a very emotional experience.

            I have only been here 6 months so I am by no means an expert on the culture here. However, there are a few things I have noticed as I get more and more fully immersed in the culture.

            In my experience with mission teams and a common phrase unites them: “gave them hope”. Before I go any further, let me clarify. I think mission teams are great, I think what these teams did was great; I am in no way shape or form criticizing mission teams. I am just sharing some thoughts, which might, hopefully, help someone going on a mission trip in the future.

            Now back to what I was saying. The phrase “gave them hope” sounds great and makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside. However, I question with which cultural criteria are you judging “hope”? In the States, what you did would absolutely give people hope. However, here, a different culture, different expectations, and different lives it may not produce that effect. In this culture, Americans are viewed as rich (even if we aren’t). We have more money, stuff, better clothes, better paying jobs, better this, better that, etc. Americans come in and want to “help” the “poor”. These particular kids have seen several mission teams and fully expect free stuff. They are grateful for it, don’t get me wrong, but it is expected, not necessarily, a thing that instills hope. In a day or two they will return to their normal lives and wait for the next team to come in and give them free stuff. As long as they act excited and grateful, this will continue.

            The biggest issue I think is that teams come in from wherever (not just the US), and they bring with them their culture. This is not bad, but we must remember, that it is OUR culture not the Dominican that we use to judge everything. Our culture forms the criteria with which we judge the reactions, situations, people and actions of everything in the country we are visiting, or ministering too.

            One thing I think that would help would be longer mission trips. One week is not enough time to work and get even a small grasp on the culture. When I was dating my husband I came down for 2 weeks with no other intention then getting to know the culture. I did not even begin to scratch the surface. How then, can a team be here for a week and get an understanding of the country? For safety reason, they obviously cannot go certain places until they have an understanding of the culture, but I think we do a huge mis-service to people by not taking a day or two to just show them the “normal” part of the culture. Take people to the non-touristy areas, take them to the lower-middle class neighborhoods, show them how water is collected, what people eat, how much money they make etc. Show them things that people would not normally see when visiting for a week. Take them to the places where the country does not have their best foot forward. Have them take public transportation to get an idea of what it is like, immerse them in the culture for a day or two, just to shake their cultural criteria loose a little bit.

            To use an example, I recently got a glucose meter to monitor my blood sugar. I have to use needles to draw blood right? In the States you very carefully dispose of those needles so that no one else gets poked by them; even if you do not have any diseases that can be passed on through blood. I carry a little jar around to dispose of my test strips and needles while at school so the cleaners and children don’t get accidentally poked. Jonathan wonders why I do that. The culture here may not even recap the needles but just throw them in the trash. Done. In fact, today, there were some boys playing with a used syringe; with the needle still attached. There is no caution about these needles, it all ends up in the same place so why be careful? I have seen people here digging through the trash on the streets, looking for things, and I don’t want my needles to poke them. My culture says safety and health require I recap the needles and carefully dispose of them. Dominican culture says just throw them away. They did their job, it doesn’t matter. It’s our cultural criterion that dictates how we handle things like a lancet for blood sugar, or a syringe for something else.

            All I am trying to say is be careful when ministering to another country. Just because you do one thing in your culture does not mean they do it in their culture. Don’t make judgements based on reactions unless you know how the culture works, really, really well. Again, I highly approve of mission teams and appreciate all the work people do. I am just trying to caution you, all may not be as it seems. It’s a different country, different language, and different culture. We cannot say they are right or wrong based on our understanding of our culture, just like they cannot say we are right or wrong based on the understanding of their culture. Just keep an open mind, eyes and heart and remember, we are all children of God. We just live differently, and value different things. Again, it’s all in the cultural criteria. 

          When I (Jonathan) refer to “a cultural criteria”, I talk about the knowledge gained through personal living in our own culture that we use as a standard to evaluate or judge both the world close to us and far from our reach and experiences.

          Living daily in a culture is different than just spending a short amount of time in it. The daily routine of a culture will show its true colors when you are able to go beyond the masking surface that lies underneath the smiling faces people can give you when you don’t know them deeply. I can tell that about my Dominican context; I know a lot about my country, my culture, my geography, my society, and so forth. But, there is a lot I don’t know yet. On the other side, I spent two and a half years in the US (In Cincinnati, OH), and barely scratched the surface of that part of the “American” culture. Even though I was immersed in the culture and the people, it is hard for me to say that I know the US culture broadly. The counterpart of that is that I was out of my own culture for two and a half years, and at my return into it, adjusting to the change in my absence has been a huge challenge. Two and a half years and a different culture mindset made me skip the same time length in developing my Dominican criteria even further. As a result, this first year will be dedicated mostly to investigate the current criteria this society is developing in the people so that we can meet with them somewhere in the middle. Hope will be real to them when God’s criteria of salvation is the one thing that can solve their understanding of desperation and survival.

         

          With that said, I would like to close my short remark by saying that Mary’s observations are good thoughts to help us all understand how to be more effective in the mission field. Her thoughts are actually things I’ve heard also in previous ICOM (International Conference on Missions) gatherings (Kansas 2013, Columbus OH 2014, Richmond VA 2015). The concern about teams who travel from the US (and other first world countries) to third world countries and countries in development is to help people to see and understand the context in which people are, to accept those contexts as they are according to their cultural criteria for evaluation, and to design a way to help that would bring effective hope to the people rather than an instant powder hope.

Until next week, blessings to your homes