1 Considering your national culture and what your childhood was like, how has your culture and upbringing shaped who you have become? If at all. I am here to represent the Netherlands, and I think many resins would be surprised to know what an impact my upbringing has had on my life to this day. I was born in the Netherlands to two Dutch parents. Both of my parents were very strict Dutch Reformers, which happens to be one of the major religions of the Netherlands. Being raised in the Dutch Reformed church really helped to develop the morals that I stick true to to this day. Since my family and I were so involved in the church, I ended up joining our church's youth group and quickly rose to president of the group. We performed many charitable activities, such as rebuilding homes for unfortunate families, helping the elderly, and acting as missionaries. Years later, my family moved to Korea, where it was extremely hard to find a Reformed Church. Eventually, we did find a very small Christian Reformed church with a mostly American congregation. There really aren't any differences between the Christian Reformed church and the Dutch Reformed church, so we quickly fit in. What made it hard for me, was having to learn both English (to communicate with many members of the congregation) and Korean (to communicate with the people of my new home). However, with some difficulty, I managed to master both languages. It was in Korea that I became best friends with a Korean girl named Rain. Rain was a bit of a rebel and she tempted me to do things that went against what the church had taught me. We were both fairly wealthy and became quite "famous" in Korea for everything we did. I couldn't go to a boutique without cameras flashing all around me and reporters trying to find out what I was going to buy. Soon after, I ended up moving back to the Netherlands, where I quickly became involved in the church again. In the Netherlands, things were very different with the Dutch Reformers. There were huge communities filled with them, however, they split the denomination into two. There is the Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church of the Netherlands. The CRC follows the beliefs of the mother church, but the RCN broke off because they felt the mother church had become to liberal once they started allowing homosexual marriage. Now, while I am not a formal member of any CRC or the RCN, I still consider myself a Christian and I work hard to help out the community around me. I work in food shelters to help the hungry, I perform missionary work to help build homes and restore homes for the needy, and I still witness to other resins when possible. As you can see, my upbringing has had a very strong impact on who I am today and I am proud of who the woman I have grown up to be. Peyton