This past week was not as fun as expected because almost everything Lucio -our speaker- talked about we learned before our DTS outreach reading Foreign To Familiar by Sarah Lanier. It was basically the book that all of us read on the plain ride either to Russia or Peru, so we kind of already had an idea of everything he was teaching on the first couple days. However it is a really great book, even just for anyone to read whether you choose to be in the mission world or not because it explains the difference between 'hot and cold cultures'.
The idea is that Northern America, Canada, and Northern Europe (places where it is for the most part cold) is considered cold culture, where everywhere else in the world where climate is generally hot is considered hot culture. So that seems really basic, but the reason for talking about the differences really opened my eyes to how people in different areas and cultures go about life. In the cold culture areas -Minnesota as an obvious example-, people are very task and time oriented. We like to have things scheduled out from start to finish so that we have time to do other things and go other places. We don't typically talk to 'strangers' in public places, in fact we get irritated when someone interrupts our plans for the day.
The hot cultured people on the other hand, so think of like a family from the southern part of the States, are veeeery relationship oriented. For example, if you've got a friend in Louisiana, you can show up at a meal time and assume that they will be happy to see you, invite you inside, and feed you a pretty amazing feast. They'll expect you to stay however long you want because you're welcome to any food they have, you're welcome to their house, you're invited to any events they attend and paid for by the host. A cold culture person however would want to know in advance if you're planning on coming over so they can plan out how much food they need to make, whether or not you need to book a hotel room, and they'll assume that if you're going out to a movie with them that you're paying for yourself. Hot culture views the most priority in relationships, then business. Cold culture being the opposite wants to take care of the task and maybe become friends in the process, but probably not. Because of these kind of drastic differences, people often get offended or feel like others are being rude because that's just not how they've lived their entire life. Since I personally have been to many different places around the U.S. and South and Central America, these differences really make a lot of sense and I kind of wish I would've known them sooner. I feel like if everyone knew this kinda thing, we would avoid so many conflicts.
Of course it's a generalization so it's not the exact definition of anybody that lives in these areas, but it's kind of true also when you think about it.
We also did a temperament test which I kind of think would've applied more to the first week learning about our personalities, and unfortunately I don't have my definitions with me so I'll just sum them up.
There's people that are more Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and/or Phlagmatic. I know those words are really weird. I personally am a good split between Choleric and Melancholy. The first two (sanguine and choleric) are typically the outgoing, extroverted people where the melancholy and phlagmatics are much more quiet and introverted. Sanguines are the ones that love people all the time, they're very likeable. Cholerics (don't laugh..) can be kind of harsh and sarcastic, stubborn, and they're not afraid of conflict. Melancholy people tend to be smarter, they can get depressed easily, very loyal in their friendships, they don't often commit to things but when they do, they're extremely deeply committed (this one is my dominant one). Phlagmatic I don't remember much about, but I do think they're very cautious about what they do and they really don't want to hurt people. But yeah that day was interesting too, finding out what everyone fit into most.
Then the excitement of the week! Mission Adventures (MA) is a program run out of our YWAM base that puts on almost a mini-DTS over a weekend for youth groups that then go on a week long mission trip put on by our staff. So our first two teams showed up Thursday night and left this morning for their mission trip at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. One of the parts I love about my school right now is that as students we get to help with the MA training weekends. So we helped teach them dramas, dances, my friends Lisa and Tommy spoke at a few different sessions they had, and we got to hang out and spend a lot of time with them. I really, really appreciate how much preparation they're getting for their mission trip. I've been on mission trips before and we didn't have this kind of thing, and those mission trips were great but I think they could've been so much better if we had this kind of training leading up to it. So they spend 2 1/2 days learning about the culture they're about to go into (some of the teams go to Peru, Panama, etc. so it's different every time), learning how to put on a Vacation Bible School for the kids, and really taking their relationship with God seriously before they go out and share it with the people they're about to serve. It was seriously so much fun, Lisa and Tommy's talks were really great, and I enjoyed the weekend a lot... But we're all SO exhausted from it. We hardly had any free time because their schedule is so packed and we're so much a part of it that all of us were giving 150% for 3 days straight, and now basically all of the students are spending all of today doing nothing so we can recover from our tiredness haha. As worn out as we are though, I think we all had a great time and I'm looking forward to the next two training weekends. We're also going on a trip with a team at the end of August which I'm sure I'll tell you guys all about when it happens :).
This post was much longer than I expected, as usual, so I'll give you a break from reading. Once again, hopefully I can find time to update next weekend! I miss you guys!!
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