The Astounding Beauty of Our World

When you look for Cyprus on a map, it is a tiny speck of land in the Mediterranean Sea, located near conflict-ridden countries such as Syria, Egypt, Iran and Iraq. I did not know anything about Cyprus before this trip, and I had barely even heard it mentioned. I am amazed at how this small dot on the globe has such a tremendous story. A beautifully powerful story that I was completely unaware of until two weeks ago. How many other countries and cities and towns and villages and individual people have such deeply beautiful stories that we don’t even know about? The number is infinite. I am grateful I was able to learn about Cyprus’s story and share it with those who have been following my journey. I told Zoe at dinner later on Friday evening that Cyprus is not just a place I visited. I feel involved now. I feel connected to it in many ways.

I told Andreas I did not know what to expect before I came to Cyprus. I thought the experience would be a valuable one, but it was not in the realm of my imagination that it would be this profound. It doesn’t take long for an experience to change you. It might take a year, or a month, or a week, or a day, or even only one, single second. I am so grateful to him for sharing his beautiful country, family, values, visions, and life with us. I like to believe our paths cross with people who we need at certain points in time. Almost like they are given to us to teach us something or to remind us of something. I feel like my path with Andreas crossed at a time when I most needed it.

My entire MBA group was visibly sad to leave. None of us expected the experience to be like this. We were all changed in different ways over the course of these two weeks. We carry a part of Cyprus back with us, but we also left a small part of us back in Cyprus.

I hope I am able to return to Cyprus some day. I hope it is to witness the barriers of wood, barbed wire, fences, and decades of heartache and bitterness erode away into the sea.  I hope it is to see the hearts and souls of the people of Cyprus mend to become whole again. Just imagine what an astoundingly beautiful event that would be for our world.