International

Life here is very international. Now, that may seem obvious to you but I think we are in a unique place. Typically if you  move to a foreign country, most people probably don't speak English well and the majority of people you are surrounded by are natives of that country. Because the town we live in is a university town, there are many different types of cultures and people represented. 

We also attend an International church. It's the only English speaking service in our area, minus the Catholic mass. It's a very diverse group as well. We have people represented from nearly every continent. 

I love being surrounded by all these different cultures and people with completly different life experiences than me. For example, one Sunday at church we had a guest speaker who was from Ireland and had been an assassin for their rebel group before becoming a Christian! And later that night we went to another a worship night where the speaker was from Egypt (this was in the middle of the Egyptian protests).

Within our own lifegroup we have British families, Dutch families, American families, and South African families. It truly is a melting pot of diversity. It's exciting to hear about their lives and to explain ours. It's funny (and sometimes disheartening) to hear what the rest of the world thinks about the US or to acknowledge that I don't know much about the rest of the world. 


But sometimes it's nice to just hang out with an American. We had a friend over for dinner last night who is from Ohio. It was nice and didn't take a lot of work. We could talk freely without translation problems. We could reference cultural things without having to explain them. We knew about certain places or time frames in American history. It was refreshing to not have to work extra hard. 


I wouldn't trade our friendships and experiences for anything! I have learned more about the world in the past 6 months (Today is our 6 month anniversary of living in the Netherlands!!) than I have in my entire life. I am loving living abroad. Sometimes it's just nice to have a small piece of home.