Service Topic for May 24

Between Worlds: the Gifts of Being a Cultural Outsider

Guest Speaker: Jennifer Gittings-Dalton

Lay Leader: CJ Rhoads

What are the creative gifts – and painful costs – that come when you find yourself “outside”  your dominant culture at work, in your community, or among peers? In some settings we all have had the experience of not fitting in. How can we harness that experience in positive ways?

Today, people of different backgrounds are encountering each other as never before, through immigration, travel, and electronic communications. It is a combustible, unprecedented, but highly creative experiment. I grew up a “Third Culture Kid” after a childhood spent in east Asia, and the impact has been lifelong. Now I work with very diverse students and displaced workers at a community college and use the experience I have gained to help them.