By Cyndi Hartzell

                A friend and I were laughing together the other day over how similar both of our lives are. It seems that most of what one of us is going through-with our parents, our families, our finances-the same thing is happening to the other. We just figured, “The names have been changed to protect the innocent.” It made for a good laugh and a time of encouragement, knowing that neither one of us was alone in our situations. It was nice to know someone else is going through the same thing, feeling the same way as me. We are all human beings and have a lot in common with each other.  

                I remember the first time this revelation of the similarities of the human race came to me.  We were missionaries living in the Dominican Republic, and once a week I and another lady, Chana, would go house to house visiting the ladies of the village. It was a great way for me to work on my Spanish and to get to know all the ladies from the church. What I didn’t expect, though, was to see and hear all the similarities of their lives to mine. I specifically remember sitting in an old wooden chair at Mati’s house, seeing her few clothes hanging on nails above the bare mattress in the other room that had no door, and her two young daughters, naked, running in and out of the house. I looked around at the cement floor and the exposed light bulb on the ceiling, and thought to myself, we are so different. But as we talked about her kids, the struggles with finding a job, and other things she was worried about, I realized she was not so different than me after all.

                Many of us Floridians have been to Disney World countless times, and at one time or another we’ve gone through the ride “it’s a small world”, where you sit in a boat and travel the world, seeing costumed dolls of children from every continent playing, dancing, and singing the song “it’s a small world” in five different languages. The little characters are dressed in their cultural attire and in scenes portrayed with landmarks or famous icons from their native country.  The point of the ride is to dissolve boundaries and reveal how we, as humans, are so diversified, yet so similar. In the limited traveling I have done, I have found this to be so true.

                It seems like the more countries I travel to, the smaller the world is getting. The sweet ladies in Kolkata, the precious Quichua Indians of Ecuador, the fun-loving Filipinos, the intense worshippers of Cambodia, and the close Bulgarian families-we all look, speak, and dress differently, but are all part of the same human race. Yes, there are extreme cultural differences sometimes, and we may think we have nothing in common with certain people. But I believe if we could go into their homes, into their private lives and hear what’s really on their hearts as men, women, husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers, I think we would see that they are just like us. We’re all people, made in the image of God.

                So we’re the same, yet different. I find there’s something comforting in knowing that each of us is unique, yet part of a bigger whole. We’re never truly alone in our feelings. Somewhere there’s somebody who’s in the same situation as I am, who feels the same way I do. God has such an infinite supply of designs for every face of every race, yet in our hearts, we have the same basic needs and wants. Amazing! It really is a small world after all.