Communication

We are supposed to be bi-cultural, bi-lingual and omni-generational. We were both born and raised in Korea at least through high-school.  We call United States our home and have children in their thirties residing in Boston and New York.  We lived in six countries in three continents and traveled in over twenty countries.  We can even carry on basic conversations in a few more languages.  Now that should make us good at communicating, right?  We thought so, but...

Working as coordinators for the YAV program, we are learning the basics of communication all over again, making the mistakes all over again, and making others frustrated all over again.  Then again, even God has difficulty getting his messages understood at times.

One source of difficulty is our competing objectives.  As we work with our partners we have two objectives; to share the love of Christ with the children  and to help our YAVs grow in their faith and their capacity to embrace a larger world.  Our partners have he common goal of caring for the children, but also the need to demonstrate the value of the programs in tangible ways.  While I am aware that the Korean culture does not state their wishes directly or openly, I do not always succeed in decoding the the true message in the signals I receive.   If it were just us, we can adjust as the gaps in understanding and expectations appear on the surface, but YAVs are relying on us to get it right as we plan their work assignments and approaches.  Each of the YAVs work with multiple partners which makes the situation a bit more complicated.

But look at the bright side, once they get through the first several months they would have more cross cultural and generational communications experience than any other YAVs.  Haejung and I seek wisdom and patience to intervene only when necessary and let the YAVs tackle the communications issues.  Another protective instinct we must control is the assumption that the YAVs' knowledge of Korean customs and culture is limited to what we shared.  They have already explored and learned a lot on their own and they are capable of much more.  We just hope that they would trust us enough to ask for help when they need it.