Confessions of a new missionary:

As I sat in training classes last year and learned about culture shock and ethnocentrism, I determined to take the lessons to heart. I knew I couldn’t entirely avoid culture shock, but I was resolute not to be ethnocentric. (Ethnocentrism is when one comes to a new culture with the idea that one’s own culture is superior to it.)

The confession? Well, I demonstrated a prime example of ethnocentrism in my March article! I was in the depths of culture shock about many issues, and I wrote the article the day after the little boy in my article was roughly treated. I had a dark, extreme picture, and it was all I could see. I made it sound as though all the rich people here spoil their children, all the poverty-stricken don’t care much about their children and all Kmae children are disobedient. Though this is true in many cases, there are many, many people here who love their children and treat them well. In my ethnocentric state of mind, I wanted to show people the proper way to treat children. But the fact is they have many things to teach me. (No, I am not a perfect parent.)

It is true that there are not many resources here for teaching Christian family dynamics, but I was happy to hear that, at the last church workers meetings, they held sessions on training children and passed out materials for continued study on the topic.

The funny part is that my husband thought it wise to do some serious editing on my March article. He e-mailed the edited version to AFM after the unedited one had already been sent. I rested, relieved that my husband had the wisdom and foresight to bring some perspective to my emotional article. When we received our March issue, I glanced over my article and was horrified to see the original version staring back at me! We have discovered that e-mail is very unreliable here. Obviously, Greg’s version was one of many e-mails that had been lost in cyberspace. I moaned with regret.

So there you have it: the real, raw version of the struggles of a new missionary. Don’t worry, I have gotten over that deep initial culture shock, and I’m adjusting quite well now. God is doing amazing things to change this ethnocentric heart of mine.

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