Gratitude, Day 14—Places To Go; Things To See

I’ve purposefully been avoiding the things we so commonly include on a list of “what are you thankful for?” No profound reason. I just assume everyone already knows I’m thankful for friends and family, clothes and food, a roof over my head.

I almost broke that resolution to write about my parents, specifically about my dad because today would have been his birthday. I’ve put off writing that post for a long time, but I’m getting close to the point where I will be ready to put some thoughts down. But not yet.

Instead I want to write about how thankful I am that God gave me the opportunity to travel. I never expected to do so. I didn’t even want to do so. After all, I’d moved so often when I was a kid, I didn’t see the desirability of moving to a different country or of living out of a suitcase.

Little did I know what God had in store for me.

My first move outside the US was to Tanzania, East Africa. I know. Not a typical travel spot. Living in the small town of Korogwe, between the capital of Dar es Salaam and the tourist town of Arusha at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, changed me. I saw people in new ways—rich or poor, African, English, Indian, or American, they are people. We all laugh and get hungry, have a sense of curiosity, work hard, bleed, fall in love, love our children, and on and on.

I also saw that the US is not a place to take for granted, that there are wondrous sights in the world, that traveling can open eyes.

Well, it sure did mine. I wouldn’t have articulated this then when I was just seventeen, but I had a greater understanding of what God meant when He said He loved the world.

I could do a post on Tanzania alone and what I learned, but that was just the first.

Not so long after, I had a friend invite me to spend the summer in Mexico attending summer school at UNAM—a university in Mexico City. I went. From that short trip, I learned that I had an affinity for the Hispanic culture. Except I thought it was for the Mexican culture. I knew some Spanish, loved the people, the architecture, the history, the life style. So I determined to go back.

I applied to a mission organization to be a teacher at a missionary kids’ school. Instead of going to Mexico, however, I decided on a school in the country just south: Guatemala. After all, what could be different?

Well, everything!

OK, people still spoke Spanish, but the country is poor, the terrain is rocky, the land ringed with volcanoes. But there were still wondrous sights, and adventures to experience. There was history right in our backyard. There was paganism lived out on the steps of a church and on a high place outside of town.

Again my eyes were opened—surprisingly, more about myself than anything. I lived through a devastating earthquake and survived a bike accident that gave me a concussion that wiped a day or so out of my memory. I flew in a prop plane for the first (and hopefully, last) time. I spent Christmas eve worshiping in a little out of the way church, accessible only by foot.

I haven’t mentioned the trip my sister and I took when we returned from Africa, that took us to Athens and Rome and Switzerland and Amsterdam and London.

There’s also the two weeks I spent in Tokyo one Christmas vacation—a humbling experience when you can’t even read a street sign or a menu and you can’t ask a story clerk where the tuna is or how much the bananas cost.

Each of those experiences changed me and changed my worldview in ways that are impossible to explain or enumerate. But one thing I never imagined when I first began to travel: I have a wealth of information about other people and other places that I can use in my fantasies. The fantasy world of Efrathah where my protagonist goes, has a little of Tanzania, a little of my home state of Colorado, a little of Guatemala, a little of this place or that. What a treasure trove my travels have become.

So today, I want to say how grateful I am that God gave me so many varied places to visit and so many experiences to shape me. That He also has given me the opportunity to put what I learned into my stories is beyond great. I mean, when I got on the plane heading for Africa, I had no intention of writing fiction. I had no idea how writing journal entries or character sketches of the people I met would put me on a path toward fiction. Only God could plan and prepare me for such a thing so far in advance.

He’s great, and it is really Him I am thankful for in all these varied topics I’ve included in the Gratitude posts.