Culture

Cultural differences can be very difficult and frustrating to understand, especially when you are actually living daily in a culture that is so different from what you know.

I found myself in a very frustrating situation recently with one of the boys here at City Of Refuge Ministries (CORM). Meshack and a few of the other older boys had decided to skip the morning assembly before school one day. Typical teenage stuff. They just went and hung out at the back of the school until it was time to start class. Not a big deal, but they did disobey the rules, and deserved the punishment they received. 

He came to me and wanted to talk, and I could tell he was upset about something. Actually, for a couple days he had been very quiet and seemed distant, so I knew something had been bothering him. One of his friends was with him, and as we sat down together, they were both very quiet. I asked what was wrong, and after some awkward silence, he started to ask me the "hypothetical scenario" questions. I knew he was talking about himself, but I let him continue and spent several minutes trying to understand what he was asking me. Finally, he managed to make his question clear.

He admitted to the school issue and agreed that he shouldn't have done it, but his concern was that there had been some other issues happen with some of the other boys, and he had somehow been implicated in them. He felt really bad that he was being included in something that he had no part of. He was afraid people would think he was "bad" kid because of this, and he didn't know how to deal with it.

I have gotten to know Meshack as a very gentle, soft spoken teen who is very good at taking care of the younger ones. He has a caring heart, and is very polite. He is NOT a trouble maker by any means. I really like him, and I'm very thankful that in just about 5 weeks, he has come to trust me enough to come to me to talk. We got the situation sorted out and he felt better.

The thing that I had the hardest time with is understanding what it must be like to not feel the freedom to talk about life issues at a time when he needs that the most. I really feel like part of my role here is to fill that void in their lives the best I can, and lead them to Jesus in the process. Pray for all the kids here, and dads, sit down with your kids and make sure they understand that they can come to you without fear. It's more of a blessing to them than you may know.

Cayle