What to accomplish in the first two years!

1. Learn to identify with the people

2.That means adapting to the culture.

• To have an effective cross-cultural ministry, missionaries must first be students of culture--in other words, the way a particular people organize their world.

• Culture is an integrated system of beliefs (about God or reality or ultimate meaning) of values (about what is true, good, beautiful, normative), of customs (how to behave, relate to others, talk, pray, dress, work, play, trade, farm, eat, etc.), and of institutions which express these beliefs, values, and customs (government, law courts, temples, or churches, family, schools, hospitals, factories, shops, unions, clubs, etc.), which binds a society together and gives it a sense of identity, dignity, security, and continuity.

• Develop an intimate knowledge of the people so that you can see the world like they do and experience life as they do

3. Jesus did exactly this

• He left his home in glory to become a vulnerable, dependent, human infant. He knew hunger and thirst, poverty and oppression.

• He experienced rejection, anger, and loss. He wept. His experience of human nature gave him a tremendous insight that he manifested in his earthly sojourn and provided a relational platform for a powerful ministry. Hebrew 2:17, John 1:14

• Jesus did not come as a teacher rather a helpless infant.

• Jesus was a learner. He learned the language from his parents. Luke 2:46 Luke 2:52 Philippians 2:5-8

• Jesus was completely and legitimately a Jew.

• We go as servants and not to lord it over our people. Matthew 20:26-28 also John 13:14-17