Author : Anonymous Exegete
When I arrived on the field to serve, it was important to me to also serve in the local church. I myself had studied at Bible School for three years and due to the local context and the demands placed on leaders, I decided mentor one of them in order to help improve the quality of their preaching. The mentee assured me that he was proficient in the language of wider communication; therefore, I decided to work with him using the hermeneutics manual from my Bible school, translated into Russian (see image above).
When reading this book in the language of wider communication, I was astonished by the wealth of vocabulary used in the translation, especially those words which are uncommon in the spoken language. This is due to the influence of Greek on the Russian language. Nevertheless, I did not forecast any difficulties.
Building trust is a great challenge and even within France it can vary between regions (Provence is more relationship-focused while Paris is more task-focused). For myself, trust is built on the accomplishment of a task. If the task isn’t completed, my trust will be broken. Without trust, I would quickly stop the mentoring relationship. After two meetings, it appeared that my mentee did not read or at least did not understand the readings. Nevertheless the mentee did meet with me twice, thereby confirming his motivation. Since the aim was clear, the language proficiency of my mentee seemed to be the main obstacle to his development.
The problem was not in the aim, but in the tool we used.
To mentor somebody in a language of wider communication is a challenge, necessitating a good assessment of a mentee’s proficiency in this language. The appropriate way to give feedback is also important. Finally, building trust is not easy and body language is also important.
One practical suggestion in developing an intercultural mentoring relationship, in a language of wider communication, is to try several different resources before making a choice. It is not a waste of time to start off by suggesting you read the first page of several different books.
It is extremely important to build a relationship that is based on awareness of cultural differences.
Which resource to use: the best choice according to the mentor or the most understandable resource for the mentee?
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As Paul in Bible is such a great role model in learning culture and language, we can use available resources to know the target culture and behave accordingly. Also live among the people is very important… Always one ‘s life experiences motivates the mentee and we can put forth Biblical standards and truths infront of him/ her. There should be communication with mentee often.