I know I live in an international community when:
I wrote an email to a friend the other day and she responded asking me why my email information was in German. Actually, in this house we have electronic devices set to German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and English. Sometimes I realize that when suddenly I don´t know what to click to copy-paste.
I sit down to a lunch conversation in Spanish, which is the second (or third) language of every person at the table.
In twelve days of vacation we shared meals from our eight different nationalities: American hamburgers, Venezuelan arepas, Mexican gringas, Brazilian cheese bread, German cake (although not chocolate), Italian tiramisu, Chilean pisco sour, and a Canadian touch to pretty much … well… everything.
I´m learning Spanish vocabulary from Mexicans, Venezuelans, and a Chilean while living in Spain. My question is which nationality will understand me in the end.
I discover during a moment of adoration that we can sing the chorus of praise and worship songs like “Here I Am to Worship” three or four times in a row without repeating a language.
I´m being enriched not only by eight different cultures, but by nineteen very beautiful points of view and life experiences, by my nineteen sisters in my community.
With only twelve days of vacation together, and with all of our different cultures, backgrounds, stories, families, and personalities, we all agreed that we have been experiencing a special sisterhood that could only come from God´s grace and blessing on this (#international) family.