The joy in the journey

The Journey.

When I was at Shepherd’s Fold Ranch, we had a team building exercise called “The Journey.” It was like combining a low ropes course experience with a hike. We’d hike through the woods and creeks coming upon various challenges and elements designed to stress the group in different ways, helping them focus their efforts to work together as a team…hopefully learning lasting lessons for life.

The Journey.

The word seems to carry more weight and meaning than the “trip.” A journey conjures images of great distances over wide open spaces, big challenges and uncertain outcomes. A trip is mostly about getting from Point A to Point B…with the real emphasis on Point B. In other words, a trip is much more about the destination. Whereas a journey focuses on all the things that happen between Point A and Point B.

In 1803, right after the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson wanted to lay claim to what he’d just bought. His charge to Captain Meriwether Lewis and the Corps of Discovery was to find a practical route across the new purchase; the western half of the continent. Along the way, they were to map and explore the land and study the plants and animals and the geography and establish trade with the indigenous peoples.

Of course I don’t know for sure but I’d like to imagine that at the end of it all, when they’d made it all the way back to St. Louis in September of 1806, that the men would all agree that it was the stuff “along the way” that held the real value of their journey. It wasn’t so much about finding the Pacific Ocean as it was about finding themselves and the richness of their awesome discoveries along the way.

Lainey and I find ourselves on the brink of just such a journey. An adventure full of “along the way” experiences and lessons with an uncertain outcome.

After three years in New York we are storing our things and taking the open road with no final destination in mind. I’m going to be writing and consulting with camps, conference centers, churches and other non-profits along the way; oftentimes bartering room and board for services rendered.

But before we can navigate the open road we’re navigating all the details that must come together “pre-launch.” We’re selling the things “that so easily entangle;” allowing us to travel lean and mean. We’re storing everything else.

We’re up for this journey! We’re looking forward to the lessons we’ll learn. We look at this as an enormous opportunity and we want to seize it with everything we have.

I’ll be using this platform to update our status from time to time; the good, the bad and the ugly. Thank you for your continued prayers. And if you know an organization or ministry that could use some help send them here.