Different is...?

Different is...?

Posted by Ashley Hoover

  So I'm going to try to put into words some of what I learned at SPLICE. (For those who've asked, SPLICE is a ministry of Mission Training International and each letter stands for different areas of life we looked at. Spiritual, Personal, Lifestyles, Interpersonal, Cultural and Endurance/Enjoyment.)

  One thing every overseas missionary faces is the new culture and it's differences vs. how we've always understood our own culture to be right, normal, natural and good. Robin, one of our instructors talked to us during our first week (though we revisited it often) that we tend to make judgments on what is right and wrong based on our frame of reference without often stopping to consider the other culture/person's point of view. We think of our own culture as being normal, natural, right and good so anything that is different is therefore unnatural, not normal, wrong and bad. We were reminded several times that different is just different, it's not necessarily bad. Wrong is wrong. We talked about several different examples of things we could perceive as wrong according to our culture and if those things were really wrong or just different and did the Bible say anything on it? It was very eye opening and thought provoking to look at culture in a new way. "Suspend judgement" Robin told us until you know why other cultures do things the way they do. Part of understanding a new culture involves exiting our world where we are comfortable and entering their's. It's not as easy as it might sound, trying to see things from their frame of reference but to live in another culture it is necessary. Our personal beliefs and values will be challenged but I now feel better equipped to determine what is just different and what is actually wrong. To sum it up:

"Different is just different, wrong is wrong." 

God, please give us wisdom to discern between the two.