More interviews

I did some airline ticket shopping today. Our area director wants me to go to India in July to teach some courses. The idea excites me, but it is 3 weeks of missed classes here and, as far as I can tell, a big chunk of change to get there.

We interviewed two more cultural consultants today about relationship issues in the Philippines. Some answers come back with striking consistency, but on other questions, the answers are all over the board. Sometimes, we are so enculturated in our culture that we have trouble identifying its characteristics. We think there's nothing that would interest a foreigner, because we assume they do it the same as we do. So when we ask, "How do you greet a friend?" we get answers like, "Oh, just the same as you do." That's not very helpful, and it's probably not very accurate. I guess that's why we're trying to get various perspectives.

One question that's pretty important but gets varied answers concerns our status in The Wesleyan Church of the Philippines. Some tell us that we are on a par with the general leaders, which is what almost seems to be the case in actual practice. Others say that we are on the level of the pastors, which is probably what the ideal situation would be.