Learning the local language is hugely important for our workers serving overseas. At the same time, learning the local culture is just as important.

You can quickly learn about people’s day-to-day routines and customs, but you often have to dig a little deeper to learn the “why” behind these different cultural customs and events. This is why learning language and culture together is more impactful, and our workers typically spend their first few years on the field focusing on that. Most of the time, they have to learn two languages- the national language of the country, then the local language for whatever area or people group they are in. Learning the culture at the same time is vitally important; without a proper understanding of people’s worldview our workers would not be able to clearly communicate the truth of the Gospel.

Sarah* is living in a remote area of North Asia, and attending the university there to transition from studying the national language into her study of the local language. The town where she lives has a prominent performing arts community, and she has had opportunities to visit several theaters, in both the national and local language. This has turned out to be very helpful in her process of learning about the local traditions and beliefs.

The first play she attended, just a couple months after moving there, was with one of her friends from the university. The play was at one of the national-language theaters and was based on a local fairy tale, “The Girl Swan.” Sarah enjoyed the majority of the show, it was pretty and entertaining, but she was also saddened by some of the insights it gave into the local beliefs and how lost the people truly are.

She also went with her language class to a national language performance of Anton Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard,” which they had been studying in class.

The next week, she went with her teacher to a local language theater, to see a play about one of the famous local heroes. The theater usually offered translation into the national language that Sarah would listen to through a headset, but for this special performance they did not have translation. The play was a song and dance performance of their local religious narrative, which Sarah was greatly interested in, but she was disappointed that she could only understand one or two sentences. The next time she got together with her language study group, she was able to discuss the play with one of the girls who grew up in the area and ask her about the parts she hadn’t been able to understand.

By taking the time to study local history and immerse herself in the culture, Sarah not only boosts her language study, but deepens her understanding of the people’s worldview. She continually finds herself in situations where she can build and grow relationships with the local people. Her effort to learn about and understand their traditions shows how much she cares about them. You can pray for all our global workers, that God would give them wisdom and direction as they try to build relationships in new cultures.

*Names and places changed for security purposes.