Confessions Of a BackPacker - I'm Just Trying To Get In Your Pants

First of all, apologies to my dearest mother. Probably not the most appropriate title considering the season. But stay with me. Now that I have your attention...let me explain.

Second, to my new friends from The Lazy Falken, although I doubt any will read this, those of you who do accidentely find themselves reading these words, a few clarifications are needed. I hope as you read, things will make sense and come together for you. Curtis and I had a blast with you and I have to say, thus far on our trip, the Lazy Falken was one of our most favorite stops. We had a great time in our short two days there hanging out with you, eating, wandering aimlessly, trying to find the cheapest food possible without causing indigestion, sledding, drinking some beers, playing caps, and just being together. But now you are being invited into a whole other depth of our person....one you may not have picked up during our short time in Interlaken.....so hold on.....and enjoy the ride.


Third, to my new friends in Bern, Switzerland. (Insert, deep exhale here), how do I express in a short few sentences the gratitude and love I have for you. You taught me many things and blessed me in ways you don't even know about. I had no idea you could connect on such a deep level in such a short time. It blew me away.....we honestly love you very much and wish we could have spent more time with you. Although if I ate anymore chocolate or cheese, I would have turned into a human fondue myself. I am learning one secret - it doesn't matter where you go or what country you find yourself in, when you have Christ at the center of your life, relationships flow naturally and gel rapidly together. That is what he brings in and through us. Now, I am learning and living, that this is a reoccuring theme. Funny, before we left, Curtis had Switzerland on his heart, now we know why.


Lastly, to my most dear friends back in Canada. I truly miss you and cherish you, especially during this important season. I miss the beers in the Rambler room, watching hockey, drinking too much coffee, laps, beating B-rad and Mins in playstation, and making fun of Dick. I think about eating turkey with my family and just reconnecting with them. Skyping Mom and Dad, Brett and Amanda, Jeff and Natalie, Tristyn, Nate and Isabella was a most cherished blessing to me out here on the road. My thoughts and heart are with you always.

Finally, back to my provocative title. Although this trip is intended to learn, laugh and love with others - to meet and enjoy people - to grasp new cultures and build new relationships, it also has some substance behind it. We want to serve our creator king - Christ Jesus. Be faithful to him. Listen to him in the stillness of the day and find his direction as we travel along his world. We have found that every person we have met, has not been by some sort of fluke or chance, but rather part of a bigger plan. And that has been so cool for us. (Just ask me about the story of finding Marius in Bern). We do not have any sort of hidden agenda or plan, but rather, simply, want to leave the world a little bit better off than it was when we first arrived. We hope our friends and hosts have found that to be so.

OK, now finally, to my ridiculous title.....lol. I think Christians, maybe you have found this too, can all too often try to shove Christ down peoples' throats. All to often beat you over the head with the Bible. Make you believe what we believe. Act without love, without gentleness and without truth. The apostle Paul suggests that we can sound like a huge, loud, annoying gong. GONG GONG GONG GONG!! Just typing it makes me cringe. I think this can happen all to easily on trips abroad, like ours - especially missions. We want to get in and get out. Affect people instantly, get results, have success, and then leave. So we can look at our chart of results and feel good about ourselves. I've heard people say before that they can believe in Christ, they like what they see in him....but it is his followers that stems their unbelief. This saddens me....and forgive me if I ever have caused such feelings......because I know for many....this rings true.

And thus, forgive me father, we are "just trying to get in your pants." We don't want to get to know you. We don't want to spend time with you. We don't want to hear your stories. We don't want to hear about your scars. We don't want to hear about how Christians have burned you in the past. We don't want an explanation of why you don't believe and the substantial (it has to be for someone not to believe and thus live a whole life committed NOT to believe) evidence backing your unbelief. We just want to use you. We want to add a knotch to our belt. Add you to the list. Convert, convert, convert. Then we feel successful, then we feel rewarded, then we feel like we've "succeeded." We've accomplished our goal!! We have just got into your pants....and now its time to move on, leave you and find the next. It's terrible. Disgusting. Perverted. And wrong. I am sorry. Please forgive us. For we don't know what we do.

