Mission Fest 2009

Today for the first time I attended Mission Fest here in Toronto. It is one of those events that I always think about attending but it comes and goes without me remembering and then I vow that I will attend next year... and on and on it goes.
So this morning bright and early we headed out to check it out. It was worth the while. I attended three workshops about getting ready to engage in missions and ran into a few people I knew.
The first workshop I attended really got me thinking. The workshop's purpose was to tell you all the things you will wish you knew before you go and I went with the idea that it would answer all my questions. Instead it left me with a lot of questions, but good questions, things to think about. I realize that each culture is so different it would be impossible to have a workshop that prepared people to work in any given culture. The emphasis was on being culturally sensitive and carefully observing those around you and following their lead. As I was listening I reflected on the summer I spent in Sierra Leone and the year I spent in Haiti. I was reminded of many times when I refused to follow the cultural norm because it made me uncomfortable or I just felt too inconvenienced by it. Most of the time I tried to be culturally sensitive but when I was tired, or in a rush or felt out of my comfort zone I naturally reverted back to the comfort of Canadian norms. For example, when I was in Sierra Leone we were in a very small village in the North of the country. We spent all day teaching at the local school and the house we were staying at was about a 5 min. walk from the school. The school only had a communal washroom which I was not comfortable with using so whenever I had to use the washroom I walked back to the house. This in and of itself was not a problem, the problem was that I had to walk quickly and I had to walk by many people and many houses between the school and the house. Our breaks were short so I had to walk quickly back and forth between the school and the house. This is not the norm in Sierra Leone. First of all you don't walk quickly, secondly you do not pass by that many people and not stop and "greet" them (this takes anywhere from 2 -10 min/person). I did not have the time, so I would try to avoid making eye contact and quickly walk by, sometimes saying a general greeting to a group of people. I'm sure this single act did not undo all that was accomplished in the workshops but sometimes cultural insensitivity does much more damage. Needless to say, I resolved to be more informed and more culturally sensitive this time.