It is hard to believe that we leave one week from today! It seems like we have been imagining this adventure for years and planning for months and now it is here! When we first began thinking about what our hopes and dreams were for this time away, the extraordinary gift of sabbatical, we discussed what values we wanted to uphold in our planning. We wanted our sabbatical time to be a time that would change us: to open our eyes and ears to new experiences and perspectives. With that, we wanted, as much as possible, to explore new places we hadn't been before. We also wanted to get to "live into" places and have time to linger, to get to experience people and cultures deeper than just seeing a few tourist sites. We wanted to explore different ways people experience the planet, faith, and community and make some connections we can bring back to our work in Fort Collins. And we also knew that part of this gift of sabbatical meant we needed to come back rested and restored.

The planning wasn't always smooth, but we always tried to remind ourselves of the values we laid out and to stay open to the unexpected. Our itinerary is set (at least until it gets disrupted...!) and we can honestly say that we are proud of how we planned around these values. The next entry has a very brief overview of our itinerary and some of the highlights and experiences we expect...though we know not to make too many assumptions!

I came across a quote from Anthony Bourdain in a book I was reading recently. This really spoke to me as my brain and heart are a chaotic storm of emotions right now as we are about to embark: “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

We have had a lot of conversation recently about how we are nervous and overwhelmed and also incredibly excited. While we know some things will not go as planned, we also hope for some wonderful experiences beyond what we could possibly imagine. We remind ourselves often that if we weren't feeling anxious a little, we wouldn't be doing it right. Those emotions remind us that we are living into our values and about to embark on a journey of a lifetime!

We invite you to join with us as we explore the world and its cultures and our own emotions, experiences and perspectives. We don't know how often we will be able to post here, but we hope to post some musings and of course pictures as often as we can!