Semiotic Domains

So just after eighth grade I went on a missions trip to Jamaica. The mission of the trip was to provide the man power to put on a vacation Bible school for the area children (the church had about 15 kids to every one adult who attended and not all the adults could help with VBS). Anyway, I am teaching a lesson to five and six year olds and trying to explain Jesus's cleansing power over sin in our lives so far so good. Unfortunately, I was at first unable to effectively communicate the message. I told the children that "Jesus would wash their hearts as white as snow." When I was growing up, a child of the Midwest where snow was something I was very familiar with this analogy worked quite well; however, in Jamaica, where the children have never seen snow this analogy did relatively little to explain what Jesus could do for them. Lucky for me one of the brave children stopped me and asked what snow was, at that point I was able to reword what I said to something more culturally sensitive. This is like what the author was talking about in the video game piece. I was speaking as a protestant Midwesterner; everything I said made sense to those who were also protestant Midwesterners. The Jamaican children who were also being raised in a protestant tradition were unfamiliar with the other part of my group (Midwest). This is just a fun story I thought of while reading.