Re: [asa] On Job

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On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 06:43:20 -0700
"Don Winterstein" <dfwinterstein@msn.com> wrote the following with the
subject heading Re: [asa] On Job:

>"My experience overseas has been just the opposite. People tend to
>react better to a foreigner with perceived greater knowledge than a
>local for much the same reason Christ faced rejection in his home
>town."
>
>How much of this is attributable to the foreign missionary's coming
>from a technologically superior (e.g., medicinally, etc.) culture? I
>often wonder whether Christian missionaries from the West in foreign
>lands are promoting Western civilization as much as Christianity.

That depends. Some places yes, some places no. We are probably getting
off topic (not too scientific) now but I would add that here in Papua
local churches are now sending missionaries to other tribes as well as
overseas...and it is interesting to see them often playing out the same
mistakes Western missionaries made... (Our culture is better than
yours...)

>It's the "perceived greater knowledge," very likely, that has the
>impact. That's what I referred to when I wrote, "If [foreigners are]
>known in advance for their accomplishments, they're often given
>sometimes undeserved special respect." On what grounds would the
>Ninevites have perceived Jonah to have had such "greater knowledge"?
>
>You're right in inferring that too much familiarity breeds
>disrespect.

2 stories.

1. A few years ago in a remote village I was living in I was asked to
kill a local man´s dog. His dog was devestating the local chicken
population (introduced as community dev project). The whole community
decided the dog had to go....but no one would actually take steps. It
was too difficult because of family and cultural relationships. I did
not kill the dog but the fact they asked me scared the man enough to
get rid of it himself. Locals could not do what an outsider could. When
i asked why it was said that they knew he could not take action against
my family as he could theirs...

2. In Uni I met a Kikiyu Kenyan girl studying Intl Dev. She was
said that only Africans could help africans
and all white people were evil....I warned her that when she went back
to help her poor Kikiyu cousins she would not be accepted. This indeed
happened. She was wealthy and they said, ¨Who are you with your money
and western education to come back and tell us what to do. You think u
r better than us now.¨"

My dutch friend working there had much more success....Because she was
an outsider and not expected to behave or react as a local.

Anyhow, nuff said... ;)

IW
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Received on Thu Oct 12 21:59:33 2006