More Nativity Scenes from Around the World

In my first year of blogging, I did a post on nativity scenes from around the world. I shared that I had been collecting nativities as I enjoyed seeing how the birth of Christ was interpreted and represented within various cultures and by various artists. We recognize that while Christ’s birth happened in a certain time and location in history, he came for all mankind. The various cultural interpretations acknowledge that fact. The nativity scene in the cover photo is…

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Remembered Journey for an Arizona Christmas

At Christmas time many people travel to visit loved ones and friends. Some make the same Christmas journey every year. Others only travel occasionally. Today most people who travel any great distance do so by plane, but that hasn’t always been true. When I was a kid, flying was still somewhat of a novelty and certainly considered expensive. If we went anywhere, we traveled by car. At one time my mom’s parents moved to Glendale, Arizona outside of Phoenix to…

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It’s All About the Culture

One expects to encounter and experience other cultures when traveling. We definitely anticipate this if we are going to another country. However, even within a large country like the United States we can encounter other cultures as we travel around. We may not realize that because we may not understand what culture really is. Defining culture can be challenging. One definition I like is “the way of life for an entire society.” One of the things I like about this…

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Challenged by Korean Cultural and Social Differences

Last week I began sharing about my experience teaching English in a summer program in South Korea in 2006. The school was located near Seoul. I traveled there with some other American teachers. While we enjoyed working with our students, working with the administration had its challenges. One of the positive things for me at the school was their technology. I was teaching in a private school at that time, and our technology was not at a very high level.…

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Teaching English in South Korea One Summer

One of my first posts was entitled “Why Travel?” I listed four reasons for traveling, but of course there are more reasons than that. One such reason is to travel to actually work. Businesses have often sent their workers to various locations to offer face to face contact with clients. In my case I traveled to do what I do best, teach. The location was South Korea. In 2006 recruiters came to the school where I was teaching with an…

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Memphis and Nashville, Hot Spots of American Musical History

In 2013 we decided to spend my spring break in Tennessee. While we spent a few days in Chattanooga, I want to focus on the two music cities of Tennessee, Nashville and Memphis. Each has a real place in music history yet are quite unique and different. Which should you visit? Well let’s look at some of the differences, and you can decide for yourself. Nothing says country music like Nashville. However Nashville is not just about country music as…

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