Now that our trip has begun, I’d like to share a little about what got us here.  It all started with friends of ours musing about doing a trip like this.  But we really didn’t realize it was in our future until I happened to be looking at Google maps one day and thought, “Will I ever get to places like Mississippi??” And then I thought, “Why not?”  Karl’s work in the greenhouse had slowed down considerably which basically means there is a lot less to manage these days and even less to grow. So basically, the economy was the first thing in our favour – sort of.  As Karl and I talked about it together, I realized that this is really a dream trip for him.  Open road, nice wheels, his family around him, no schedules or deadlines besides those which we create ourselves.  He’s also really looking forward to sharing the experience of what and who our country is with his children.  We talked about our goals for this trip over dinner and the biggest one for him was “FUN!”.  Which is a great way to spend 3 months.

Of course, the fact that Pete, “the boss” has done this type of trip himself with his family and “gets it” helped smooth the way for us taking off from work for 3 months.  Getting positive encouragement from basically everyone else in our lives was a little shocking, but very welcome.  And all the obstacles almost effortlessly moving out of our way, was like a dream.  I can’t express enough how obviously God was in control from Day 1 and how excited we are to find out what he has in store for us.  I have a feeling its not just fun.

It is a little hard to leave everyone behind for so long, especially because life goes on without us.  But we’ve been promised to be kept up to date on happenings at home and we have equally promised to keep everyone in our prayers.  That’s actually one of our goals as well, to become better at meeting with God as a family.  Life gets in the way too much.