We Still Live in a Great Country

DebSue and I have done a lot of traveling to various countries.  As I think about it, we have been to Africa (Rwanda, Ghana, Uganda) on three different occasions, India, China, Israel, Peru multiple times, Nicaragua, DR, interior Mexico (not where the tourists go) multiple times, Great Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand.  Of course there is always Canada as well.

Every time we go to a country whether it is developing or not, we deeply appreciate what we have in this country.  This is still a great country!  When I leave and come back, I almost want to kiss the ground when we get back.  You don’t really appreciate it when you never go outside of it.  No question, we have our faults and we are far from perfect.  But we have a stable society, a democratically elected government, a wide variety of places to go and people to see, a giving people (USA is still the number one giver), and believe it or not a relatively low tax base (compare it to some countries with VAT taxes of 15-25%).  It is the people that make the USA so great.  From New Yorkers to the heartland to the south to the west to Californians, we have such great variety.  I am partial to the Midwest, but that Most notably, we have freedom of religion.  We need to think about all that is happening in other parts of the world where this freedom does not exist.  For good information, check out Voice of the Martyrs site.

As we celebrate this Independence Day, let’s think about all that is good in living in the USA.