{"id":108,"date":"2012-02-17T00:14:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T23:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/american-culture\/"},"modified":"2012-02-17T00:14:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T23:14:00","slug":"american-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/american-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"American Culture!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thursday, February 16, 2012<\/p>\n

Blake and I have been back stateside for almost 2 months!\u00a0 <\/span>This time has gone by so quickly already, but yet since we are sharing a house with 3 other adults and 2 kids, some days it seems like it won’t go fast enough.\u00a0 <\/span>But don’t get me wrong, I am very much enjoying being with family and friends and familiar faces!\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

We returned December 21st<\/sup>, just in time for Christmas, and right away Blake and I wanted to be a part of the Christmas festivities so we braved the mall the day after we arrived.\u00a0 <\/span>For the next 2 weeks we found ourselves going to the malls, Wal-mart, grocery stores, and any other store we could think of, in some combination, at least once a day.\u00a0 <\/span>For myself, I am very disappointed at how fast I fell back into the American culture of materialism.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

After being in some of the poorest areas in Africa, where people don’t know when their next meal will be, I should have felt differently about the “things” of America, but after having been gone for 2 years, I felt “entitled” to them.\u00a0 <\/span>Anything I saw, I wanted to buy.\u00a0 <\/span>Bath and Body Works, shoes, clothes, shoes, jewelry, did I mention shoes, a variety of foods, anything really, just because it was new!\u00a0 <\/span>Now of course Blake and I need to replace many of our clothes, as most have permanent stains or holes in them, but some of the things I felt like I just NEEDED, wouldn’t do me any good in Africa.\u00a0 <\/span>For example\u2026snow boots, not going to do me any good once I cross back over the Atlantic.\u00a0 <\/span>The Lord has been working on me in the area of self-control, so I exercised what little bit I have, and refrained from buying anything unnecessary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once I got past my feeling of entitlement, I felt overwhelmed by the variety of choices.\u00a0 <\/span>I went to the store to buy milk, bacon and eggs, and it took me more than 30 minutes to decide which brand of bacon I should buy, what eggs I like and what milk I should choose.\u00a0 <\/span>Really?\u00a0 <\/span>It’s just bacon, milk and eggs!!!!\u00a0 <\/span>It shouldn’t be this difficult.\u00a0 <\/span>I felt that way for a while every time I went into grocery stores, or wal-mart\u2026wow especially wal-mart.\u00a0 <\/span>Now that we have been back a few additional weeks, I am starting to remember how great it is to do your shopping here.\u00a0 <\/span>I can cross everything off of my list in one stop, what a great feeling!<\/p>\n

I am sure as the week’s progress, we are going to continue to feel other emotions, as they deal with culture re-adjustment, but I am also trying to prepare myself for those emotions. Cultural transition is definitely something Blake and I are going to continue to face for many years to come.\u00a0 <\/span>Especially if we find ourselves continuing to serve long-term, but I wonder if at any point it balances out? \u00a0Will we remember what it’s like to transition so that I don’t find myself in another dilemma over what bacon, eggs and milk to buy?<\/p>\n

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Thursday, February 16, 2012 Blake and I have been back stateside for almost 2 months!\u00a0 This time has gone by so quickly already, but yet since we are sharing a house with 3 other adults and 2 kids, some days it seems like it won’t go fast enough.\u00a0 But don’t get me wrong, I am very much enjoying being with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}