My Family Culture

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

• A description of the three items you would choose

• My bible

  

• Family photo album (filled with old family photos and new family photos)

• My wedding ring

How you would explain to others what each of these items means to you

• My bible is my guidance and gives me strength every day. It is a constant reminder that no matter what happens I am never alone and that God is with me.
• My family photo album is a representation of who I am and where I come from. It has pictures of loved ones that have gone on before us. It is a wonderful way to remember the past and also a way to look forward to the future.
• My wedding ring is very important to me. It is a symbol of an oath I took in front of God and my family that I would honor and cherish my husband. When I look at it I remember our wedding and the love that we felt for each other which has gotten stronger every day since that day.

Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items you brought with you

• I would feel angry and frustrated if I was told that I could only keep one personal item, but I know which item I would keep. I would choose my bible, seeing that my immediate family is with me, I could give up my family photo album because we could make new memories in the new country. I could give up my wedding ring since my husband will be with me and we know that we are married. We could get new rings later after we get settled in the country we have been sent to live.

Any insights you gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity, and/or cultural differences in general, as a result of this exercise,

• One insight I gained while doing this assignment was that it was very easy to pick the major item that I would take but the other two items were very difficult to decide what I would chose. My faith is a very big part of my family’s culture and as long as I have my family around me that is all that I need; my bible and my family.