Persuaded By Stories

Our team on a condolence visit

As a team we have been reading a fascinating book together.  It’s called The Culture Map by Erin Meyer.  In it she discusses the many ways one’s culture can impede understanding across different cultures.  The chapter we just read was about persuasion.  How do people persuade others to trust them and come over to their understanding?  Americans like practical application.  Show us how this will effect our day to day and you will have our attention.  But other cultures prefer principles.  Show them the methodology, procedures and build up to your conclusions and they will be listening.  Still other cultures want the big picture.  They want to see how everything is interconnected and how your conclusions effect the whole.  If you can do this, you will be heard. But none of these approaches seemed to fit with the island way of persuading (and unfortunately, the author of Culture Map seems to have little Africa experience).

Here is one of the joys of working with a team...As we discussed and gave examples we came to a surprising conclusion.  Islanders are persuaded by stories.  When islanders want to make a point or convince you of something, nine times out of ten they back it up with a story!  What an intriguing discovery! As we thought and talked about it, we realized just how often a point of view was validated with a story.  Often times the stories are short and anecdotal, but these stories are what persuade.  This can be both wonderful and infuriating.  

Wonderful in that it means people listen to your stories and take them to heart.  When we tell our own stories of the things God has done in our lives, or stories of justice, sacrifice and love, whether in the stories of the Civil Rights Movement in America or from God’s book—people listen.  

Tom & friend's baby

Infuriating in that, they also listen to stories from all places and accept them as equally valid.  For example:  “You shouldn’t lie because I saw on Facebook that a man lied to his mother and then God turned him into a snake and they killed the snake but when he was dead he turned back into a man.  So there you go.”  You see, if all stories are equally valid, then it is hard to discover what is true.  Every teammate could relate an experience when an islander’s story had left us speechless and confused with (what seemed to us to be ) either ridiculous conclusions or either dubious sources.

We are not ignorant to the power of stories, but it is new discovery to appreciate their persuasive power and to ask the questions, “How do we separate the good stories from the bad?”  “How do we separate true from false?”  We’re not sure yet.  But we suspect that the best way to answer a bad story is with a better story.  It seems like a story from our own life outweighs a story from the internet.  But does a story from God’s word outweigh one from their tradition?  Or is it less about authority and more about allowing two stories to stand and “do battle.”  Will the story that rings true eventually win out?  

At any case, it seems we need to be more ready with our stories.  We need to be ready with stories that carry truth and can answer or contradict the false stories.  Sometimes it’s hard to think of something in the moment.  Sometimes their stories seem so bizarre or illogical that we are just flabbergasted, but these are teachable moments and it again is a reason we love having a team.  In the aftermath of those moments we can come together and debrief it.  We can think of better answers, better stories, better ways to break through, and we know that, more likely than not, we will get another chance and the next time we will be ready.

You know one time, I had a friend who told me a story with a terrible lie.  It jumped down from his mouth and started biting my leg.  But then I told him a story with a good truth.  It contradicted his story, so it jumped down out of my mouth and started fighting with the bad story.  Finally the good story swallowed up the bad story.  Then it smiled at us and turned into a bright light that shone all around us.  “That’s a good story,” my friend said.  “Yes,” I agreed.

Megan with sleeping baby

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful that orientations on our island and the big island went so well and all the new people are settling into their new lives, learning language and culture.  The boys finally started back at school on Wednesday and the transition back has been pretty uneventful.  Our younger son had a tummy bug on Friday that brought him home from school but he seems to be doing okay now.  The visitor made it safely here despite the afternoon flight being cancelled.  She has been jumping into life here and making the most of lots of opportunities to go out with teammates.  We are thankful for the Lord’s guidance to check appointment schedules so that we could register for both new passports and online educational testing for our daughter just in time.  Both of these things would probably have been missed if another day had gone by (we did not think in either case that we were being last minute about things)—so we are thankful for God bringing it to mind in good time.  We’re thankful that we’ve been able to find some good language helpers for our new team members and their language learning is progressing well.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please remember all of the new people on our islands as they will all struggle with language and learning the ropes for the next several months.  It’s never easy and takes a lot of perseverance.  May the Lord give them much strength and patience, and may their leaders lead them well (including us!).  For some reason, all at once this week, a number of future decisions have come before us that need to be thought through and thoughtfully responded to. We need wisdom to know which need decisions now and which can be ongoing conversations.  Pray for good counsel and reflection.  Pray for our visitor and us as we discern God’s will whether she is meant to join our team or to serve somewhere else.  May her time here help to make it clear to her and us and may we be of one mind.  Pray for the translation team as they have a second week of online consultations— for good internet connections, good health and energy in hot weather.