But I am learning that these things take time. The people in Rwanda, Interlaken and Bern are teaching me. God is stirring my heart. I find with our North American concept of success and progress we always want to be the harvester. Reap the benefits. Get the glory and the honor. But for me, on this trip, in Africa and Europe, I am finding we are doing the opposite - we are planting seeds. Here and there, everywhere we go, we are flinging seed everywhere, and hoping and praying that it finds fertile soil. To trust that God will take those seeds and cause them to grow. And that, my friends, takes time. Both to sow and of course to grow. It is not an instantaneous process. And the crappy part about it is, often you can't watch it grow, you can't see it, you can't gage the 'progress.' You must trust, as the Bible suggests, that while you are away or sleeping - GOD causes it to grow. And the real crappy part about it is that someone ELSE might harvest it and reap the benefits of YOUR effort. You may not even SEE it. It is beautiful.

What I learned at the Lazy Falken was this...I am still human and often suck at doing life and showing my true colors. That I love people....to meet them, to get to know them, to hear their stories, but also that relationships take time - to get into the grit and substance of their everyday life. So I hope we do stay connected- I want to hear those stories. They are important....for they are yours. You taught me much and I hope I taught you at least something. I know we met for a reason......we are now going to Hong Kong for goodness sake!!!!! What are the chances we happen to have a layover in Hong Kong and meet Chris and Thomas who live in Hong Kong....in Switzerland of all places. Pretty cool. We do not want to fly in and out of peoples lives on this trip, but rather, create relationships that last, that have substance. That seeds are planted that will grow and flourish. And that doesn't come with a one-time smack over the head with a Bible, but rather with steady and subtle love. Flying in and out of people lives without having enough time to listen and dig deeper is simple bogus. People are worth more than that. I hope we never do this and forgive us if we do.

Also, from my friends in Bern. You have affected me deeply. You've affected our trip deeply (we stayed for 1 week longer than we thought we would!!!!). You have just proved my point!!!! You have taught and blessed me so much!! Relationships take time. They take work. They take trust. Not to say we can't affect someone instantly or the Spirit can't do a miraculous work in an instant, he can and does, but most often this Christian life and walk takes time, effort. And to be honest, that way, relationships have more depth. Which is what I found in Bern. People have come into my life, accepted me, invited me into their lives and homes, and thus have challenged me, taught me and affected me deeply. All things I'm not so sure would have happened over the course of a couple of hours or a moment. Things like Cheese fondue, Rokalet, worship times, jogging together, Sunday brunch, deep convos, crazy train rides with weird old men, 287 different flavours of yogurt, youth group Spitzbuben night, good red wine, and sooooooo much more. Worth every second.


And so a trip like this almost sounds contradictory.....we don't have enough time to get to know people....to have such rich relationships. Yet I believe the relationships I've come to enjoy and soak in will continue on until the day I die. They are the same relatoinships I talked of before I left. They are seeds being planted. So my message or thought for today is for different groups I guess. The diverse group of people who do call themselves my friends and who do wander there way into these words. My fellow backpackers in Interlaken, my dear friends in Bern and to my fellow listeners back home. Unbelievers and believers. As much as this trip is about a purpose, or meaning, or even mission field if you will, it is more a learning ground, a blessing, a realization that our greatest influence and chance to better the world is with the people we rub shoulders with everyday. The people we take the chance and time to 'get to know.' The people we take the time to dive into.....to embrace.....not just to get into your....well you know the rest. Its our friends on the road, our family, our friends at home, our fellow workers......we need to love them and cherish them with all you got. Always sowing what we can, watering and weeding with the Lord as we go. You don't have to travel the world to do this. In fact, at home is where your true colors shine brightest. No matter where you are - you are there. Forever influencing. Forever living. In the end, you decide how you will leave the world.


So I hope during your time over the Christmas holidays you have time to reflect and celebrate. That you spread seeds like crazy and take the time to water and weed them. May your time, no matter where you are, is as rich and delicious as Swiss chocolate itself.

Red Light.....Green Light

Direction. That word could probably sum up my last couple of weeks. Africa, London, Durham, Amsterdam and now Paris. Yesterday Curtis and I were standing around Amsterdam looking at each other, when we blurted out, "Wanna go to Paris!" It was priceless and pretty well sums up our trip thus far. Either that or one of my favorite two word phrases - gong show. Brittany, if you are listening, we could sure use your organizational skills!!!! Flying by the seat of your pants is fun......but we give that term a whole new meaning. If you could see us last night wandering the streets of Paris at 2:30am looking for a hostel - you'd understand perfectly....lol. But seriously it has been priceless (well, except when considering the Euros I've dished out so far, its been very priceFULL), just flying by the seat of our pants, not having anywhere to be or go, or answer to, just sort of be.


