Traveling Mercies

For posts about adventures and reflections while traveling, click here.

When I was growing up, I traveled around the state of California a lot. Loved the redwoods, loved the beach. Because my dad was a teacher and my mom a stay-at-home wife and mom, our vacations were economical: we went camping, we found good deals on motels, we sometimes rented rickety beach apartments with other families. And we had great times together.

But until I was 18, I had never left this state. Then we went to Canada, to see the sights and visit some family.

Then I got married.

And that’s when our traveling adventures began! Eight months after our wedding, we boarded a freighter headed for Cape Town, then drove 1500 miles north to Zambia where we lived, taught school and had our first little girl. We headed home two years later, stopping in Kenya and in central Europe for one week each.

And we just kept on taking trips, whenever we could afford it. Because we realized that a.) we both loved seeing the wonders of God’s world; b.) we wanted our kids to see all kinds of places and meet all kinds of people; c.) vacation time was just about as sacred as community life and Sunday worship.

Because on vacation, we built memories. We built relationships with one another that are deep and strong. We learned about the world and we learned about ourselves and we learned how blessed we are to live where we do, to sink our roots deep into where we live and into what we believe – but to fly away from time to time – to get a new angle, to see from a different perspective, to stand slack-jawed at yet another world wonder. We traveled all around this country with our kids. And since they’ve grown and gone, we’ve been to Europe and Central America with hopes of getting to New Zealand some day.

So if you click on the link at the top of this page, you’ll read (and see) a bit about some of the things we’ve done together as travelers. And some of the things we’ve learned because we did it together.