Sunday, July 03, 2005

GIfts to give our children - Part 3

Another gift we'd like to give our children is the gift of language and culture. Debbie has basically a minor in Spanish. She has been to El Salvador and Guatemala; together we have been to Honduras and Mexico. These mission trips have grown our love for Hispanic people. Through my engineering studies/work I have also developed a love and appreciation for Chinese, Japanese and Indian culture and language (even though I haven't yet developed a taste for all of these foods!) We have also been blessed to know several Iranians. As the world melts together we want our kids to love all people. We want to help our kids not just to treat everyone equally, but to be comfortable striking up true friendships across cultural/language lines.

Beyond Spanish we'd like to at least explore together with our kids the language of some of our friends... Farsi and Chinese for starters!

I think I'm feeling convicted....if I'm going to help the kids love other cultures I'm going to have to learn to try their foods more. Food is such a central part of fellowship in most cultures that I can't neglect it. I'm a meat and potatos guy so this'll be a challenge. Lord help me try and enjoy other foods! I remember when You've helped me start to enjoy some new foods... but Indian, Japanese and Persian foods are a "whole nother level"!