Week 11 Summary...

This week was the last week of classes for our lecture phase of the Children at Risk school. We had the amazing blessing of having Camille Bishop come and spend the week with us speaking to us on cross culture communication. She offered us a lifetime of working and living in different cultures. She shared with us her success stories and her failures. We looked at Kingdom culture, as well as Western and two-thirds world cultures. We talked about different proverbs from the different cultures of everyone in our class and were reminded how important it is to be culturally sensitive and to be willing to take the “one down position” when working with other people. We also were taught about the different levels of experiencing a culture and about culture shock.

The most impacting information for me was just really looking into why certain cultures behave or think in certain ways and how important it is to learn the history of a place to really understand the culture. It was also really impacting thinking about how you can go deeper into a culture and not just accept the surface level of a culture that you can experience at with your five senses. A new revelation that I discovered about God this week was learning about His plan for languages, community development, and how nations were created.

This weeks teachings brought out questions for me about the Rwandan culture. Such as: What is it going to be like really? What areas will I experience culture shock in while I am there? Amongst many others. I will get these questions answered as I spend the next 6 months in Rwanda and am able to experience it for myself as well as ask questions about their culture.

This week in the community… they have all started to blur together… I think this week was a good week. God showed Himself as the faithful provider that I know that He is and most of the issues with my bank worked out so that was an encouragement and such a blessing. I have continued to invest in my friends here, and am realizing how hard it will be to leave a lot of them behind. I learned this week again about how important communication is and how it is important to clarify that what you are communicating, is what the other person is hearing. This week I have also just been reminded so much of how much I love this community in Burtigny and especially the staff of this school. Saying goodbye is going to be hard, but I am getting so excited for Rwanda and everything God has in store for the team and for myself there, in Rwanda.