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March 23, 2011 1 Comment

Seeing the World

The world of my childhood centered on a small farm in the American Midwest where my parents leased out the fields and kept a herd of cattle. We gobbled down all-you-can-eat catfish at small-town diners and overheard farmers discussing crop rotation. I never expected to travel outside the United States—a trip to Florida was exotic enough for me. As for learning a second language, everyone around me spoke English. Why bother with anything else?Then, a year after college, I met a guy named Philippe who grew up in Europe and spoke fluent French. The son of American missionaries in Belgium, he grew up speaking English in the home and French everywhere else.Within an hour of meeting him, I made a request. “Say something in French!”“What should I say?”“Anything,” I urged. “Anything at all.”

He looked up at the sky and said, “Uh, Le ciel est bleu; le soleil est brillant.”*

I melted…

:::

Read the rest of this article at TheHighCalling.org, a site about the integration of faith and work.

TheHighCalling.org Christian Blog Network

* [Translation: “The sky is blue; the sun is shining.”]

Credits: Image by Mike Ryan. Used with permission via Flickr.

Filed Under: family Tagged With: cross-cultural, multi-cultural families

Comments

  1. Nancy says

    March 23, 2011 at 9:01 am

    This was great, Ann. I remember when we flew to the Philippines to adopt our son. My husband grew taller and whiter the further we flew from the U.S. My husband’s family is made up of many tribes languages, and tongues. My father-in-law was born in Sweden, and my husband has two Korean sisters. We have beautiful blend of Scandinavian, Korean, and Filipino faces seated around the table whenever we gather. It truly is a foretaste of heaven.

    (Tried commenting over at the High Calling, but I’m traveling and using another computer and can’t for the life of me remember my password!)

    Reply

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