Thank you, Asia "Mosaic" (21 days until Green Bay)

Brent and I were on the beach at ShekO yesterday afternoon for a leisurely Mother's Day.  We like to people watch and there were a lot of people to watch!  The beaches have been re-opened for a few weeks now after Covid numbers remained low long enough.  There were loads of families and couples and friend groups hanging out on blankets, under umbrellas, or in pup tents.  So many people! 

After seven years in Hong Kong the diverse and international nature of where we are is normalized for us. But because we are only three weeks from our return to Green Bay, the mosaic of people we shared the beach with stood out to me.  Every skin color one could imagine was present.  Easily I could tune in to hear English, French, Cantonese, Hindi, or Tagalog (a language of the Philippines).  

In my time abroad I have made friends with people of great wealth and people with no possessions to their name.  I have lived in, worked in or visited communities where faiths varied from Christian (mostly LCMS Lutheran) to Jewish to Buddhist to Hindu to atheist.

I have marched in Pride parades and met lovely transgender adults and teens.  

I have been stretched with new encounters like caring for those with crippling disabilities, mostly blindness and cerebral palsy. 

In church I have the privilege of being around infants to elders.  In my work place and in my friend group people span several decades of ages  - from 30s to 70's.  While, of course, I spend a majority of my day with teens.

Not everyone gets along with everyone all the time, of course.  But here the notion of "different" or "other" just isn't the same as back home.  Here, somehow being around this mosaic of humanity makes it easier to feel comfortable around all sorts of visible differences.  Somehow, I have less of a sense of trepidation now.  

I suppose there are some understandings that only come through experience.  And what rich and mind-opening experiences I have had - by chance or by choice!  Thank you, Asia.