#6 Culture Shock

     They say anytime you step into a new culture it's like going through a time warp. No matter how high up you've climbed on the latter and how successful you've been in your own culture, when you leave it you are stripped bare of all of it.  You lose your ability to speak, and your understanding and the "know how" to be able to perform simple daily tasks. It's like going from an adult back to being an infant.  You're helpless and dependent on the people around you.  Experiencing this as a missionary can be quite bewildering.  You understand the great task of introducing Jesus to the people around you and discipling and mentoring them so they can grow in their knowledge and relationship with Him, and you can't even understand what's going on around you.  If you didn't feel inadequate before to be a missionary you sure do now. 
     I experienced all this my first week in the Philippines while living on the farm in the lowlands with a handful of mountain Palawans.  Everything there was new, the sights, sounds, smells, sleeping with mosquito nets, having a bamboo floor, cooking for eight people over one fire, using a machete, preparing and cooking food I'd never seen before, bucket showers, hand washing cloths, the social customs, and of course the language.  Jumping into all of this made a very steep learning curve.  As I attempted to keep up my stress level rose and culture shock began to set in.
     Before everything was new and different in a wonderful sort of way, but now I was seeing everthing that was new and different in an aweful way.  What I once thought was beautiful seemed dull and ugly now.  Smells that were simply new made me feel nausous.  Before when I saw people I wondered who they were, what their struggles were, and what was important to them.  Now all I saw was that these peple ware selfish and are judging me.  I didn't experience this very long before I knew something had to change.  I had come to share the love of God and I wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon, and at this point I had no room for God's love in my own heart.
     I turned to the only thing I knew would help my God and friend.  The Palawans were wonderful to us the two weeks we were there with them on the farm.  Teaching us how to cook, always helping us with our fire, patiently repeating the same word over and over again so we could learn it was so unselfish and gracious of them.  The problem was my identity was stripped from me.  No one knew what I was good at, or that I even was good at anything.  They didn't know what was important to me or anything about my past, and how could they have?  When I turned to God in my troubles He reminded me that my identity is not hidden from him.  He knows all about me and cares even about the little things that most people don't.  He brought me here for a reason and has promised to be my help.  Even though I've felt much has been taken away from me here I realize my relationship with God has remained untouched.  Nothing can come between that, and he is indeed my help!  "...If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast."  Psalm 139:9,10