Inside Geography

As a kid I loved geography. I remember an assignment in fifth grade to do a 'product' map of North Carolina, a place I had never visited. That experience, some five decades ago, led me to maps and globes and encyclopedias and an interest in places near and far from where I lived. Eventually I became a teacher and then a writer and speaker. I have written curriculum materials for history and geography classes about places around the world and I've been fascinated with the people groups who live in these far-away lands. But none of this was personal--until I was asked to write a book for kids on immigrants from Vietnam and later a book for middle-grade readers on a refugee family from Kurdistan who came to the United States during the Gulf War.

Suddenly, countries that were once across the globe were here in San Diego--through these people who have become my friends and extended family. For a time I was the 'American grandmother' to the children in the Kurdish family. And for nearly twenty years I've been receiving manicures and pedicures at the shop owned by my Vietnamese friend, Sally.

This week, another place I've never seen except on a map, also has become very personal to me. Indonesia--all because of a woman named Anita who contacted me after she read one of my published articles on CBN.org. She is Indonesian by heritage but was living in Germany at the time she wrote and asked me to be her spiritual mother. That was about three years ago. We have been in touch via e-mail ever since. A month or so before the recent disaster in Indonesia, Anita returned to her native home to join her family.

The morning I heard the news of the Tsunami, I went to my computer and e-mailed Anita before I did another thing, my heart racing as I struck each key. I just wanted to know she was all right. In one moment her friendship escalated to a high I had not known previously. She was not simply a person in a far-away place with whom I shared a few e-mails a month. She was my 'daughter' and friend and I wanted her to be safe and well. She wrote back that day to thank me and to report that she and her family were on a smaller island and had not been affected. She typed in a prayer from both of us on behalf of the victims, and I returned her e-mail with my prayer for both of us. We have continued that practice over the past several days.

I thank God for Anita and for all the steps in my life that led me to her and her to me.

On this first day of the new year, 2005, I have a deeper understanding and appreciation of life, of my life, of the lives of everyone I know and meet and hear about. It really is a small world, after all!