The Dream…
The setting is a Purdue University lecture hall sometime in the early nineties. A professor mentions some general advice, “If you have the opportunity to live outside of the US for a year, take it. There is value in seeing the world from the perspective of other cultures.” (This professor must’ve been pretty impactful, as Charlie references him again on a recent podcast he was a guest on.)
Fast forward 15ish years, and as I planned our wedding, Charlie planned an epic 1 month honeymoon in Europe. The itinerary was aggressive: 9 countries in 30 days, but that adventure began a journey for us into valuing experiences and seeing God’s hand in His people around the world. We laughed, we cried, we ran to catch trains, we ate…a lot, we forked over our credit card for unexpected expenses…a lot, AND we established international travel as a thread for our family. That trip marked the first time to Europe for Charlie, and we look back and laugh about many of the memories we made. I also developed a deep gratitude that my parents had fostered a sense of adventure in me and created a lot of travel opportunities for me as a kid/young adult. Those experiences allowed me to easily “roll with the punches” as we navigated the challenges of travel together. We may remember our honeymoon more fondly than we experienced it, (there’s nothing romantic about my massively swollen ankles and GI issues), but we sure started our time as husband and wife vulnerably!
As our family began to grow in 2010, our conversations about values we wanted to foster in our kids became more intentional. Combining our church’s culture of “vision” trips to see God’s work in the world and allow ourselves to be changed by the beauty of His people (different than short-term mission trip which focuses on “doing”) with our own desire to focus on creating experiences as a family, we set a goal for one international vision trip per year. Our first trip after kids was to Toronto with Common Ground Christian Church (baby steps and logistics like leaving behind a nursing baby, haha) which shifted our trajectory toward another big experience for us in committing to Kingdom Living Training School….but that’s a story for a different day. We followed that trip with a trip for Charlie to Uganda, and myself to Cambodia, and finally were able to include the kids when we started our annual home-building family trip to Mexico in 2019. We’ve been fortunate to also include several international vacations for Charlie and I in the mix (thank you, Threefold!).
With a bit of travel practice under our belt—notably, annual road trips to my parents TN lakehouse several times each summer since 2010, conquering Disney with a 6 week, 3 and 4 year old, and successfully enduring a flight to Hawaii with a 1 year old, a toddler, and a pre-schooler,—we began re-visiting the idea of the previously mentioned “live outside the country for a year” challenge. We are so grateful for the flexibility of Charlie’s job, and the gracious support of his business partner which made is possible to continue pursuing the idea. The next step was to consider the best year to take this adventure, taking into account the ages of our children. With advice from our educator friends as well as parents further along on the journey than us, we settled on the 22-23 school year. This aligned with Sabrina’s transition to middle school (and not so old that she has her own commitment calendar or social instinct to spend as much time away from her parents as possible), Tre’s 5th grade year, and Crosby entering 2nd grade (and completion of the 1st grade curriculum focus).
Our original intentions were to leave in early June 2022 and return in June of 2023. Inspired by the 1st grade curriculum at our school, The Oaks Academy which spends the year covering the people, culture, landmarks, and animals of the 7 Continents, I pushed for our trip’s theme to also be “7 Continents” (which Charlie quickly responded “we’re not really going to Antarctica, right?). With a bit of persistence and validation from a few friends, we landed on a goal to hit all 7 continents. Although a year isn’t nearly enough time to see the world, Tre’s desire to experience the joys of being a 5th grader caused us to seriously consider his request to come back in time for him to complete his final year of elementary school in person. Ultimately, we found it best to honor our kids desires as well as our own hopes to participate in some family events before departure and altered our trip duration to 7 months: July 1-mid January.
As 2022 has rolled around, it's felt surreal that we are finally here. COVID-19 threatened to alter our intentions, and if you asked me in 2020 if this trip would still happen, I would’ve shared my doubt based on the pandemic. But here we are planning a trip RTW (round the world), and it appears all systems are go!
