This is the final blog on Short-term Opps Done Right. If you missed the first two blogs, click on the following links:
Part 1
Part 2
Humility is a curious trait. About the time you think you’ve mastered it, well, you obviously haven’t! C. S. Lewis said it best. “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” In a cross-cultural situation, this means consciously putting aside certain cultural aspects that we have conditioned ourselves to classify as needs.
Another hard-to-break habit is cultural ethnocentricity. In a nutshell, it means that you think that your country and culture is the best in the world. It’s a peculiar disease, and the whole world has it. Name a country, and the resident of that country will tell you that their country is the absolute best, most efficient, most laid back, best food, best people, best family dynamic, best climate…best you name it. People from the United States have elevated this universal prejudice to an art form. Although I do believe this is changing as more and more students experience life in other parts of the world, it nevertheless is still very prevalent. And like the first step in AA, recognition is the beginning of change. A fish doesn’t know what water is. The culture we swim in is invisible to us. When we experience a difference culture, we have a choice. Either we mentally take our culture with us, and try our best to maintain an artificial environment that will inevitably provoke constant evaluation and judgment, or we seek to swim in new waters, realizing that there is a learning curve involved in that.
Quote of the Day: In a new culture, faced with a multitude of differences, we are prone to judge from our cultural perspective. Too often we see negatively what God sees as difference. If it is merely different and not wrong, we should stay open and be accepting.
Duane Elmer. Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christlike Humility (Kindle Locations 460-461).
1. Nice hat.
2. Only four tacos? Are you ill?!?