Unbelievable, unforgettable firsts

During our three-month orientation course, Kenya Safari, I experienced many firsts.

That was the first time I:

• outwitted a charging hippo
• received a Maasai blessing
• ran my fingers through a psychiatrist’s hair
• lived surrounded by baboons (who pooped in the breakfast I was preparing for orientees and staff, fifty people)
• learned there was such a thing as—and had to use—a pit latrine
• slept through big cats (lions? leopards?) prowling on the other side of my tent wall
• ate goat, dikdik, warthog, ostrich egg, ugali, sukuma wiki, and irio
• drank tea from a pot cleaned in cow’s urine
• and got peed on by a colobus monkey.

 

Sigh. . . .

All I ever wanted was to live a quiet, secure, genteel life

in a little white house with a picket fence

and a rose garden,

but my husband, Dave—a free spirit

who seldom limits himself to coloring within other people’s lines—

and our adventuresome God (ditto) had other plans.

You’ve probably seen the following. I haven’t been able to identify who wrote it, though it sounds like something both God and Dave could have written. They had no intention of letting me remain an unadventurous homebody.

Life should not be a journey to the grave

with the intention of arriving safely

in an attractive and well-preserved body,

but rather to skid in sideways,

champagne in one hand,

chocolate covered strawberries in the other,

body thoroughly used up,

totally worn out and screaming

“WOO HOOOO!!! What a ride!”

(author unknown)

What about you?

Have you worked on the mission field or 

in some other role overseas?

If so, tell us your list of firsts!

Leave a comment below or on the Facebook Page.

We’d enjoy hearing your stories!

There’s hope: You can survive the Groan Zone

Last week I was candid about cross-cultural living. It can instigate culture shock and can leave a person baffled, confused, bamboozled, stymied, discouraged, befuddled, and even angry.

Cross-cultural living can leave a person disoriented. Culture shock can lead to severe depression. And personal and professional failure.

But today, our guest blogger, Sheryl O’Bryan, tells us there’s hope: We can adapt to new cultures. I encourage you to read more about her from last week’s post, and then settle in and enjoy her inspiring insights, below, first shared with us in May 2010.

Welcome, Sheryl!

New stuff fascinates me.

I am not a Mac. I’m a PC who is intrigued by all the iStuff.

I want to play with an iPad, but I don’t think I’ll get one.

My laptop is officially old by computer standards, but I’m reluctant to trade it in—even for a new PC.

I have a binder full of new recipes to try, but 97% of the time I go back to the old standbys.

The gym has new machines, but it will be a while before I give them a try.

Here’s the thing. I know newness doesn’t mean everything is shiny and happy.

I can’t think of a time when a new thing didn’t bring some pain with it.

Granted most of the pain doesn’t last, but it’s still there. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big fan of pain.

The Groan Zone

Every truly new thing takes some getting used to.

I call this the Groan Zone. You know, the period between doing things the old way and adapting to the new thing and the way it requires life to be lived.

In the space between discarding former habits and learning new ones—in the process of growth—there’s groaning.

Transitioning from a Big Wheel to a bike meant learning a new skill set, lots of skinned knees, quite a bit of groaning and more than a few tears.

A new baby brings lots of joy with her, but she also brings many hours of interrupted sleep to her parents.

Changing the kind of car you drive, be it an SUV for a sedan (who remembered they were so close to the ground?!) or a standard for an automatic (where did the clutch go?!?!), produces groan-worthy moments.

I think it’s the same way in my spiritual life.

When God is at work growing me into the next part of maturity there’s groaning to be done.

I realize I’m not as humble/generous/kind/accepting/loving/ _____ (fill in the blank) as I thought I was. Rarely are these pleasant realizations.

God knows I need these epiphanies. They are essential to me becoming who He created me to be.

Growth is hard work.

Pregnant women groan as their body changes to accommodate the new life growing inside them. A chick that doesn’t persevere through the hard work of getting out of the shell never reaps the benefits of life. Having a tumor cut out so healthy tissue can develop isn’t fun, but it’s necessary for good growth and good change.

When I hear myself groaning, I have to stop and ask, “Where is God trying to grow me now?”

Knowing groaning can lead to growth doesn’t make the process easier, but it does make me more aware.

A new zone: Refinement

The good news is we don’t groan forever. It happens in different seasons. We move from the frustrated and sometimes painful sounds of the Groan Zone to a new growth zone, Refinement. Growth continues here, but it’s more like “Look what I can do!”

Are you in the zone? 

Are you groaning and growing 

or are you refining and growing?

I was right, wasn’t I? Sheryl’s words are wise and oh-so-practical. Encouraging. Full of grace. Thanks, Sheryl!

I “met” Sheryl—or rather, I discovered her blog—in 2010, thanks to a couple of blogs we both were following.

And it was so fun to discover that Sheryl and I almost met in real life. When my husband and I worked in Africa, we once spent a few days on business at Ivory Coast Academy, where Sheryl taught missionary kids for ten years—but our timing was off: We arrived while Sheryl was on furlough.

She knows a number of teachers we knew at ICA, though.

