Yesterday we completed the cross-cultural equipping section of our training. As part of the class, we had to finish a 15-page paper discussing the religious and cultural aspects of our target country. It's was a good assignment, but Kathi and I really stressed out over it. The paper on top of our other class assignments made for a busy week. But, we're thankful that it's finished, and we're taking this weekend to decompress a little bit before we start the linguistic component on Monday.
We also had a very encouraging meeting yesterday. We went out with Tim Wagner, who is one of the instructors at CIT. We ended up hanging out with him for over 3 hours talking about Europe (he was a missionary in Portugal), missions, and just about everything else. After sharing some of our testimony, we told us something so encouraging. He said, "I see how God has been uniquely preparing you to ministry in Germany." It's always amazing to hear that. It's an encouragement hearing that God has set us aside for His purposes. It's makes us even more excited to get over there and start the next part of our journey.
The last few weeks at CIT have been going well. It's been a pretty intense course so far. We've run the gamut of subjects from cultural theory to cross-cultural communications to spiritual warfare. I'm really thankful that we're getting this training now. This is exactly the kind of information that will help us adjust and thrive in a cross-cultural ministry. It's also been nice to have constant fellowship with other people who are in the same situation as us.
It hasn't been all class room stuff either. One of our assignments this past weekend was that we had to strike up conversations with at least 3 people who were not born in the United States. At first, we were a little nervous about it. We were supposed to ask them questions about their home country and culture. Who does that? Anyway, for one of our conversation we went to an Asian Fish and Seafood Market. We struck up a conversation with a middle-aged man from Vietnam named Kenny. Once we showed an interest in him and his culture, his face beamed and he couldn't stop talking about his home. It was an amazing experience. It reminded us just how much people are hungering to meet someone who cares about them.
