{"id":13358,"date":"2017-06-11T07:47:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-11T14:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=13358"},"modified":"2017-06-11T07:47:01","modified_gmt":"2017-06-11T14:47:01","slug":"cultural-intelligence-or-how-to-build-a-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/cultural-intelligence-or-how-to-build-a-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Intelligence, or How to Build a House"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When Kip and I moved to Kenya to work among the Turkana, we spent our first 12 months living in the remote village of Kangarisae, learning the language and culture of Turkana. It was in that little village where we first built relationships\u2014with our language helper, the church leaders, and the elders\u2014men and women\u2014in the community. Without a formal language school, we followed a learning-driven language learning methodology, slowly learning like children. We put ourselves in a humble position of relying on the community to help us figure out angajep ngaturkana<\/em> (the Turkana tongue). We allowed ourselves to be laughed at frequently. For instance, Kip once easily confused the words for \u201cI am sleepy\u201d (his intended phrase) with \u201cI am hairy.\u201d The Turkana got a kick out of that mistake because it was true. I joined some women in building a house. (Yep, Turkana women are amazing; they build their own houses.) They built the frame from edume<\/em> branches, and as they assembled the palm leaf siding, relegated me to the children\u2019s task of tying thin palm branches together, correcting me as I got the process wrong. (Apparently there is a right way and a wrong way to tie palm branches\u2014who knew?). It was quite humbling.<\/p>\n

After those first twelve months, our family, missionary team and church leaders located a community for us to serve in, Loupwala<\/em>, and later, Kosikiria<\/em>. Throughout our years in Turkana, while our full-time focused language and culture study time ended, we remained learners of the language and the people. While we had good relationships with many Turkana, the work was \"\"<\/a>difficult and we still stumbled with cultural expectations. For instance, while we often ate with Turkana, it was usually in their homes or in large group gatherings. Many years into our time there, someone told us that we were stingy because we didn\u2019t have many Turkana in our home. (Stingy? I initially thought. Stingy? How much have we given to the community??) But they were right; much chagrined, we began inviting church leaders and friends in for meals with our family.<\/p>\n

As I read through David Livermore\u2019s Leading with Cultural Intelligence<\/em>, I felt, in many ways, as if I were walking into an Anthropology 101 or Introduction to Culture class. What he argues is important, and is part of the rhythm of how I engage any new context. Even here in the States, stepping into a new ministry or new situation, I spend a significant amount of time at the beginning listening and learning, asking questions and mostly being silent. Humbly sitting as a student of a place allows time to understand how things work. How are decisions made, and by whom? How is conflict dealt with? What\u2019s the concept of time here? (One church I served in even has their own title for event fluidity\u2014\u201cHopwood time\u201d\u2014after the name of the church\u2014 when event start times were generally more \u201csuggestions\u201d).<\/p>\n

Like Kip\u2019s and my willingness to make mistakes and step into the role of a student of the culture, Livermore agrees, \u201cour mistakes can be one of the greatest ways to grow our cultural intelligence\u201d and \u201cprovides an opportunity for personal and professional growth.\u201d[1]<\/a> Livermore recognizes that many of us pop in and out of different cultural interactions. Yet the process of sitting as a humble learner remains the same, whether for a long-term relationship or a short interaction. Respecting and learning from those whom we interact with is key to building positive relationships.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> David Livermore, Leading with Cultural Intelligence<\/em> (New York, AMACOM, 2010), 35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Kip and I moved to Kenya to work among the Turkana, we spent our first 12 months living in the remote village of Kangarisae, learning the language and culture of Turkana. It was in that little village where we first built relationships\u2014with our language helper, the church leaders, and the elders\u2014men and women\u2014in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[977,920],"class_list":["post-13358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-livermore","tag-turkana","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13359,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13358\/revisions\/13359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}