(Roger and Gloria Marriot, PCUSA mission workers who have served in Guatemala almost continuously since 2002, recently shared their thoughts about cross-cultural partnerships in a letter. We share some of their insights in these extended excerpts.)
“It is good to be back in Guatemala….The fact that we are pleased to be here and have been here for eight years does not prevent frustration and the constant collision of cultures. We recognize that we respond as North American, white, middle-class, suburban, Christians, to all events….
Inherent in that description is also the germ of misunderstanding when working cross-culturally. North Americans believe their systems and values are the correct ones and are the standards by which they measure the rest of the world. And why wouldn’t they? This has been part of the North American educational process from the earliest. “The melting pot,” “land of the free,” “you can be anything you want to be,” and many similar phrases speak of the strengths and the pride we have in our system.
North Americans take as a matter of course that what we value is what all people value, that what we have is what all people want….
When North Americans visit a place like Guatemala as short-term missioners, they bring with them all the influences that have shaped them. As U.S. missioners, the overriding influences have been Christian faith and the belief in upward economic mobility. There is the need to help those who have so little in comparison to North American standards. Missioners have been taught to share not only their faith but their material wealth as well….
Rarely do visitors consider that the things they think are important are learned, they’re conditioned by culture, and that looking at things in another culture through our cultural lens may be incorrect. These factors affect every North American in Guatemala. If people don’t respond according to our experiences and beliefs, we immediately try to explain it to ourselves because that is our culture: There is always a reason. And that’s the way we cope. We answer for others if they act in ways contrary to what we know as correct behavior….
We talk of being in partnership with our Kekchi friends, but we would expect anyone else with whom we may be partners to be equal to us in all ways; we would expect something substantial from them. Too often we see our Kekchi friends, or any indigenous group, as in need of our largesse, our wisdom, our knowledge, and our help—-not as partners….
Frequently, actions by North Americans in any foreign setting serve to underscore differences rather than similarities. We assess and determine unilaterally what it is they must need and what has led to the formation of hundreds or thousands of NGOs that deal with specific needs, e.g., clean water, wells, food, education, books, shoes, health, agriculture, houses, and more. Marginalized people become objects of our worry and pity. That act dehumanizes them or makes them less than we would hope to feel or believe even about ourselves. Visitors only want to help, but they have little time to spare. Given the value we place on doing something about the situation, we begin our activities immediately. Time is a luxury unavailable to the short-term missioner….
All people were created in the image of God. We are called upon to love all people, our neighbors. Loving them would require some level of understanding them.
The more we know of one another, and the more we understand one another in each other’s cultural context, the better able we will be to build real partnerships and true relationships based on mutual understanding, not upon what one can do for the other. Once we do that, then our mutual abilities to communicate the truth of God will be enhanced and we can celebrate together what God has done and is doing in the world in the lives of people, wherever they are, who are so different from us. Mutual understanding will help us to see God more clearly and to become beacons of hope, love, and understanding that promote unity in Christ, peace in our lives, and ultimately peace in the world….”
Read the entire letter
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