The Preparation for Culture Stress
My wife and I went through extensive missionary training to prepare us for living and working in an indigenous culture in Brazil. We were thankful for this training when we started raising our preschool girls in a village where everyone was nearly naked, and all five of us went through some startling initiation rites. After twenty years of interactions in this culture, we knew what to expect and were comfortable in every social situation.

The Labyrinth
We still had a year left of work in Brazil, but I could tell I was ready to leave because the culture was irritating me. No, not the Canela indigenous culture, but the Brazilian culture. As I paged through my diary while writing our current book, a memoir of our decades in Brazil, I came across an experience I had on November 3, 1989, which was so typical for that time in Belem; I wrote it up as my report of the day:

• I enter the store and pick up a pair of socks.
• A clerk walks up, I give him the socks, and he walks twenty metres to a table where he writes a bill of sale. I follow him.
• He then searches for his supervisor to sign his bill. I follow part of the way but stop when he disappears through a door into an office.
• He eventually returns, hands me the original bill and a carbon copy, and tells me to go to the cash register.
• I walk thirty meters to the far end of the store to pay the bill. The machine spits out the receipts; the operator keeps one copy and stamps it and gives me the other copy.
• I take my receipt, walk back into the centre area of the store to the wrapping desk, and give the wrapping clerk my receipt.
• The first clerk brings the socks to the wrapping clerk and gives her a copy of the bill.
• She carefully reads both the bill and my receipt, puts a checkmark on both the receipt and the bill and writes something on the bottom of each receipt.
• Then she opens a drawer, takes out a stamp and an ink pad and stamps both receipts on the back.
• She then puts the socks into a bag along with a copy of the receipt, tears off a piece of sticky tape, seals the bag shut, and hands it to me.

The End
At last, after fifteen minutes of bureaucracy, I am free to leave with my two-dollar pair of socks. The Bible teaches us to give thanks in all things. I was thankful that at least there were no lines to stand in, or it would have taken much longer! I can hardly wait to return to Canada, where this transaction would take fifteen seconds as I stopped by a cash register on the way out of the store.

The Lessons
So, what are the lessons in this for me? Be accepting of ALL cultures. Fit in with them, even when they cause me stress. Do not reject any aspect of culture unless it directly contravenes the clear teaching of God’s Word. In our increasingly multicultural country, these are probably good lessons for all of us to keep in mind, not just for a cross-cultural missionary veteran like me.