“Identify the culture to use the culture to reach the culture” is a phrase that comes up often at both Youth Ministry International and the youth ministry classes at the Mexican Baptist Theological Seminary. Today it was something that slipped my mind.
I was in the airport with Jon and Nicolle awaiting their flight back to the United States, and we saw the Japanese guy who has been living in the Mexico City airport for a few months. Since he’s pretty much a celebrity, we decided to ask if we could have our picture taken with him. But we went about it completely wrong.
Jon and I approached the guy and asked him if he spoke Spanish. He just stared at us. Then we asked about English. We thought that surely he would speak English. Again we were met with a blank stare. Finally I motioned like I was taking a picture and he nodded in approval. We finally got what we wanted, but things could gave gone so much better.
As we returned to our table in the food court, we started talking about what we should have done differently.
For starters, we should not have assumed he would speak English. How ethnocentric of us! We looked up a few Japanese phrases after the fact that would have been useful in our quest. Basic phrases like good morning and how are you would have helped greatly. It’s always a good idea to speak people’s language.
We also should have treated him as a person. We really just wanted to say we had seen him, so we didn’t try to ask how he was or engage in small talk. People are much more open if you treat them like people and not like objects.
No wonder he’s looking at me funny in the picture.
I’m sure there are other things that we did wrong today, but reflecting on these two big mistakes will hopefully help me in the future.
Last night was the end of a Cinderella season for the Tampa Bay Rays. It was an amazing run of going from last place to first place in one year. They won 97 games in the regular season this year. That’s amazing.
Since we were in the Tampa Bay area for the summer, I had the chance to watch this season up close. We watched most of the games this summer, and kept up with how they did. It was a tremendous transformation.
The American League Championship Series was something I’ll remember for a long time. Beating the Boston Red Sox is always fun. Now it’s even more fun.
But the Rays didn’t do it the way most teams do. They have the lowest payroll in the league, and they beat teams that had millions more dollars to spend. They did it with teamwork. Their motto all season has been 9=8, meaning nine guys playing hard and working together for 9 innings would allow them to be one of eight teams in the playoffs.
It’s a great life lesson for us. Teamwork is what we need in life. Teamwork is what we need for our families to be strong. Working as a team is what makes our ministries thrive. It’s not enough to have a few superstars working on their own. It takes a team to win. Just ask the Rays.
Since we’ve been thinking about global youth ministry, you might be looking for more information on world missions. If that’s the case, then The World Missions Atlas Project, over at Worldmap.org, is a great resource for you.
The site contains different types of information, including maps, data sets, and descriptions of various countries and regions of the world. There are maps of various regions linked to the missions data that is known for that region or country.
You can download PDF files, maps, and data to share what is happening in the world of missions.
I haven’t had enough time to fully explore the entire site because there is so much on it, but if you’re looking for free maps for missions, the World Missions Atlas Project is definitely the place for you to begin your search.
I do my best to inform our donors and inspire others to be actively involved in global youth ministry, and I want you to help me get the word out about what we’re doing.
So, for a limited time (until we run out), I want to send you five free postcards for you to use to spread the word about our family and ministry.
All you have to do is send me your mailing address by email at drpoulette(at)gmail(dot)com or comment here and I’ll send you postcards.
When you get your postcards, you can send them to your friends and people you think might be interested in knowing about us. You’ll get to get in touch with old friends, and you’ll spread the word about God is doing in Latin America through our family and ministry. It’s a win-win situation for all of us.
What are you waiting for? Comment here or send me an email!
Click the picture to see a larger version of the front side of the postcard.
I saw a post from Chris Brogan about free ebooks about social media, and I thought I would put out a list of free ebooks about youth ministry. The first link is where you can get the actual PDF file. The second link is the site that produced the ebook.
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