Growing up in a small city in Iowa surrounded by rural communities, values of faith, family, and community were woven into my taught perspective of the world. I attended a private Catholic K-12 school system, which provided an in-depth education and practice of Catholic traditions and beliefs—values I still hold dear today. While my faith instilled in me a commitment to listen, empathize, and love without limits, my exposure to other religions, particularly Islam, was almost nonexistent.

My recent experience in Fez, Morocco challenged me to learn, understand, and connect to a culture, and way of life, that was beyond new to me. During my college semester in Pepperdine University’s Switzerland Study Abroad Program, the program’s educational trip was to Morocco. My time in Morocco proved to be a foundational experience, revealing the shared humility and respect that lies in relational engagement across the Christian-Muslim divide. My encounters there revealed the undeniable power of human commonalities and joy.

Stepping into Fez, everything about my surroundings was unfamiliar. The sounds of call to prayer, mosques scattered around, the appearance of unity of faith —it was overwhelming. One evening a group of us college students were invited into a local family’s home to share dinner. The couple who hosted our dinner was the epitome of hospitality. I quickly realized our student group did not speak fluent enough French to communicate fully with them, so through broken French-English our communication was slow to form, but by necessity also very creative. We were limited by language, by our different experiences, but not by willingness to connect. Sitting at the table, it was evident that we shared a quiet essence of hope, curiosity, and kindness for each other.

I talked with the wife, who told me that the meal she prepared for us took seven hours. With a genuine smile on her face, she was proud of her role, which meant a lot to her. I found her to be an inspiring example of gracious hospitality and kindness. She opened her home to strangers who were religiously and culturally very alien—young Christian, American students, who knew barely anything about Muslim faith, could not speak fluent French or Arabic, and were not accustomed to Moroccan culture. But yet she was committed to welcoming us, for no gain of her own.

As we shared dinner, the Quran displayed prominently in the dining room, we discovered a simple commonality across our Christian-Muslim differences: our love for sports. The husband turned on the television to a soccer game, which we all grew way too invested in. Sitting around the table, our differences were not insurmountable barriers to authentic friendship, for our shared pursuit of treating each other with kindness was stronger and unifying.

Walking away from their home, the rest of my experiences in Morocco were more meaningful. The culture came alive in my head, and heart, and my interest in Muslim faith grew. That dinner showed me that building multi-faith and cross-cultural relationships does not mean we need to abandon our own faith. Growing up, I had the interpretation from my cultural surroundings that learning about other religions might discredit or undermine commitment to your own religion—that learning in a respectful way may betray a lack of confidence in the doctrines you were taught. Through traveling in Morocco and fostering friendships with people from all backgrounds, I came to understand through practical experience that such fears are not necessarily warranted. Learning should not be framed as a threat to our own beliefs. Both can coexist.

If we let barriers rooted in fear prevent and impede opportunities, we will miss out on fruitful engagements that broaden our perspectives and strengthen our shared communities and civic life. Dr. Eranda Jayawickreme, Harold W. Tribble Professor of Psychology at Wake Forest University, has conducted extensive research on the prerequisites of this kind of principled, relational pluralism. In a recent essay at The Conversation, Dr. Jayawickreme explains:

“Pluralism moves beyond tolerance. It’s not just permitting someone’s beliefs; it’s trying to understand them and getting to know them. This is not the absence of conviction. It is the determination to live out one’s deepest convictions within a shared civic space, and to treat other people not as a threat but as key contributors to the community.”

The action of showing up with an open mind and curiosity during cross-cultural encounters is beyond powerful. Our “dividers” are not always as challenging to overcome as we assume. Even the seemingly tallest barriers like religion and language cannot stand the intention of shared humanity.

The powerful key to fostering relationships in multi-faith and intercultural contexts is connecting at the level of universal humanity. Acknowledging our shared humanity can undeniably withstand the fears and challenges we commonly use as reasons for limiting our relationships; different human experiences, perspectives, and languages. Cross-cultural and cross-faith engagement, when rooted in humility and the desire of curiosity, kindness, and recognition of shared humanity, can flourish even across deep differences. For Christians, it can be a practical way to put “loving our neighbor as ourselves” into action in a way that our world urgently needs today.