Culture Shock, the finale

A couple of weeks ago when Will, Phyllis, and the kids were visiting, my mother made an obscene gesture towards Jaan. Now, she had no idea what she was doing, but let's just say that in Ukraine, you shouldn't put your thumb between your pointer and middle fingers and make a gesture towards someone. The look on Jaan's face was one of surprise and Phyllis found it highly amusing. Mom was just playing the old game of "Got your nose," but this is a great example of the many, many unfortunate things that foreigners do unintentionally when living in another country.

Change in social roles: "the new cross cultural worker is like a child again, and must start learning appropriate behavior almost from scratch."

Change in language: "he meets intelligent and educated people, but he responds to them like a child or an idiot because he is not capable of any better response. He has the feeling that people are laughing behind his back.....and they are."(this one made me laugh loudly, b/c it's so true!)

Idealistic Missionary Image & Expectations

"N. Americans have come to equate intense work with spirituality. Therefore, the
Christian who is frantically busy in the Lord's work is considered the most spiritual. Leisure is viewed as a sin for the Christian."

"In the new missionary role, expectation quickly outpaces performance. New workers believe that once they have become choice servants of the Lord they will automatically achieve more. In reality, because of culture stress, achievement is drastically decreased. One cannot produce at the same level in a foreign situation.There exists a great discrepancy between what one expects of oneself(and is expected by others) and what one can actually achieve."

Life Change Stress- I've already covered this in other posts, so I'm just going to include this one paragraph:

"There is considerable stress inherent in the experience of the missionary first term(first four years), due to numerous life changes taking place at this time.This stress is in addition to the different culture and of trying to live up to expectations. It should come as no surprise that new workers experience spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical struggles as a result of this stress. Unfortunately, many mission supervisors do not understand how these stresses influence people, and so are not able to administer proper help."

The book finished with a chapter of suggestion for the first term worker and another chapter of suggestions for senior missionaries- on how to make the transition smoother for all involved. I really liked this book and would highly recommend it to other missionaries and agency leaders.