Teaching English in China

Dorcas, a geography teacher from Uganda, experienced many of the challenges of cross-cultural mission during her block placement teaching English in China.  Dorcas used the placement to discern her future involvement in teaching as a professional in mission.

'English is a worldwide language' explains Dorcas.  'While not all communities may welcome a geography teacher, the advantage of being an English teacher is that it gives easier access into non-English speaking cultures including those closed to the Christian gospel.'

Dorcas was also keen to find out how she would cope with being an African, living and working with Chinese in China alongside a British team.  What would it be like juggling the three cultures at the same time?

She discovered one of the biggest issues was the response to the colour of her skin.  'Prior to the placement I anticipated that there would be a shock among the Chinese people because of my race, but I didn't expect it to be to such an extent.  Some people shrieked when they bumped into me and others followed me around filming or wanted to feel my skin.  It would take a lot more time to get used to being a black person among the Chinese and the experience led me to reflect on how Jesus must have felt being a stranger to this world.'

'One of my students was surprised that I could be an African and also a believing Christian as he saw Christianity to be a western religion.  His struggle with faith was that he didn't understand why Christ wasn't born Chinese or African or any other nationality but Jewish.

'After some discussion we arrived at the conclusion that beneath the skin is a unified humanity that is more important than nationality and race.  And that is what God is concerned about.'