Category Archives: Culture

The Nit-Grit: Smiles and Sweat

What’s in this edition:

site visits

This month I have had the opportunity of taking several visits to schools and other sites our organization works to support. It was great to spend some time with our national workers, both encouraging them and also learning from what they are doing. One highlight was visiting one of our schools that is just three years old. I was encouraged to see the energy and ambition of our national partners, as they fearlessly led this elementary school with creative teaching style and revolutionary learning techniques. I am excited for the future of this school as it continues to grow. I had the privilege of teaching 1st and 2nd grade while I was there. See the photo album here.

I also had the joy of bringing my grade 9 Bible class on a short term service trip (read about it in my post “Just Jump”). After focusing a lot on community development and leadership this year in class, it was a joy to see them translate what they had learned into practical application. They taught classes, prayer walked, and picked up trash among this tiny village up in the mountains. See the photo album here.

 

s-village

Please pray for S-Village. If you haven’t kept up with the developments of S-village, you can read the first update here and the second update here. There has been an incredible amount of spiritual warfare in this village. We have sent a national teacher from our school, but there is a lot of conflict between a majority religion teacher there and the village chiefs. The village chiefs want education, but coming out of their animistic beliefs, they are not sure which religion to follow. Please keep them in your prayers.

teacher training program

I am beyond excited to be a part of the building of our new teacher training program. This will be my focus over the next year as I not only live with our teachers in training but will also be involved in the creating of the program as a whole.

Quality teachers are the foundational element to effective Christian Education. Right now I work with a “Lab school”, that is a school we hope to model other schools after that provide quality, creative, Christian education to nationals. This year we have started a Teacher Training Program to equip teachers to train in these schools. This last year, we brought four students in from another area and enrolled them in a local University. The students went to class in the evenings and then attended specialized training given by us at our Lab School. We pay for these students to study for four years and live in our dorm (which I currently live in as well) and then they commit to teaching for four years in one of our schools (we have about 25 schools in different parts of the country). This past year was the pilot year, and I am excited to be a part of the program as we grow it into its second year next year. I am looking forward to receiving five new students next year from a different remote area.

We took the four students from this year on a field trip to celebrate them finishing exams. See the photo album here.

language learning

Thank you SO much for your prayers concerning my language learning. I had reduced my official language classes to 2/week in March, and as of last week I have finished classes altogether.  I anticipate language will be something that I will continue to learn throughout the entirety of my time here, but I am encouraged to move beyond the classroom and continue to learn from the nationals I live with and the people around me. Please continue to pray that my comprehension would increase, that I might better be able to understand those around me. That being said, while this journey of language learning has been difficult, I have had some recent breakthroughs that have been very encouraging.

this summer

I am very excited as I look ahead into the next several months. Next week I will be traveling with some of my ninth graders on a short trip to celebrate their graduation, as well as returning to the 3-year-old school I described above for their graduation. I am looking forward to spending that time with my students and continuing to deepen my relationship with them. We will also be receiving five new students into the dorm I live in (as described above).

We will also be hosting several short term teams from the US. In July, I will be doing some teacher training at our school on “Strategies for using the Internet for Resourceful and Creative Teaching”. My emphasis will be on TedEd and Skype in the Classroom, and I am really excited about the possibilities both of these options have for enhancing our creative teaching here in Southeast Asia.

In August I will be taking a trip to a site out in the “Jungle”. Just today I met with some phenomenal, innovative teachers from that same area who have a passion for providing education to their next generation of leaders. I look forward to visiting the school we already have there, as well as meeting with some other people who I hope to encourage in their endeavors to develop Christian education.

prayer requests

Here are the major prayer requests, visit my prayer & praise page to read more:

  • For S-Village (see above)
  • For the short term teams coming this summer, that God would prepare their hearts and ours, and that God would open doors for their maximal effectivity
  • For the 5 new students in our teacher training program, as well as the 4 returning students
  • That God would continue to guide us in developing our teacher training program
  • That God would continue to awaken dreams in the hearts of our students who are graduating this year
  • For our grade 12 graduates as they continue on to University
  • For safety and guidance as I continue site visits

Thanks so much for your prayer, support, and interest in all that God is doing here. It’s so exciting to be a part of, and I am so grateful that you are a part of it with me!

Irony and a Prayer Request

“The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest) Oh how I bank on the truth of this statement.

Nothing can prepare you to live and lead across cultures. Before I moved here I did a lot of studying, including taking a grad class on leading cross-culturally, but I am finding the only way to learn how is to do it and fail. I am preparing my 9th grade class for a short term trip in a couple of weeks. We will be going to a school to teach in an area that was affected by a volcano eruption a couple of years ago. Like any short term trip, my hope and desire is that the students would be stretched and grown into stronger leaders.

