Perception is:  “the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.”   Question is, can you trust your senses?  Never 100%!

Of course there is the obvious:  smell what appears to be garbage, and most likely there will be a reason for the odor.   Taste what appear to be off and it might be!  We’ve got a new heads up these days by food packaging  ‘sell-by dates’.

Years ago when I was an international model, (an exotic sounding vocation involving long trips, unsteady pay and daily starvation) I received an assignment requiring me to live in Germany.  And I was nervous at best and anxious at worst. My perception? Holocaust, hate, genocide, extermination . . . . and I was on my own!

Germany.  Land of the Nazi’s, who rounded up people based upon their heritage and faith, ran them through concentration camps, furnaces and physical and mental torture.  Eleven million people — wiped out.  What kind of monsters treat each other with such cruelty?  And I never came up with a reasonable answer.  Never will.

Determined to be courageous,  I marched into my next modeling assignment to face-off with these German devils.  But, as I met individuals, I found that these people who also had horrible recollections of Nazi abuse, were my new friends. They had been raised much like I, with strong house rules, secure in the fact that hard work pays off and laziness causes poverty.  I saw the hearts of these people one at a time – which is the best way to discover anyone’s true character.  And I met some of the most genuinely kind caring people in the world.

Years later when I took the ones I love most with me back to Germany,   I had drummed up enough enthusiasm to fill my family’s hearts with a great desire to see this country and meet more new friends. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Don’t ever let your perception block you from a visit to a country marked “Safe” by the US State Department.   And look at her people and her children,  one heart at a time.

Dawn

PS – Please follow us on Facebook and my blog for more on Germany this month!