Diversity ~ I LOVE IT!!!

I have to admit that when we moved up here 14 years ago I was stunned at the comments I heard about Canadians and American Indians. The lack of tolerance is still somewhat present now. Having grown up in So. Cal. there were MANY nationalities I grew up with. If you've seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite ~ I had friends like Pedro's cousins! And yes, they were on MY side!

As an example, every year the schools print up a race %. Needless to say, Caucasian is the highest percentage in our school district with Hispanic, African American and Punjab rounding the report out.

Why am I talking about this somewhat taboo subject? Well this past Sunday we went up to Vancouver, BC to visit some friends and go to Church with them. Their son just returned home from his mission and originally his talk was going to be then. But things changed and he's doing it on the 29th. A day we couldn't come. So we went up anyways to see him and the family. I LOVED the diversity of their congregation. Someone was asked to say a prayer and she said it in Japanese. Now I've heard prayers in different dialects of Spanish but this is the first time I heard one said in Japanese. It was GREAT!! One of our Sunday School teachers was from Chile. There was one sweet woman that came up to me to introduce herself and she was from South Africa ~ LOVE their accent! Even after the services were over, she came up to me to make sure I had an enjoyable time. Oh, so sweet! Even the subject of Canadians/Americans was brought up. A subject I never knew about living in So. Cal. But proof that we can co-exist without put downs. Not only are we Americans we are from Southern California ~ a double whammy. And we've been on the receiving end of those not so nice "just kidding" jabs and it's not pleasant. Amber thought it was fun that she was the only Caucasian in her class. But it didn't matter.

Diversity ~ embrace it!!!

Photo taken at Cannon Beach, OR