We have basically concluded our month in Belgium for our Pre-Field Training. What follows is the Reflection Paper that I submitted commenting on some of the most important lessons learned this month. It is my attempt to be honest and accurate about the process here. Enjoy!
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How do you summarize an intense, challenging, thought provoking, emotionally difficult month into one 5-7 page paper? Is it possible in the midst of the process to accurately relate the impact of the month on our understanding of ourselves, other cultures, and missions? Although the month has been filled with some intense emotional times for me and my family, I am glad that we have participated. I am hopeful that my observations of the Belgian culture and observations of myself and my family will have important ramifications for our lives in Kenya.
Before we arrived, I was trying to understand how immersing my family in the Belgian culture would have any relevance for Kenya. However, I have a better understanding of the skills that are needed to do this more successfully.
In regards to my observations of Belgian culture, I have made three main observations; Belgians seem to be very private, they an undergoing change in their values, and they are tend to be multilingual.
My first observation was pretty easy; Belgians are private people. We noticed even on the train from Brussels to Ghent that people do not like to make eye contact. On public transport and on the streets, we have found it difficult to connect with people using eye contact. They, as a group, also seem to be very quiet. It was pretty easy to find Americans here; they were generally the loudest group in a bus, restaurant, or museum. This privacy also seems to extend to relationships. Although you could get a Flemish person to talk about the culture in general, they were often silent or evasive about personal questions. My initial reaction to this privacy was that the Belgians were unfriendly, but as I thought more about this, I realized that they are just different.
In my conversations with several English speaking Belgians, I learned that there is a shift in values going on here. The older Belgians are concerned about this. There seems to be more divorces, fewer marriages, fewer children being born, a declining work ethic, and rising use of technology which seems to exacerbate the above concerns in values. Of concern to one business owner in the city, is the laziness of the younger generation. He laments that people are content to work less and play more. He also laments the increasing reliance on government subsidy for “unemployment”. He states that the younger generation wants to live at the lifestyle of the parents, but not put in the hard work to attain it. I have wondered if this “welfare” contributes to the divorce and marriage rates that Belgium is experiencing.
In regards to technology use, one Belgian commented that people are now hiding behind technology. For example, it used to be that when one visited a physician he would take the time to interview and examine the patient. Now physicians tend to rely on labs and other diagnostic tests and forego the important act of communication. Unfortunately, this is more of a global problem, but one in which Belgians seemed to be concerned. It intensifies the declining reliance on community and family.
On a positive note, I have observed many Belgians to be multilingual. It was very unusual to come across a Flemish speaker who could not speak English. It was not uncommon to find one who spoke not only Flemish and English but French and other European languages. I was a bit surprised in this aspect as I do not think of Ghent as being the vacation spot in Belgium. I understand that folks that live in Brussels and Antwerp must be multilingual because of the tourism and commerce. I think it taught me a lesson about how valuable language acquisition is. I asked several folks how they learned multiple languages and the basic answer was “we tried and practiced them”. It was an encouragement to me that I can also learn languages.
Not only have I made observations about the culture, but I have made some observations about myself and my own family. I have realized that we process “newness” and cultural at different paces; we must learn to work as a family unit; we must learn the culture we are going to; we must learn to celebrate failure; and that we need community.
The pace of this past month has been vigorous. It has been difficult to establish a routine. It has been made harder by the fact that we have been in a new culture. It has been harder yet that we process things at different rates. When we arrived, I noticed that I was intrigued by the language and the culture. I wanted to try to understand menus, instructions, etc. I wanted to eat at cafes. However, I noticed that Marti wanted to take it slower. She wanted to eat the familiar, to do what she was used to. She took the tortoise approach, I took the rabbit approach. Neither approach was better, just different.
During this month, one of our biggest frustrations was that we were not going in the same direction as a family. During our lectures, exercises, service teams, and team projects, Marti and I rarely ended up on the same team. We were in different language groups and eventually different field work teams. This did not “stretch” us, it just frustrated us. We talked about how we were able to do that in my private practice in South Carolina. Although Marti did not attend all the management meetings while I was in practice, she did attend some and was mostly up to date on what was going on. I have learned through the years that she is a very insightful and valuable part of the team, even if it is only part time given her responsibilities at home. I really wished we could have worked more together, studying the same language, working on the same field teams. It would have allowed us to learn to work together in a different cultural context. Although it was a negative aspect of the training, it did teach us how much we missed working together.
I also learned that we really must put in the time to learn the culture we are going to. The first week of training was extremely important. Not only was the information of PILAT important but our time of interaction with the Gradins was valuable. It helped us put together our plan of action for language learning. Also in this same vein, we really learned a lot about culture, contextualization, demographic and ethnographic research. I have already made some adjustments to my “action plan” of how I am going to approach the first year in Kenya. We look forward to collecting data, building relationships, learning the needs of the country, and to embrace our new culture. I think this approach will help us in the long run.
I also learned the value of “celebrating failure”. Coming from the medical community and its own culture, I have not appreciated failure. I have always been driven to do my best to succeed. I realize that this spills over into my spiritual and family life as well. I am definitely guilty of being a works oriented Pharisee. I am also guilty of expecting perfection from my wife and children. This month I realize that I have failed quite a bit as a father and husband; instead of proactively leading them and assuring that they were adjusting, I found myself passively leading, hiding behind my assignments and tasks. Again, the upside of this is that I recognize this and will be more proactive in Kenya.
One of the most valuable lessons we have learned this month is the indispensable truth that as Christians, we are made for community. The fact that we learned of Marti’s pregnancy and her miscarriage in the same week has been a powerful reminder of this. Although we considered not sharing her pregnancy with everyone given her previous history, we are convinced that it was essential to our needed healing that we make it a public announcement. The amount of love and concern that was poured out on us was so incredible. Not only did we get to experience the tangible expression of the gospel through the hugs, tears, prayers, and gifts of the body during our loss, our children were also able to observe and participate in this expression of love. During our dark hours of sadness, grief, and anger at God, we experienced His love through us through the touch of our fellow believers.
As we approach the final leg of our itineration, we are glad that we came to Belgium for our Pre-Field Training. Although, we may have suggested being more intentional in putting the spouses together on teams, we were able to observe and learn some vitally important things about our selves. We look forward to moving on to Kenya. We feel better prepared to tackle the enormous tasks ahead of language learning and cultural adaptation. We also feel better prepared to do it together as a family.
Great post. I agree that working together would have been better for you and your wife. My husband and I did all our language and culture learning - pre field and on the field - together. We found that we really appreciate the other's strengths and learn a lot from each other. And just a plug for learning the local language - there is nothing more satisfying than the jaw dropping look we get when we rattle on in the local language here. People are shocked, impressed and genuinely touched that we have learned their language. This is especially meaningful when many people here can speak English, so we are not forced to speak their language. We choose to. God bless you as go!
Posted by: Jane | August 07, 2004 at 10:06 AM