MCTTW--workshop in Chiang Mai

As I previously mentioned, my conference in Chiang Mai was to learn how to better communicate and work within SIM and the various cultures that we represent as a mission. Much of the workshop was spent presenting specific topics from different points of view. It was a fantastic time of working with 19 other ladies, learning about each of our cultures, and finding solutions to work more constructively together.

There were ladies from every continent (except Antarctica of course--SIM doesn't have a sending office there yet), their specific countries are the UK, Malaysia, South Africa, Australia, Korea, the Philippines, Jamaica, the United States, and Canada.

One thing that stands out most are the vast differences between the "East" and the "West"; most of our time spent discussing seemed to be about the Westerners vs. the Asians. I use those terms loosely, as those are the terms we ended up using to make defining things easier. Some of our topics included choices for housing, raising/disciplining of children, finances, and styles of worship/prayer. It was fascinating, really, to discover the ways in which we do things, and how many of these things are misconstrued as we intertwine our cultures and work together on the mission field.

I learned, for example, that when Koreans pray, they all pray together in loud voices at the same time. I can see where the "western" style of prayer, which tends to be one at a time, might be hard for the Koreans to get used to. This was personally important for me since I have taken on the role as Personnel Coordinator for our Peru field, and the fact that we have Korean and other Asian missionaries working here, and it would be good to give them a chance to pray in a way they are comfortable instead of always doing it the western way.

I think it was also good for the Asians to get a bit more of an explanation into “American” or Western culture; many of them work with westerners and really don’t understand why we do what we do.

I had to present 2 different times, the first time was to give the devotional at our first meeting on Monday morning. It went well and I really enjoyed teaching and finding the cultural differences between the Pharaoh's Daughter and Miriam in the story of Moses. My other topic had to do with Spiritual Life Conference, this is a conference that all of the fields have each year, in which we take a break from our various ministries and come together for a week of refreshment, learning and fun. I had to present what it would be like to have a SLC with only people from my culture and in my language. It was interesting because it seems that most fields around the world are doing their SLC's according to the American/Western style, which means that many missionaries from other cultures maybe aren't having their needs met according to the way their cultures are most comfortable doing things.

Not only did we spend time in meetings, though our meetings did take place from 8am-6pm each day, but we did have lots of fun times and fellowship during meals and in the evenings as well.