As a part of our preparation this week I am doing an exercise in class that will aim to help them identify assumptions they have and experience a simulation of what it’s like to experience cross-cultural stress and intercultural communication. Even though the area we are going to is in the same country, every region of this country has different micro cultures, so I anticipate it will be a cross-cultural experience for everyone.

The ironic truth is this: I’m incredibly nervous about performing this simulation on Monday and its effectivity. Why? Because I myself am trying to communicate across cultures. As I prepare the simulation I am being reminded of my own assumptions: that the students will understand the rules of the game, that the students will follow the rules, that the students will participate. All of these are essential for the effectivity of the simulation. But I long ago learned that these things can’t be assumed. I know full well that I may show up on Monday and the room isn’t available, or some students are absent, or they don’t understand what I’m trying to communicate.

And so I find myself arriving at that moment Chambers talks about. I am of complete weakness. I have to depend on Him. He is the great interpretor. I can spend days preparing, but it is the Holy Spirit who does the teaching, not me. If I fail, I fail. But He does not fail.

Please pray for my class on Monday. Pray that the students would understand. Pray that the Holy Spirit will interpret. Pray that cultural and linguistic barriers would be eliminated. But most of all, pray for my students, that God would stir in them His dreams and desires.

Cultural 10K

It was a cultural experience to say the least. Some of my fellow American (or “bule”) friends and I decided to join our city in a local Marathon/10K race. We knew it would be different than any race we had run before, and we were not disappointed!

The pre-race entertainment was “Gamelan” or traditional music and dancing.

The race got underway nearly an hour late…”Asian time”. It was a fun race with lots of people there. Rather than bibs, we were given tank tops with our number screen printed on the shirt. This made everyone match…which is something people like to do a lot here! I also saw people running in all kinds of shoes, from cleats to casual shoes to bare feet and socks.

The 8 of us were pretty much the only non-Asians around. We definitely stood out. We finished the race and started to head home when a race official chased us. “Stop! You have to come back!” he said in broken English. We explained that we needed to go home but thanked him for his invitation. “No, you must come back!” He said. After quite a bit of coaxing we finally gave in and walked our way back toward the finish line. They sat us in fancy chairs covered in white table cloths and served us drinks. “Wait here,” they said. We waited, knowing full well that the only reason we sat there was because we were bule. 15 minutes later they lined us all up. A crowd gathered around us as they announced us and gave us gifts and awards. We proceeded to shake hands with some apparently important people. I felt as if the paparazzi were there with a line of people snapping photos.

But why? We did not win. For the locals from this region, it was a great honor to have white people participate in their race. It was a struggle for me as I couldn’t help but ask myself some difficult questions. Why do they see me as different from them? Or moreover, why do they not see themselves as highly as I see them? Why am I considered special due to the color of my skin?

I have to say, I was honored to stand next to a man in his 70s who ran the race. He was adorable, and so strong!

Needless to say, our photo ended up in the newspaper the next day:

"Bules participate in 10K race"

Not the First Time

I remember being 6 years old and loving applesauce–it was one of my favorite after school snacks. I distinctly remember one afternoon, dumping a pile of applesauce into a bowl and making my way over to the spice rack to add some cinnamon. I was still learning to read, and I remember deliberating with myself, “Does cinnamon have a y in it? No…yes…no…yes I’m pretty sure it does.” I unknowingly grabbed the cayenne pepper and generously dumped it on my applesauce. I excitedly plopped down in my chair and began to divulge in my afternoon treat, only to be rudely awakened by the sting of spice. Needless to say, I remembered how “cinnamon” was spelled from that day on.

I never lived that story down. I lived with a roommate my first two months here and morning oatmeal was something I found myself looking forward to. Upon moving into a dorm by myself I was sure to buy the ingredients for my morning oatmeal: oats, sugar, milk, and cinnamon. Yes, I know how to spell cinnamon. In English anyway. I found myself on the spice aisle staring at all of the dark brown spices unable to read the names printed in the local language. So I guessed. I came home, and gave it a taste. Tasted good to me! I enjoyed it in my oatmeal.

That was 6 months ago. Just yesterday I made waffles for some of my Asian friends (one of them liked hot sauce on their waffle!). Among the toppings I provided was this cinnamon I had bought 6 months ago that I had not finished using. An American friend joined us, saw the cinnamon and asked,

“What’s this?”
Stupid question, I thought. “Cinnamon,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, “it smells like nutmeg or something.”
“No, it’s cinnamon,” I assured her.

Today as I perused the spices in one of my friend’s cabinets, I noticed cinnamon on the shelf. I was taken aback as I noticed it had a different name than my cinnamon. I had done it again. What I had thought was cinnamon over these last 6 months was actually some special spice used for making Asian cake!