I grew up mostly in rural Wisconsin with brief forays into Iowa and Indiana. When I went to college I selected a school in the Chicago area. It was quite an adjustment for a small town/country boy. Two things from my small town experience have stuck with me all these years. The first was meeting Cecil Buckby. Cecil was a neighbor whose farm was across the street from one of the homes where we lived outside Marion, WI. Cecil was about 80 years old when I met him in the mid-1970's and he had never traveled out of the county. That's not a typo. I didn't miss an 'r' in the word. Cecil had never been out of the county limits in his life. He lived in the farmhouse he'd been born in and was perfectly content to end his days right there.
The second experience happened a few years later after I'd moved to Chicago for school. I took a semester off and found a job at a factory in Richland Center, WI where my family had relocated. Every other weekend or so I would jump in the car and drive the three hours back to Chicago to hang out with friends and stay in touch with college life. One Friday after work a few of my factory buddies...all local boys...were kicking around what to do for the weekend. I suggested we all drive to Chicago. Right then. They were shocked at the suggestion. Why, Chicago was so far away, so foreign, how could anyone just jump in a car and drive to Chicago? Ultimately I convinced them that a three hour drive wasn't so daunting and three of them agreed. Thirty plus years later some of them may still be talking about 'that time we drove to Chicago!'
All these years later this small town country boy who went off to the big city for school has now visited 17 countries and nearly every state in the union. My son studied in Germany, my daughter in Austria and she now lives and works in Cairo, Egypt. Last fall when I stopped by Cairo on my way home from Kenya my daughter and I mused about how small the world really is and how our perspectives have changed as we've become international citizens.
Much like my shock at my Wisconsin friends who thought Chicago was an unthinkable trip and Cecil Buckby's 80 years inside a single county, I'm amazed at folks who consider a trip to another country an impossible dream. When I invite people to join me on a mission trip to Kenya in August some of them look at me like I've just grown a second head. Africa!! It's so very far away and such an effort to get there. Let me assure you, just as I did my friends all those years ago, that it's not as big a deal as you might think. Get a passport, come up with some money (your own or raise some support), get on a plane and in less than 24 hours you'll be in Kenya with me changing the lives of orphaned and blind children. Once you've done it you'll see it's not that daunting and certainly not impossible. A lady on our trip last year goes a couple times a year. You may not ever get to the point where you fly to Africa for a quick two day visit like I once did, but I guarantee that just one 10 day trip and you're perspective on the world and your place in it will be radically altered.
You CAN go to Africa. Go here and register today. The first step will only cost you $200. I'll see you in Nairobi on August 27th. Check my earlier blog posts for all the trip details and the scoop on where we'll be serving. Go ahead and commit today before you talk yourself out of it!
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