Walking Between Worlds: Episode I

A summary from the podcast Walking Between Worlds. Listen now from your favorite podcast app.

What is Walking Between Worlds?

Walking Between Worlds is a podcast hosted by CultureBound. CultureBound is a training organization that specializes in Culture and Language. This podcast will be focusing on the secrets of culture to enrich our interactions with others. The topics covered are related to culture and building connections with people across cultural differences, specifically as it relates to American culture in a world that is globalizing. Walking Between Worlds is about how to navigate relationships in a cross-cultural context. This will be a sneak peek into the material that CultureBound covers. We also have premium content and training on our website CultureBound.org that you can take today!

Guests: Mark and Karen Hedinger are the guests for episode 1. Karen is the trainer for second language acquisition and runs CultureBound's second language acquisition program. Mark is one of CultureBound's culture trainers, working with international mission agencies to prepare their people to serve in cultures not their own. He is also the Executive director of CultureBound.

So the big question, what is culture? You can't go to the store and buy a pound of culture, but it does exist. If the Latin roots of culture are examined it carries with it the idea to care for. What are the ways that different human beings care for themselves? All people need to eat, to sleep. All people need clothing and interaction. But everyone does these things differently. Culture explains that these people in this place take care of themselves in a particular way. It's like horticulture or agriculture, but instead of caring for plants, it's about caring for people. People in one place take care of themselves. How does that compare to how other people in another place take care of themselves? What does God say about that in His word?

We often look at food or clothing when people think about culture, but it's much more dynamic. For example, caring is a verb. The way we care for one another is active and alive more than just two or three characteristics. As we develop how to care for each other it develops into patterns that the group passes on to later generations. It's dynamic but there is consistency enough to tell the differences between one set of patterns and the patterns of other groups. From generation to generation things are somewhat different but they are the same in pattern. It's dynamic but it is stable. There are patterns. That is what CultureBound looks for around the world. Every group will have stable patterns and then some dynamic patterns too. How does this group of people and their dynamic patterns compare to this other group with their dynamic patterns?

For example, when Mark and Karen's four children were growing up there were certain things Mark and Karen said to them that a lot of the other parents were saying too; ways for children to act and how to be polite to others. Some of the patterns the children learned, not just idiosyncrasies with us but what we were trying to train them to do, are now being used to train Mark and Karen's grandchildren.

Culture bound has two meanings. It can mean that someone is so stuck in their own culture that they can't think of anything different, but it also has this idea of bounding out of culture into another culture. So, if you are culture bound because you are stuck in that culture, CultureBound provides the tools to get out of that and bound into other cultures and launch into something new.

How does that help CultureBound achieve its mission?

The purpose of CultureBound is to equip people so that as they come into contact with people from other cultures that they aren't stuck in their way of thinking but they can use that as a platform. CultureBound wants people to grow and expand so that they can adapt to someone's new patterns without losing our own. CultureBound wants to give people the training necessary to pave the way for a different way of thinking about life, the flexibility, sometimes the creativity to look at life through different lenses to adapt to another culture. These are your patterns. I can adapt to those patterns. It is more than just learning another culture. It is learning to develop relationships with other people. Sometimes these different patterns can be barriers. Sometimes people will do something or say something that to you might be incomprehensible or not understood. We can be put off or choose to go back to our own culture, or we can learning the available tools necessary to get to know people and where they're coming from. You don't have to go to another place to practice that attitude, to practice relationships. Even family to family in the same culture are going to come at things differently.

CultureBound provides training that tries to teach that kind of thinking, that flexible mindset, skills, and knowledge. We do it in business climates. We do it in churches, in schools. Just think of the places where people come together. Sometimes cultural differences can be a barrier. Those are the places CultureBound wants to come alongside and provide some tools. CultureBound can help you to be able to see into what that other person might be looking for, thinking and feeling so that you can build a bridge so that your work will be better at building a bridge to fill in those gaps between people of different cultures. None of those are just with someone on an impersonal level. Those connections are all done in the context of relationships.

This type of training is needed by everyone seeking to build relationships since our world has become so globalized.

CultureBound provides a variety of training. It used to be learning a second language was for those seeking to work in another country. CultureBound provides second language acquisition learning for that but also for those who are seeking to build relationships. CultureBound training teaches language skills, looking at the learner and how they learn. The training provides learning through practice and the use of language helpers, those who speak the language that the learner is seeking to learn. This training is not just for those who are going to live somewhere else, but also for people who want to be able to communicate with one another regardless of language barriers.

On the cultural side, CultureBound provides teaching that equips people with the tools necessary to be comfortable and how to move into another culture. There are five-day seminars, some online, some in person at our location in Portland, sometimes in other locations, Kansas City, Panama, other parts of the world where we help provide the skills and the attitudes and the knowledge to practice all those things so that they can be effective in another culture. There is also training for people who are going to be at home in their own culture and maybe they only need a one day workshop to help them get along with new neighbors who have moved in from other parts of the world. CultureBound provides a children's and teen's program for those who are taking their entire family into a new culture or location. The courses teach children and teens the same material that is provided to the adults in understanding cultures at a level that they can understand. The entire family learns the same tools and skills together as a part of the same package. CultureBound wants to see the whole family do well in other cultures. The material is for folks who are going into another culture or receiving people coming in from another culture.

CultureBound training is important because being understood is important to feel loved. When encountering another culture without understanding how the stores work or what the community is doing and the language is all strange and you're trying to get your head around it and then you realize your children are acting differently that of the children of the neighbors and you feel misunderstood. When someone can come alongside you and say, "I think I do understand you. Here is how I can help you understand us." it is affirming, even loving. Jesus was very clear. He wasn't all about the maps and lines. He is about loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. So CultureBound training is important because it gives people tools and skills to love people who have moved into their world from a different part of the world and who are probably feeling very misunderstood. Imagine doing that on a corporate level or group level. The world would be a different place. Jesus said to love our neighbor and maybe that neighbor isn't the person living next to us. Perhaps it is a whole community. Who doesn't want to be understood individually and what group doesn't want to be understood?

A question for our readers.

When you think of culture, what comes to mind?

Are there certain characteristics about a people group that pop into your head immediately?

What do you notice about your own people group, your own culture?

Is there an experience where someone reached out to you over a cultural divide and how did that make you feel?

Send in your answers and observations to: podcast@culturebound.org

If you enjoyed this article you can also listen to our podcast, Walking Between Worlds, by visiting here. Thanks for reading!