CultureBound shared simple things like how a smile communicates a lot. Oftentimes, we as Americans think that a smile will get us by in any situation — but they gently reminded us that’s not actually true. Smiles can actually communicate different things in different cultures. …
I went to the store and purchased what looked like Betty Crocker pancake mix. I was so excited to see it in the store where I shopped. I just picked up the box and put it in the cart, got home, unpacked it, and put it in the cabinet. I didn’t really think much about it until the day came for me to make my pancakes. …
My husband was the director of a small Bible school in the state of Hidalgo, in a very rural part of Mexico. While we lived there, we observed some of the events that happened around the Day of the Dead. I had a culture helper, or a culture coach. I coached her in English, and she coached me in culture. She explained a lot to me about Dia de Los Muertos to help me understand Mexican culture. …
Zero is not a positive number for Hindus. In numbers, you never give someone an amount of money that ends in zero. So when you give them a hundred rupees, you give them 101 rupees. For someone’s birthday, if you want to put some money in a card, you can’t just put in an even number that ends in a zero. …
My family moved to Tanzania when I was 12 years old and during the first couple of years, we lived near a remote Tanzanian village. I would spend my days out in this village with the local Tanzanians and one family in particular kind of adopted me. …
After having spent more than 15 years as church planters in California, we knew God was calling us to serve and work in Mexico and Latin America. And wanting to be as prepared as possible, we took a two-week course with CultureBound and learned about the languages of culture. …
My family and I are serving in Southeast Asia and we’ve noticed that body language and space play a huge part in daily conversations and just interacting with people. For instance, the space between one another while speaking or walking. …
We were in South America working and we were working in a very established ministry that we enjoyed. We were working with leadership and often we were trying to make relationships with the people that lived nearby. But we realized that we were very limited. We weren’t sure why we didn’t have as much success in making good relationships around us. …
My primary ministry here in Southeast Asia is discipleship, and I serve in a relatively small city. The people group we serve are the Khmer, which is what they call themselves. It’s also their native language. I think one of the first things that I realized when I got to Cambodia was how tastes and smells really hit me…