Cross Cultural Experience

As part of my training for International Teams missionary Internship I attended a weekend in Hamilton where we focused on Cultural Intelligence. I had a couple different cross cultural experiences where I could practice what I learned and experience a new culture in my very own backyard.

As part of my training I stayed in a home of refugees from Burma. Ehsay, her mother, and two of her kids came here to Canada 4 years ago. Another intern and I stayed at this house overnight to get a feel of a new culture.

Putting our Cultural Intelligence to use...

Ehsay prepared a lovely (and quite big) meal for the two of us. I sat down and waited as I was expecting the rest of the family to join us around the table. As I sat there awkwardly I noticed that Ehsay was just staring at me. I asked (automatically thinking of Canadian Culture) if everyone was going to come and have dinner together. She said that they would eat after us and at this point realized I was suppose to start eating. She showed us how to put together our meal and we ate what we thought was a lot. Unfortunately later on we realized that we had hurt and possibly offended Ehsay because we didn't eat enough of the food she so thoughtfully prepared for us. We felt awful but were also confused as to what you do in that situation. We assured her that it was delicious but that we were completely stuffed of the meal we had earlier before we came to the house. I find it quite ironic that just earlier that day we talked about understanding culture and later being put to the test that night! All in all it was an amazing experience and I made sure the next morning that I said YES! to everything Ehsay offered me. :)