Today at our African mothers program we taked about culture shock.
This was part two of a series of questions to help prompt the ladies to talk about their struggles since moving to our current country.
As I led my discussion group I was feeling pretty encouraged by the ladies responses. Most of them were sharing of the postive feelings they had been able to gain after being here for a year or more. I was excited for them because their responses indicated that many of them were pushing past the culture shock phase and on to the adjusting phase.
That is until we begun to discuss the language of our current country. Generally speaking learning the language of one's host culture enables deeper adpatation and more positive feelings towards one's new home.
With this in mind I knew many of the ladies had not yet learned the local language, expect for one. I asked the woman who knew the local langauge what differences she felt before and after knowing the language. Expecting her to speak positively of her experience and encourage the other ladies to learn the language I was shocked and heart broken when she said, "it was better before I understand what people were saying about me."
She shared with me that now that she knows the language she understands the insults people say to her on the streets. People treat her as if she is dirty, unhuman and she gets called names such as "slave." The African community here faces a lot of discrimmination and many are treated as less than human. How sad to feel burdened by learning the language because of the insults thrown at you on a daily basis.
After she shared this another one of the ladies asked me what I thought of African people. I shared with her how I saw her as my sister in Christ. That we are all created equal in the image of God. I told her how much pain it brings my heart to hear her situation.
At the end of our discussion we prayed and I prayed that hearts and minds would change so that our equality as humans created by God would be known by all.
Please pray for this commuinty, being a foreigner is hard and culture shock is real, but some have it a lot harder than others.