Adventures with Trolls

Sam: This is it. Frodo: This is what? Sam: If I take one more step, it'll be the farthest away from home I've ever been.

When God made the human brain, I don’t think he programmed it to be able to comprehend that in 24 hours it could end up more than 8000 miles away from where it started. Not to mention that in said faraway location there might be only one familiar person in about a 5000 mile radius. Or that 16 hours of time might have disappeared without a trace. In reality, the magic of modern technology remains unfathomable to humans who spent most of their history only able to travel a few miles an hour on foot or beast.

This simple lack of ability to comprehend may be why my mind has yet to register what is about to happen to me. It’s a very odd feeling, leaving home and saying goodbye to family members when, despite head knowledge that says I won’t see them for 5 months, it feels like I couldn’t possibly be going so far away, for so long. I guess it probably won’t sink in until I actually get off the plane in Auckland and see some beautiful New Zealand countryside on the way to Tauranga. Then perhaps I’ll finally realize what an adventure I have gotten myself into, or perhaps what an adventure God has gotten me into. It’s crazy - we’ve be preparing for this trip for months, but nothing can really prepare you for something like this when you’ve never done it before.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that we won’t grasp the real adventure until something really crazy happens that stretches us and forces us to be fully dependent on God. Kind of like the way that Bilbo began to believe that adventures are mainly horseback rides through the countryside until the weather went south and he and the dwarves ended up captured by trolls…

There I was, at the mercy of three monstrous trolls! And they were all arguing amongst themselves about how they were going to cook us, whether it be turned on a spit or whether they should sit on us one by one and squash us into jelly. They spent so much time arguing the wither-tos and why-fors, that the sun’s first light cracked over the top of the trees - poof!  And turned them all to stone!

There are just so many new things to encounter on this trip. Just figuring out how to pack for 5 months in nearly every possible climate was a completely novel experience. But then, I have been telling people that these new experiences are one of the reasons why I’m going on this trip, and certainly, most of the newness is exciting! A new personal record for longest flight, at least 2 new countries, new cultures, all kinds of new people… it’s way exciting, but also more than a little overwhelming.

I like clouds

But enough of my musings. Here’s what we’re actually doing. As I write this, we are sitting in the Los Angeles airport on a nice long layover, waiting for our 14 and a half hour flight to Sydney. So far, we have already flown from Asheville to Charlotte in an hour or so and across the country to LA in five more hours. We only had a short layover in Charlotte, but fortunately we weren’t rushed, and the flight to LA was uneventful, except for a little turbulence, which doesn’t bother me. I had my first experience reading on a Kindle – a quite pleasant one, as I sat there reading the first three chapters of The Hobbit and Seth sat next to me reading the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring. Good times.

The view flying into LA

So as I mentioned, we are getting ready to make the long flight to Sydney, Australia, where we will arrive at 7:40AM on Saturday because of the time difference and the international dateline. Then, because we won’t be disoriented and confused enough yet, we will take a 2 and half hour flight to Auckland, NZ, arriving at 2:30pm. Then…we’ll hop on a bus (3 different buses, in fact) for several more hours before we are hopefully deposited safely in Tauranga and picked up by our wonderful Marine Reach staff at 9:00pm Saturday (5am Saturday for you guys – about 36 hours of total travel).

So here we go! Seth and I can’t thank you enough for all the prayers that you’ve already sent our way, and are still sending up for us. The support we’ve gotten from so many different people has been truly overwhelming – we are SO blessed. We know that God has been with us every step of the way, and He’s not going to stop walking with us!

Talk to you soon,

Dan