11/18/98: We spent the day playing in calmer waves, collecting sea shells, reading, and reflecting…
11/18/23: I had planned to take this trip before Ruth and I had met and married. I wanted to visit and serve missionaries in as many locations around the world as I could in one year, learning about God’s work among people and in places that were different from my own. It had occurred to me, both before and during the year-long journey, that I would also be learning about myself, who I am and what my place in God’s world is. I knew, too, once we were married and embarked together, that travelling with Ruth would make all of these discoveries even better.
I knew that spending a few weeks in any one location is still only adequate to scratch the surface of knowing and appreciating the place. But I also knew that it was going to be more rewarding than only having ever read books about the places and peoples in so many countries. By going, we got to see, smell, hear and taste the places. We got to meet people, shake their hands and hug them, laugh or cry or shout in anger or pray in stillness with so many, who otherwise might only have been faces in a photograph in some magazine or book.
That day, after the rain storm on the beach and the stormy fight in our bungalow, I was reflecting on the internal journey of self-discovery, and that this journey was also now a journey with a partner. We were struggling to learn about ourselves, about each other, and about our union together.
The questions about self-discovery are similar to questions about traveling the world around us. Am I really learning deeper truths about who I am, who she is, who we are? Or am I only circumnavigating the surface of myself, of my wife, of my marriage?… In a Christmas letter I wrote to family and friends in 1999, after we had returned from the trip, I wrote this:
We see the world differently now.
350 intensely saturated days abroad in twelve countries, if nothing else, has given us new perspective. Cultures, languages, sights, tastes, smells, sounds, and so many people. All up close and personal.
Our richest blessing is having gone through this adventure together. That singularly lonely part of experience that can never be truly communicated to the uninitiated is a source of unifying intimacy for us! Driving down the street, something reminds one or the other, our eyes meet, words not even needed to be spoken. We are “there” again. Somewhere. Anywhere. No less exotic, and faraway, but now tangible to us. And we’re there together…
Change and adventure have continued since we’ve returned to Chicago 25 years ago. And we are still learning more about ourselves, about each other, about our marriage, and even about our grown children, and about who God has made us to be. We’ve scratched a little deeper than the surface, and we look forward to digging deeper still.
NOTE: The photo above shows me sitting on the beach that day after the storms at Kantiang Bay on Koh Lanta, Thailand.