I must admit I can't blog about each of our experiences, they are simply too many - Pints and Pinters in Durham, Evensong and morning prayer in the Cathedral of St. Cuthbert, smores with the Millers (sorry Meghan), sitting in on a John Barclay class on Paul and Augustine, an English breakfast in downtown London, riding a ferry from the UK to Amsterdam, the canals of Amsterdam, walking around the Red Light District, talking with prostitutes, cheering up the ladies in a cheese shop in Holland, and now figuring out how to order a pizza in France without having the slightest clue what the heck will be on it (yesterday I ordered a Mediterranean pizza expecting a veggie dish and it was covered in fish!!!, but alas it was delicious - gotta love the French). I could easily blog a whole entry about any one of these experiences - I've cherished each one.


Yet I promised I would discuss one thing - direction. I find it fitting considering my circumstances. I've had a hard time transitioning back to "reality" here in the "real world." The hustle and bustle is hard to get used to after the red dirt of Africa. It's just so different I guess. It's been hard to know, on our tour, how to serve, how to love, how to follow Christ intimately in such a busy world - one that seems to ignore Him altogether. I must say, it was easier being a Christian - or at least feeling like one - in Africa. Here, in the progressive, modern world, I've found it much harder. Much more difficult to find my "direction."


Curtis and I often pray, talk about and research where we should go next. We call people, look for open doors and try to look for another when one is shut. And to be honest, its been hard. Often times we have been discouraged. We've seen a few contacts slip through the cracks recently and have felt like we weren't "doing" enough or "serving" enough and can feel insufficient. We have been lost, with no direction.


At the same time, as I'm trying to figure out my own life and calling. Whether it be farming, teaching, pastoring or writing, getting more education or just settling down, I again find myself lost. Maybe its my indecisiveness, lol, I didn't need to go on a trip like this to know that about myself. Let me tell you with Curtis along, it only gets worse!!!! Insert Brittany here again. But I sort of came to a subtle realization the other day as I was writing in my journal. Often, I think, we've been so concerned with trying to serve God, help people that we've sort of missed the point. We've been spinning around upside-down, not knowing where or who or what to do next. In the midst of looking for all of this life-giving opportunities, we have missed life itself. Just enjoying life and the beauty God has made us to be. Instead of being confident in who God made us to be and trusting that Christ IS and ALWAYS working through us - we try to do it all on our own. It's tiring and often depressing when we don't live up to our own "standards of success." I think it can be very similiar in our own personal lives.


Now, I'm realizing, that God is with us no matter where we go. His presence always exudes from us, because that is his temple, inside us - HE is the hope of glory - not us. His light shines through our cracks no matter what continent we are on. And it will always look different with different people, diferent cultures and different history. Now instead of dreading our next chapter of our trip and trying not to "plan" to much, we are excited and expectant to enjoy life and trust that God will be there when we get there, wherever that might be.


I think subconsciously we've compared our trip to that of Dan, Kenton and Jordans and even my month in Africa. They had an awesome trip and I've always told them how much that inspired me and how I look up to them. But, Curtis and I are learning that we are built different than those boys. We're in a different culture than Africa. We are built different, live different and will love and serve different. It's been hard, but when I realized this, I had a peace about it. All that matters is that we are willing, that we keep Christ at the center, and then the people/opportunites/connections will come. I wrote in my journal - we need to be less like Martha and more like Mary (I hope I got that right.) And so we're planning the rest out today with some - new direction. So we are going to enjoy Europe, take in the sights, enjoy life and at the same time pray, seek and ask that God would push us and steer us into people and towns as we stumble along.


Maybe you feel lost in life. Confused. Not sure how to live. Maybe you can relate - you feel like you're not doing enough. Your a failure as a Christian. I think we need to stop worrying so much about the hows, wheres, whens, and whats and just be. Keep Christ close to your hearts, subtlely follow Him, be willing, pray and seek - and the rest he'll faithfully fill in. I look at my life 10 years ago and when I realize that - I can vividly see - he is walking with me, he is pushing and guiding me along - even if I don't see it day by day. Know, that He is with you, always. When you put your trust and faith in Him, there is no where you can go where you can get lost. Stop worrying about trying to be in God's will and messing that up, but rather enjoy life, every second as it comes to you and realize no matter what you do, if you are seeking and holding Christ at the center, he will be with you and bless you. So make your "plans" as we are, and watch and find indeed, he will "direct" your path. Can't wait to see what's next.