A Dutch friend and I were talking about the recent birth of a baby. The friend asked about the customs in America--when do friends and family come for visite to bring gifts and see the baby for the first time. 

The answer is, they don't. That is not part of American culture.* 

Don't we all do just what this Dutch friend did--don't we all take our culture for granted? It's hard not to. We assume all the time that people will act in certain ways and will communicate in certain ways because that's the way we do. I recently read a module that highlighted this: Cultural and Linguistic Differences: What Teachers Should Know.

For example, most teachers in America come from white, middleclass backgrounds like me. We expect kids to tell stories in a linear way--beginning, middle, end. Frankly, I have trouble following other styles of organizing information. A Latino friend, for instance, uses a circular way of telling stories or explaining ideas. This has fancy academic names--which I also didn't know called--topic association or topic chaining. 

This realization makes me wonder whether she has as much trouble following my storytelling style as I have had in following hers. It also makes me wonder how, if I had students like her in a writing class, I would teach them to write in the linear way which is expected in most American academic settings while also honoring and appreciating the cultural style those students know and use so well.

Insights into this and related issues of the classroom as a foreign culture will be welcomed!

Mary VanRheenen 

*Dutch parents send out a geboortekaart or birth announcement card which includes times when people can come to visit. Guests who come op visite will be given beschuit met muisjes (Dutch rusk spread with butter and topped with either pink or blue anis-flavored sprinkles). Guests will also have brought a gift for the child (and perhaps also the parents). 

The first whole week or at least for the first few days the new parent(s) will also have a kraamverzorgster for whole or half days. This trained health professional will help them care for the baby, gradually having the parent(s) take on more and more responsibility. The kraamverzorgster will also prepare the beschuit met muisjes for the visitors. 

And instead of handing out cigars at work, a new parent might bring biscuit met muisjes to announce the birth and share the joy. 

This group of young people gather once a week at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Moldova.

They themselves more or less determine what the Bible discussion will be. 

Their leaders prepare Bible teaching based on questions the young people have raised.

Please continue to pray for wisdom for the leaders (mainly pastor Petru Ciochina) . . .

. . . and for understanding on the part of the young people-- understanding on a number of levels, linguistic as well as intellectual and spiritual. 

Most speak Ursari Romani at home and spend hours on Russian-language social media.

Bible lessons and school are mainly taught in Romanian. 

(Note:  Romanian and Russian are the two most prominent languages in the Republic of Moldova.)

It is a delight--and a challenge--to see these young people in church. May the Spirit move among them!

Minority language recording with a twist

I recently helped record the Gospel of Mark in a minority language. The speakers live in a place where it is dangerous to evangelize, so everyone--including me--traveled to a neutral country to do the recording. 

There's also a translation team working in a related minority language who are all women. The Wycliffe translator who is working with them (online, not face-to-face) would like to do a similar recording with them in a neutral place in the near future. However, in this culture, married women cannot sit around a table like this with other men unless their husbands (or other women) are also present. Since these women's husbands would not be accompanying them, ideally the recording team would also include women.

The Wycliffe translator (present but not seen in this photo) was pleased, during the last recording that we did, to find that there is, in fact, a woman who is a media specialist and does the same thing I do. I was able to introduce him to this person who--to make it even better--actually lives in the neutral country where we did our last recording. The Wycliffe translator was able to meet her personally and discuss the possible recording project. Though she won't be able to do the project herself, she put the Wycliffe translator in touch with another woman who might be.

Praising the One who connects,

Keith Holmes