Perspective

     When you travel, you see a lot of things, learn a lot of things, and meet a lot of people.
This week we’re in Granada for debrief. It’s the biggest city for tourism in Nicaragua, so there’s tons of things to do and people from all over the world. It has been kind of weird just relaxing and rejuvenating, but it’s also been super good.
     Today we went on a boat tour around a bunch of little islands on the lake just outside the city. On our way there, it was just our group and the tour guide when we picked up a man, and once we got onto the boat, I was sitting next to him.
His name is Walter, and he’s from Italy. He’s been to almost every country in the world, quite a few of them several times.
For a while I just sat there asking him questions, intrigued by his answers and stories.
     “Have you been to Ukraine?”
     “Yes, six times.”
     “SIX?”
     “I have friends,” he explained, and I thought that in order to travel like he does, one must need a lot of friends in other places.
     “What about the Middle East?”
     “Yes, I just got back from Oman!” (He took his passport out of his pocket and showed me a stamp from 6 February 2014.)
     “Have you been to Ecuador?”
     “Yes, I went to Quito and the Galapagos. The animals are not afraid and they come up to you! The sea lions lay right next to you on the beach!”
     I was enthralled. This man, who was relatively young(I know that because I asked him if it would be impolite of me to ask how old he was :D) had been all over the world, to places I could never even imagine.
He told the most lovely stories of all the different places. He talked of the beauty of the cities, smiled as he talked about the animals, and simply explained how he would drive around all these places. He traveled for pleasure and with interest, to see people and things, to explore the world. It was inspiring and refreshing to talk to him and see his perspective.
We talked about how sad it is the negative effects money has on people, that cause greed and selfishness. How there is so much hurt and sadness in the world. How it’s so sad that people hurry and work through life, choosing to live lives of monotony, not even knowing that there’s so much more. How the people of the world could be so much more united.
     Walter is wise in the simple way he speaks of the things he’s seen. He does not boast, and make himself seem super cool because he’s been all over the world. He delights in sharing things with you, spinning webs of stories that are far more than normal tourists’ accounts of places they’ve been. He spoke about how beautiful nature is, and how people should not destroy the beautiful things on earth for the purpose of making money. It is so selfish, these things that happen.
     The LORD has created this big, beautiful world, booming with color and nature, exuding with cultures and different ways of life, peppered with a variety of people with all kinds of personalities. All of the proclaims His name and His very nature.
     What great love He has lavished on us, that we would be called His children, the children of the One who created the Earth and everything in it! That He would love us so much to send His Son to this beautiful and broken world, to die for us, and gives us the choice to accept His love and live in the way He had designed for us at the beginning. That we could walk with Him so much more closely, and explore this deeply layered relationship with Him like Walter explores the world.
What a wonderful gift He has given us, that we could all live on this earth as people, as brothers and sisters. We’re all in the same boat! But most of the time we don’t think about our brothers in Africa who are dying of starvation and AIDS, and our brothers in Nicaragua who got the kidney disease from the pesticides in the sugar cane fields, and are slowly dying as well.
      If we are able, we should always be seeing, exploring, and learning, so that we have our own stories to tell, for the ones who aren’t able to tell. And we should travel not just for ourselves, but spreading His name and His love. Because without Him, everything we do is nothing.