You might have come across this phrase before: it is the motto on South Africa's coat of arms. It means 'diverse people unite.' Though I have seen this happen, my experience is that mostly, diverse people tend to diverge. Or clash. And that mostly, the similar people are the ones who unite.
Now over here, the diversity is unlike anything I have ever seen. There are literally hundreds of nationalities (over 200, according to Wikipedia) living together in a country much smaller than South Africa.
We went to visit a church on Friday, and I was a bit overwhelmed. We were surrounded by so many different people, all coming together to worship the same God. Which is probably what heaven is going to look like.
I realised that my picture of heaven was a bit different. Though I am most definitely not a racist, I have always been part of mostly white, mostly Afrikaans communities. Now I know that there is nothing wrong with that, but I also know that South Africa is in desperate need of people who cross cultural barriers and that up until now, I haven't really been one of those people.
I can see that God is leading us into a phase of really learning to embrace diversity.
By becoming a part of a diverse Christian community, we are going to learn so much about relating to people who are very different from us.
From there we can hopefully learn to relate to people from other cultures who are not Christians, so that we can be part of those taking the whole gospel to the whole world.
I pray that He would shape us, so that when we return home, we may be a part of !ke e: /xarra //ke.
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