In 1991/1992 my wife and I lived in Melbourne for a few months and we moved back to Queensland in July 1992. It was here that I would meet a neighbour who would change my life and also help me be set free of some of my own personal "baggage".

One day I was speaking to my neighbour who was standing on the other side of the fence and as he was clearly from a different country of origin I asked him, "What country did you and your wife come from?"

I was amazed at his obvious physical reaction to this question. He started to move uncomfortably and could hardly speak. My question seemed to be one that struck him so deeply that he was afraid to answer. After some moments he told me he was from Iran and as I recall it, he seemed to be expecting me to react to his answer and possibly even walk away.

I immediately said, "Wow, your country was in a huge war with Iraq some time back, do you have family there and are were they ok?"

At this he sprang to life and told me his family was safe and we went on to discuss wars and how his life was here in Australia for him and his family. He seemed so at ease at my concern for his family, not for where he came from which at the time had often been at the centre of media attention for terrorism attacks.

The next morning as I got into my car to go to work I noticed that his car, which was parked a bit further along, had a sticker on the rear windscreen that I had never really noticed before. The sticker simply said: "Let your children grow up free of your prejudice"

This simple sentence spoke volumes into my spirit that day. It made me realise how prejudice knows no colour or boundary, it is simply a scheme that is used to divide people; to set them against each other and for the most part they themselves don't really know why.

This encounter changed my life. I too had been subjected to various forms of prejudice from my own countrymen. As a young boy growing up we moved around a lot so I was always the kid from another town, another state, from the city, not one of us, used to go to "that" school, lives differently to us and so on. Prejudice truly knows no boundaries it just hides itself in something that looks like a good reason not accept someone.

In 1996 I went to Santa Cruz in California to attend an international conference held at the University there. It was there that I would share a dorm with a group of men each from different countries of origin or at least different family backgrounds to each other. I formed a very strong bond of friendship with one particular man in the dorm who was of Jewish American heritage. We talked often about the boundaries that separate us and he himself felt compelled to show friendship even to another man in the dorm who's fore-fathers would have held some of my friend's family in concentration camps in WWII. To see this level of forgiveness and desire to show acceptance still stays with me today.

My friend's e-mail footer always displayed the message, "Let your children grow up free of your prejudice", based on the story I had shared with him about my neighbour some years before.

It is the Blood of Christ that makes us brothers and sisters and coming from diverse backgrounds gives us the ability to share with each other our own personal and cultural experiences - from such knowledge we can only all grow stronger and richer.

A tradition when giving flowers has always been to give red roses as the deepest expression of love. To me the blood-red rose always reminds me that Jesus showed the ultimate act of love by shedding His blood on the cross for us. No matter what our family background, country, race, creed, belief system; we all bleed the same red blood - the colour of love.

Let your children grow up free of your prejudice

By this our children can grow up in a better world and a hope for tomorrow.