It's not wrong, it's just different

First you see something that is very very foreign to you and you don't understand it. Then you see more and more and more of that. Then your head starts to pound. Your heart starts to flutter like a cornered animal. Suffocation starts to set in. It gets to the point where your head starts to feel like it will explode. You start to contemplate all the ways you can escape the foreignness around you. Desperation takes over. And then you realize what's happening. Culture shock. To the extreme.

IT'S NOT WRONG, IT'S JUST DIFFERENT!!!!

That's my mantra. I learned it on DTS when I first experienced it rooming with people of other cultures. And I've repeated it many many times since then. These past few days have been full of repeating that phrase. Of course, that doesn't refer to some of the harmful things in place here - the way some orphanages are run, certain laws and mindsets that are harmful. But it does refer to some ways of doing things that are so foreign to me. Just because it's not the way we do it in America doesn't make it wrong. Wow, is that hard to get through my head. But I'm learning slowly. Maybe by the time I'm old and gray and have been a missionary for 50 years, I'll understand - It's not wrong, it's just different.