Change doesn’t come easily for me.
Or more plainly put, I just don’t like change. Give me a quiet routine where interesting things come along but nothing rocks the boat—and I’m good.
Category: culture shock
My Cultural Moment: My Cousins’ Birthdays? Really?
The Culture Clash: Ouch! You Just Dented My Cred
#BestoftheBestFridays: Animated videos for Muslims; Gospel movies in 23 languages
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Perhaps you’ve read the recent headlines of a young woman who moved to Uganda at 19–but is now under investigation regarding a number of children who lost their lives in her clinic, considering she was not a medical professional.
A Live Overseas wrestles with a handful of the questions we’re all wondering in their excellent post, How Equipped is Equipped Enough?
5 Character Potholes to Avoid Overseas
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Wondering what kind of character essentials should be “packed”, so to speak, before heading overseas? Well–let’s look at what you’ll need to leave behind.
Character Potholes that can keep you on the shoulder
Rigidity/Hypercontrol.
Hopefully this one’s a bit of a gimme if you’ve already traveled overseas. Friends of mine used to joke about “Africa Wins Again” days–when a rat eats the special food you brought from home. The electricity’s been out for three days. And the government accidentally shuts off your cell phone.
It’s helpful for me to think of going overseas like skiing moguls: Keep your knees loose, not locked. If you like specific ways of doing things, missionary life might just eat your lunch–and even faster than everyone else’s. (Check out My Story: Culture Shock, Mayonnaise, and the Last Straw).
Sarah’s Story: Dashed
My Story: Will I Bend or Break Overseas?
Reading Time: 3 minutes
During the month of August, Go. Serve. Love is stoked to share stories from All Nations, a global training and sending agency.
All Nation’s vision is to see Jesus worshiped by all the peoples of the earth. Their mission? To make disciples and train leaders to ignite church planting movements among the neglected peoples of the earth.
Just Different? Right, Wrong, and Flexibility in Crossing Cultures
Cultural Iceberg: Collectivist vs. Individualistic Societies
Reading Time: 8 minutes
We’re excited to welcome back Sheri of Engineering Ministries International for her final post of her invaluable three-part series on “cultural icebergs”–this time, evaluating collectivist vs. individualist societies.
EMI mobilizes architects, engineers, construction managers, and other design professionals–including those through an incredible internship program–to provide design services for those helping the poor. We’re talking water projects, hospitals, schools, orphanages, you name it. Meanwhile, they raise up disciples and trained professionals in-country.
The Cultural Iceberg: What You Need to Know about Cross-cultural Communication
Reading Time: 7 minutes
We’re excited to welcome back Sheri of Engineering Ministries International. EMI mobilizes architects, engineers, construction managers, and other design professionals–including those through an incredible internship program–to provide design services for those helping the poor. We’re talking water projects, hospitals, schools, orphanages, you name it. Meanwhile, they raise up disciples and trained professionals in-country.
Sheri applies these cross-cultural points poignantly to the elements of designing cross-culturally–but we believe you’ll find inescapable parallels to any cross-cultural work. Hopefully it will help jumpstart real solutions for cross-cultural sensitivities, and help any culture manifest Jesus Christ according to its own cultural icebergs.