Culture 101-- compliments of Sarah Lanier

GUYS. IVE FIGURED OUT WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP.

I want to be Sarah Lanier.

Not really. But kind of. I'm not sure about the full time missionary part, but she has been to 76 countries, speaks several languages, and is like THE ywam person for cross-cultural relations. So basically she's my hero. (GIFT IDEA: her book "Foreign to Familiar") But anyway, Monday and Tuesday's classes were on going cross-cultural, which was fascinating. Also, I have beautiful notes.

I can ramble on and on and on about her teachings, but Im not sure any of you will find them as interesting or enrapturing as I happen to, so I wont bore you with all the details, just a quick recap. Everyone is either from what is called a hot-climate culture or a cold climate culture. 80% of the world is hot climate. From there, subdivisions can be made like high context and low context cultures, but there are some basic overarching personality traits that can be found in hot climate versus cold climate cultures. The fact that you can begin to understands the basics of someone's culture and how they think just by determining where they're from is amazing to me. But the most important thing I think I learned from Sarah is just to meet people where they are at. In America we are very low-context, but most of the world is very high context. Tradition matters, EVERYTHING MATTERS. And to disregard that (even unintentionally and out of ignorance) can be very offensive to people. The Apostle Paul wrote in a letter to the Corinthians:

"Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings." (1 Cor. 9:19-23)

Paul met people where they were at, related to people in whatever way they could best relate to, in order to show Christ's love. And that is a concept that is still very much applicable today on the mission field.

In other news, things here are going really well. I miss all of you very much, although the weather here is much nicer...Soo as far as visiting goes, y'all can just come down here. ;)

Oh. Also. Send me mail! I LOVE MAIL. Im also still roughly $3500 short for outreach, please please please pray about supporting me on my trip, and as always, your thoughts and prayers are important as well. God has been doing some really cool things here over the last 2 weeks and I know he is going to continue to work here over the next three months.


Much Love,

Ali