MOVING OUTSIDE THE MONOCULTURE GHETTO
The Intercultural Studies Major
By Andrea Ykema
Imagine a major where every single student that has applied, been accepted, and is attending would rather be somewhere else.
The first instinct is to assume that it’s a lousy major, and that the students must not have done very much research prior to their choice. And yet, we have just such a major here at CBC – a major full of students that live in constant tension between here and there, between school and their desire to be… somewhere else.
The Intercultural Studies (ICS) BA major and diploma at Columbia attracts visionary, passionate people. They are risk takers and adventurers. They are generally not studious, quiet people who prefer being holed up in a room with their books – thus the academic setting and commitment of a four-year program sometimes seems daunting, and perhaps even counter-intuitive.
I spent a lunch-hour milling about in the cafeteria, asking ICS students what they thought about the word ‘evangelism’ and where they would be if not for the program here at CBC. Each one of them responded similarly; they knew with certainty that they would not be in North America and when pressed for a specific answer, there came stories of Africa, South America… you name it – they’ve dreamed it.
ICS Director, Bryan Born, responded in the same way when asked where he would be if not for CBC, “My heart is still in Botswana. I love southern Africa – I love the people, working with churches there was such a blast… My feeling now, as I’ve been getting somewhat older, is that I’m somewhat inclined to work with un-reached people groups. I’ve had the experience of working with people who are already somewhat evangelized, and I think it would be an adventure...”
Of course, Bryan will be at Columbia for quite a long time if his students have anything to do with it. Every ICS student that I talked to spoke adamantly about their love for Bryan – one student even announced that Bryan is the reason he is at the school. Born pours hours into the ICS program to prepare students for their third-year cross-cultural field placements. Currently, students have interned, or are planning to intern, in Brazil, Nepal, Mozambique, Morocco, Mongolia, Portugal, South Africa, Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Ireland, Mexico and Haiti. And naturally, the world’s the limit when it comes to choosing a field placement!
During the field placement, students have the opportunity to integrate experiential and theoretical learning. They quickly notice the blanks in their education that need to be filled in – and that’s what fourth year is for. When students return for their final year at Columbia, Born spends the majority of his time with them debriefing and answering real-life application questions. Despite the wide variance in culture and location, Born never ceases to be amazed at the continuity of experience that students have during their year overseas. Born recalled one story specifically, “A student from Mongolia said something and I thought ‘that sounds just like something I wrote when I was in Botswana.’ I checked my journal from Botswana, and there it was, almost word for word – how impacted we are when we get out from our culture and how I’ve never experienced God like this – that I need God right now…”
These cross-cultural experiences are difficult for ICS students to explain to the rest of us. And yet, ICS students add a dynamic to the CBC community that would instantly be felt and missed were it to be absent. Their social-justice, vision-focused mindset beckons all of us to take ourselves and our religion seriously. What is it that we believe? Is it worth traveling a continent, a language and a culture away in order to share? And if it is worth that much, what are we doing to instill it in ourselves?
Bryan Born recognizes that Columbia’s students have an important lifestyle decision before them, and he prays that we will all take the time to seriously evaluate our perspectives, “Missions in that sense is a relationship with God, and intercultural studies is just learning to build relationships with other people. Our world is becoming more multi-cultural and we have the choice – are we going to choose to retreat into our monoculture ghettos? Do we know everything? Or has God already been working in that other culture and do we have something to learn from them?”