Sheryl also knows our friend, Dr. Thom Votaw, President of Teachers in Service.

Small world, indeed!

Culture shock can really mess you up: "Even the stars are not familiar"

You might ask, “Why did you have to take an orientation course?”

The answer: Because cross-cultural living can make a person—

baffled,

confused, 

bamboozled,

stymied,

discouraged,

befuddled,

and even angry.

Cross-cultural living can leave a person disoriented. My friend Ryan Murphy, teacher at Rift Valley Academy in Kenya, points out that when you move to a different hemisphere, “even the stars are not familiar.” (All That You Can’t Leave Behind: A Rookie Missionary’s Life in Africa.)

Culture shock. It’s real. It can immobilize newcomers.  

It can even lead to deep depression and other mental health struggles.

Culture shock can make people fail in what they set out to do—it can make them flee, hurry back home where life and culture make sense.

But orientation courses can help newcomers survive countless changes and challenges.

Our course, called Kenya Safari, helped us make sense of our new settings, to adjust and flourish.  (See our “classroom” in the photos.)

It equipped us and our fellow new missionaries transition into the work we came to do.

And—this is crucial—our orientation taught us expatriates to respect and value the culture new to us, to understand the importance of not offending the host country’s people—our new coworkers and neighbors (see last week’s post, NEVER say “_ _ _ _ _ pack”).

Our classroom under giant sycamore trees

Throughout our course, we learned to:

listen,

observe,

stretch our thinking,

and, perhaps most important: scrutinize our assumptions.

We had frequent opportunities to stand back and examine our American ways.

And many times the African way seemed better than ours.

My husband, Dave, and I often said to one another, “We Americans have much to learn from Africans.”

Our Kenya Safari was a gift of God’s grace and mercy, 

providing tangible answers to often-urgent prayers. 

It blessed our lives beyond measure and changed us forever.

A page from my scrapbook

Be sure to come back next week and meet Sheryl O’Bryan.

She’ll share thoughts on transitioning—a process she calls being in the Groan Zone—with everyday examples all of us can understand.

Perhaps you’re transitioning into a new job, or moving to a new city, or changing churches.

Maybe you’re transitioning into marriage. Or into an empty nest.

Or maybe you’re considering missions work, either short-term or long-term.

Most of us go through numerous changes in life so you will appreciate Sheryl’s rich wisdom—it will help you brace yourself plan ahead for your inevitable Groan Zone.

No matter what’s happening in your life, 

you’ll find good stuff in Sheryl’s message!

C’mon back next week.

NEVER say “_ _ _ _ _ pack”

In Eleng’ata Enterit, under massive sycamore trees along a tiny stream, we studied hygiene, African anthropology, tropical diseases, and medicines to treat them.

We learned to identify Kenyan coins and bills—and how to calculate the Kenya Shilling’s equivalent value in U.S. dollars.

But perhaps most importantly, we discovered that what is polite in one culture could be rude in another.

Our goal was to learn to live in non-offensive ways among Africans. We needed to learn to appreciate their culture and traditions and practices.

We had to learn Africans’ world views and social norms and values and expectations.

But we had to go beyond just appreciating their ways of doing things—we needed to respectfully model our behavior after theirs. We needed to fit in.

We needed to try really hard 

not to offend anyone.

For example, in Kenya we should never use the left hand to give a person something. The left hand is considered dirty for reasons I won’t go into here.

Africans are people-oriented. In Kenya, everyone shakes hands when they say hello and goodbye. If we fail to do so, we offend them.

When Kenyans first greet one another, they take time to ask about each other’s health, family, and extended family. Only after a lengthy discussion do they get to business. Many Americans struggle within such a people-oriented culture because we are goal-oriented—we have work to do.

Kenyans will not look you in the eye, and they wish you wouldn’t look them in the eye either. They look at your shoulder while they talk to you, or off in the distance. This is hard to remember because we Americans usually look people directly in the eye.

And only after I returned to the States did I learn that a good woman never crosses her legs. Oh, dear, I must have proven hundreds of times that I am not a good woman!  

This is a "bum bag," NOT a fanny pack!

While we lived in Africa, no one spoke the word “p.a.n.t.s” in mixed company, but it was okay to talk about trousers.

My friend Sue was surprised to learn that the term “f.a.n.n.y pack” is vulgar in Kenya. No one winces, though, at “bum bag.”

Sue described such cross-cultural training as “relearning English.”

So, just by reading this, are you feeling—a little. . . a little disoriented? If so, welcome to cross-cultural living! Adjusting to a new culture can be unsettling, but. . . .

. . .  it can also be an adventure!

A good sense of humor helps! Dave and I would quickly learn that we had to laugh at ourselves when we made blunders.

Just for fun, take these quizzes about dining etiquette in other cultures:

Dining etiquette across cultures

Mind Your Manners: Can You Ace This Food Etiquette Quiz?

C’mon back next week and I’ll tell you more fun stuff 

about cross-cultural living.

If you have a story about cross-cultural adventures

(or “adventures”), let us know.

Leave a comment below

or on the Facebook Page for Grandma’s Letters from Africa,

or send a private message on Messenger.