The day after we got back from missions, Easter Monday, we watched the movie The Good Lie. Something in me sensed that it had a different message for me now than it would have had eight months ago.
To know why it´s called The Good Lie, you´ll have to watch it…but it´s about four siblings from a village in Sudan moving from a refugee camp to the United States. After their village is torn apart by civil war, they live in the camp for thirteen years until they receive the chance to move to Kansas City. Part of the story is their cultural transition—which is the part that had an interesting message for me in this stage of one of my own.
Missions was its own mini cultural transition because I don´t have a whole lot of contact with Spanish families in my day-to-day. So having a fresh cultural learning experience in my heart brought to mind a reflexion reflection (I keep spelling that word in Spanish every time I write it now…!!) that has been a recurring theme these eight months.
Cultural Transition
In watching this movie—which is the true story of so many people every single day—I saw how the family´s cultural transition consisted in their first plane ride, first car trip, learning what a telephone is, discovering a “magical” pizza delivery, and getting used to sleeping indoors on a mattress, to name a few. There were probably many more things that were different than were the same.
From the States to Spain, there is a lot that is different—truly different—and that´s often what I feel the most. But when I take another look, there´s probably more things that are the same than are different, and it´s pretty amazing. Whether it´s many of the same basic foods—from cereal, to bananas, to cold cuts—or having electricity and heating, or having a bedroom and a kitchen, or finding a pharmacy every few blocks… the list could go on from basic to more elaborate. This stood out to me on missions especially with the kids: little boys are still little boys that run outside and bother the girls; little girls are still little girls that play hand games and stick together against the boys. Many of these things seem so normal that they get passed over and forgotten, but honestly there are more things than I often realize that are cross-cultural. Even in my own community, whenever we use the word “typical” to describe a childhood experience, or use an idiom that exists in different languages, I´m always left with a little bit of wonder at how many things we share from one culture to another.
