Today I find myself struggling to find the encouragement to study Romanian and to pursue relationships with those whom God has called me to work.\u00a0 I speak a different language, grew up in a different culture, and have lived a far different life from Romanians and Roma.\u00a0 Although I have been critical of American culture in the past, I now see very clearly how much I am an American and how much I miss my own culture.\u00a0 It is difficult to struggle to find words in conversation, but more difficult for me is not understanding others.\u00a0 Lots of people talk so fast that their words blend together making it extremely difficult for me to understand.\u00a0 After two or three times of asking someone to repeat themselves it becomes embarrassing to ask again.\u00a0 When a lack of communication takes place it is hard to feel truly connected to people.<\/p>\n
I have never been an amazing speaker by any means, but until I starting trying to preach in Romanian I had never had people in a church snickering at me because of language mistakes.\u00a0 The more time I spend with Roma and Romanians the more different I realize I am.\u00a0 The interesting thing is the harder I try to become more fluent in the language and spend time with nationals the more different I feel.\u00a0 As I become more fluent in the language I get put in more difficult language situations that stretch me.\u00a0 As I pursue more friendships I get put into more completely foreign situations to me.<\/p>\n
Trying to learn a new culture and integrate into it, to use an illustration from the move Shrek, is like an onion.\u00a0 There are layers after layers of discomfort.\u00a0 You get through one layer only to find that you are experiencing the shock of the culture on a deeper level now.<\/p>\n
There is great excitement and joy in being a missionary.\u00a0 Living in a different country, learning a new language and eating different food are all exciting.\u00a0 Yet all of them wear on you after a while.\u00a0 Once the excitement wears off all the fun things become uncomfortable things.\u00a0 Because of language and culture barriers it becomes easy to never really feel connected in relationships with nationals.\u00a0 It is like there is an invisible wall between you and them that keeps you from truly understanding each other.\u00a0 Many a experienced missionary told me before I moved here to guard my heart to not become embittered against nationals.\u00a0 The path from seeing their culture as different to BAD can be subtle but quick.\u00a0 I am grateful for this advice because I fear without it I would have gone down that path already
\nSo this is where I find myself today.\u00a0 Feeling different.\u00a0 Feeling uncomfortably stretched.\u00a0 Missing the comfort of America.\u00a0 Missing friends.\u00a0 Missing home.\u00a0 But, praise God that we have a better home waiting for us with the Lord and we can be confident that our obedience to Him will not be for vain.<\/p>\n
Hebrews 13:14<\/strong> Today I find myself struggling to find the encouragement to study Romanian and to pursue relationships with those whom God has called me to work.\u00a0 I speak a different language, grew up in a different culture, and have lived a far different life from Romanians and Roma.\u00a0 Although I have been critical of American culture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[376,4],"tags":[10,25,114],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2799,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions\/2799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFor this world is not our permanent home;\u00a0<\/strong>
\nwe are looking forward to a home yet to come.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"