Cultural CLASH!!!!!!!

I have learned it is one thing to live in another country, and yet a completely different thing to live and work in another country under national leadership.  Sometimes those lessons are hard.  But they are good.

As we are approaching mid-year evaluations, the stress level is rising in the office.  It is going to be tough.  We are a team of 6 people: one volunteer from Wheaton, one Peruvian, one Cochabamban, one Cruceña (from Santa Cruz), and Drew and myself.  Each one of us comes from a different background and different cultures, even.  That means that our ways of communicating, relating with eachother, and our expectations of eachother are all different.

I have had several humbling experiences of miscommunications, cultural misunderstandings, and simple personality differences.  The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that no matter where we are from, how we think, what our expectations may be, we all have one thing in common: we are part of one body.

Seeing these Bolivians as my brothers and sisters, and having to humble myself to admit my mistakes and cultural misunderstandings has been one of the most rewarding things for me in our time here.  Realizing how much I assume the way my culture does things the right way has been eye opening.  Drew and I purposely asked that we not be in charge of the office, or given more ¨power¨than anyone else.  We really wanted to submit ourselves to the Bolivian authority and come along side them to encourage their work and help in any way we can.  Perhaps that sounds heroic, but when the rubber hits the road, it is waking up everyday and putting my expectations and thoughts aside to listen and submit myself to my Bolivian brothers and sisters.

As I was thinking about all these humiliating and frustrating moments, I realized how, in a much bigger way, Christ has done the same for us.  


Romans 12:3
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.


Philippians 2:1-8

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, 
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing 
    by taking the very nature of a servant, 
    being made in human likeness. 
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death —
        even death on a cross!