We are related

By Elaine Vitikainen

A few weeks ago, I was sat at a Monday morning devotion of one local organisation in the province of Cambodia. Each of the local staff were taking turns reading the verses in Genesis 5, the written account of Adam’s family line. They read through names and the age of each of these people when they died. Personally, I did not really understand what was the point in reading this. Surely, there were other things in the Bible which are more interesting and life changing. 

The one leading the devotion ended by saying how people lived so much longer before. This did not resonate well with me. I still did not find the connection to how it will change my week of conducting an evaluation. However, one of the staff shared about what he thought about Genesis 5. He was reminded of how we are all connected, how we all came from one family line. He said, for him this means we are brothers and sisters. It does not matter where we came from. We are all related. 

This stuck with me. The 15 days of hard work in Cambodia was made a bit easier when I thought about how we are indeed related to one another. When irritation started to creep in with someone, I try to see them as my relative. Walking in the most remote villages, I suddenly saw how I am related to these people too. They don’t speak my language. I don’t speak theirs. I live very differently and my habits are very different from theirs. But in many ways, we are very similar. We are in fact, the same, related and all came from one family line.