MK forum

I only buy second hand clothes for me. Mind you, they are usually nice as we have a great auction site here in NZ called TradeMe where you can get great stuff. I love to save money. My husband's theory is that thanks to my upbringing and NTM I don't spend on myself as I don't think I am worth "full price". His retort when I said "no way" was to ask "why do you buy new things for me and the kids then?" No answer to that. He was about to start on the whole thing around why I don't look in mirrors, but I asked him to stop........

I remember one of my work detail jobs was to cut the MB clothes not fit for anything into rags for the workshop. To do that for 4 hours each afternoon was, quite frankly, the most boring "work" I have ever done. I think because they knew I liked gardening I never got any gardening jobs!

There has been a lot of postings lately where I find I agree but when I go to post I just can't find any words to say.

22 years ago I so wish we had a like button when we read something we agree with. I guess we could respond with a face that showed our emotional response.

Words aren't always necessary.
It's just good to know you are there.
Some have been known to say
LIKE!!!

No 'like' button
So let's be creative.
There is more than one way
To put more than TWO smileys, too.

Yes, many times it is hard to spend money on myself...even harder to go back to a culture with so much waste, esp. food. I don't know if it because I don't think I'm worth 'full-price', but maybe it is...I'll have to think about that one.

22 years ago, that does sound like quite the boring work detail job.

Just saw this link to a post from TJ Addington at Leading From the Sandbox...http://leadingfromthesandbox.blogspot.m ... ssion.html. What struck me about this is that what is described in this post was exactly what my husband was coming home and describing to me about his so-called 'team'. Everything mentioned in this article (that was negative response by leadership) happened to him. Not once or twice, but consistently.

Quote: "All of this creates a culture of stagnation because ideas, suggestions and different paradigms are not welcome at the leadership table. Staff must operate within a narrow band of what is acceptable and cannot be themselves in using their best thinking and creativity. It is a deeply frustrating place to be for anyone who is even a moderately healthy individual." My husband was very frustrated and it was complicated by the cultural differences as well. He wasn't sure if what he was perceiving was 'just' American culture or was actually a dysfunction, so it was hard to know how to respond to it. At any rate, he felt that he could not be himself and he felt very much shut down.

"Those who continue to speak up and press into things that the senior leader does not want to hear or do quickly find that they are marginalized and sometimes even forced to move on. That sends a very powerful message the conformance and silence are the keys to survival." And that is what eventually happened to us and others.

And yet we saw that other non-U.S. members seemed to have the blessing of leadership and their ideas/proposals were accepted...it's hard to say why, except what seemed to be happening was that they were the ones willing to conform and not rock the boat. And then those particular non-U.S. members seem to change somehow and begin relating to others, even those from their own home culture, in this same condescending and dysfunctional way.

I would say that even within a culture, it takes a lot of work by leadership to create a healthy environment for open discussion, etc. but in a cross-cultural dynamic where leaders are primarily foreigners, esp. Westerners, even more care needs to be taken to communicate an open, welcoming environment for several reasons. I am by no means an expert, these are just things I've learned along the way. I will speak from the LatinAmerican perspective, although I imagine there is a certain similarity to some other cultures around the globe as well...most LatinAmericans are very polite and respectful of foreigners, it isn't seen as very polite or respectful to openly correct or challenge people in front of others, particularly leaders. There is the dynamic of not shaming others or shaming yourself, but there's also just basic politeness to be considered.

Speaking of leaders/bosses, there is a totally different dynamic that goes on in the workplace between employers/employees in LatinAmerican that most Americans or Europeans would find baffling. For one thing, employees are not encouraged to discuss their concerns with employers, in general, they are expected to just do as told. Obviously, there's a lot more to that dynamic, but that's one important aspect of it...so that can make it difficult for non-U.S. members to feel as if they really are free to openly speak about issues and problems to leadership as equals until a lot of trust is built in this area. And trust is built differently in different cultures.

Another issue is that we Americans are very used to relying on verbal feed-back...if nobody verbally mentions any problems or issues with a plan or course of action, then it can be easy to assume that everything is fine. But back to my former point, it could be that the non-U.S. members are just respectfully allowing leadership to carry out their plan even when they know it is not the best. They might very well be sending strong non-verbal signals that all is not well that the foreigners are not picking up on. There are ways of getting good feedback and asking for advice, it's just a matter of learning how that is done in that particular culture and becoming more adept at picking up the non-verbal cues. Something I'm not particularly good at myself yet, but I'm working on it...

So anyway, great article and thought-provoking for any context. I love the last line of his post, "I have vowed that I will never again work for such a leader."

Someone else has discovered T.J. Addington!!!!
Lots of good stuff.
Did you see the 2 articles he wrote after the GRACE Report came out?
They were the top favorite articles until his sickness and those articles trumped them.
September, 2010.
The only Christian leader who spoke up.

I had read the first article, but not the 2nd, the one outlining good child protection procedures...some very good stuff. The agency we are with now did use the MMPI and other evaluations, but to my knowledge, NTM USA does not. I don't know all the application requirements for non-U.S. members on the different fields, but I do not believe they use anything like that either.

MMPI? The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory?

Are you kidding me? NTM? Use that test for screening candidates?

In case anyone doesn't know what the MMPI is, I copy this from Psychology About. com: "The MMPI-2 is most commonly used by mental health professionals to assess and diagnose mental illness."

During the time we were in the mission, there was STRONG resistance to secular psychology and anything associated with it. You should have seen me hit the ceiling when a statement came out in Family News that if anyone was taking an antidepressant, that would disqualify them from having a ministry in NTM. That policy was later retracted. I don't suppose mine was the only angry letter of protestation the Executive Committee received about it!

I cannot speak for what the screening of candidates is like now, in 2013. But during my time in the mission, I know it did not include the MMPI. I can think of several abusive missionaries who would not have been on the field if they had taken the MMPI.

Because they did have mental illnesses that should have been assessed and diagnosed.

Some of them were dangerous. Some of them inflicted life-long harm on MKs. MKs I love very much.