On Saturday, Ron and I will host two Jordanian girls who are coming to participate in a Cross-Cultural Young Leader's Summit here in Phoenix. We get to participate too, which is cool.
The idea behind it is that the only thing that has ever really changed the world is small groups of people getting together and deciding to do things differently. And what happens with the Middle East peace process and the Muslim East /Christian West divide has profound repercussions for our collective future. And so, ten Middle Eastern friends from Lebanon and Jordan will come here to meet ten Americans, and we'll have a week of fun, friendship, and, most importantly, dialogue.
The most powerful thing we can do cross-culturally is to break down stereotypes: Muslim = terrorist; Q'uran = weird violent book; Middle Easterner = crazy violent jihadist. And they, in turn, will have a chance to break down theirs: Christian = warmonger; Bible = weird violent book; Westerner = arrogant uninformed materialist.
I think it should be fascinating.
I forgot about this! So exciting!
ReplyDeleteI will be anxiously awaiting details. I'm sure it will be amazing.