12 DEC - 9AM - REFLECTIONS

One of the challenges of writing this blog is trying to communicate the stark cultural and linguistic gap that exists between us and the locals and their local ettiquette.

We're coming to build trust & build relationships to support John in his ministry, but it takes days of walking around and talking to people to not cause offence in the simplest of interactions.

The flipside of this is that our efforts in orientation, learn basic communication, and build some commonality end up looking like a junket.

The contrasting situation would be in Australia, doing school scripture, where you could (theoretically) walk into a school and have massive cultural continuity that in Australia would be simply assumed. That doesn't exist here is Thailand.

When we speak about the pragmatic benefits of multiculturalism in Australia, the greatest good for the greatest number has been in food. On a very practical level - cultural differences are most frequently enjoyed in food.

In Australian culture, with our origins in Victorian modesty, Puritan aceticism, British meat & 3 veg heritage, the importance of food is easily dismissed. Other cultures don't have the privilege of this heritage. Food becomes a place of family connection and building relationships, and so what you eat becomes part of that.

Recording what you eat becomes part of understanding culture. Alternatively you could write it off as a frivolous distraction from the gospel. I think it depends on whether you reckon you can separate the gospel from culture or not.