All this Haiti news is lacking some context. So to get you the full story, I'm putting up a series of posts about how I got to where I'm at now. A shout out to Kirk for pushing me to get him more background info, and thus kick-starting this series. Thanks, Kirk!
Here's Part 1:
It all started back in high school (yeah, I'm taking you that far back) when I started thinking "What do I want to study at college?" Well I was like, "You know what must be a big problem? Cross cultural communications in the global church." Right. I had never ever thought about that before and it just came out of nowhere. But I suddenly found myself with this desire to go spend enough time abroad in another culture to begin to understand it a bit.
Think about it, though...churches, NGOs, missionaries, etc. run into walls over and over again in this area. Culture is a really powerful thing, and miscommunication can occur very easily to slow down or even hurt the efforts in focus in a cross-cultural context. As I spent some time thinking about it, I realized this was an area in which I really wanted to work. So since high school I've always wanted to be a 'cultural liaison' of sorts between two cultures and enable the church in each place to work together more easily. I knew I didn't want to go to a faith-based college, which created some work in figuring out what to study in order to move forward. I knew what I wanted to study, but had no idea what it was called. Until, after hours of searching, I found out that it was called *drumroll...* ANTHROPOLOGY.
Anthro really fits perfectly with the goal that popped into my mind in high school. I looked at urban schools on the East Coast so that I could get some real practice while studying, and wound up at AU (really only because they gave me the best financial aid package). Thanks, AU. Anyway, I ended up going into the Anthro program there and loved it; the topics, the department, and the wonderfully strange student body that I got to join.
And that's really as far back as i can trace it. More to come later in the week!
1 comment:
This background information serves as a valuable conduit to understanding your Haiti trip! It's a good primer because I now know and care more about what you're seeking within your travels.
On an entirely other note, I was impressed and sort of surprised by your comment about you wanting to be a cultural liason.
It's something I had to do since I was able to speak English, which was about when I was five.
I hated the role and felt burdened with the responsibility. Even then, I understood its significant and positive impact, but it's so much work, so much time, stress. It's a big obligation, but with the way in which emerging markets are rising, it's an absolutely necessary role we must fulfill.
I love anthropology, too, and I think I've said this before, but it provided me a platform to discuss and investigate a lot of the things that I always had in the back of my mind.
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