Living our lives

In the excellent movie Stranger than Fiction, the main character, one Harold Crick, lives his life on a watch. At no point in the movie does Harold attempt to live outside his watch or buck societal norms by refusing to board it's conveyer belt. Harold is content to ride the belt, doing the same thing every day, and never pauses to ask "is this really the life I want to live? "

The first time I watched this movie, my heart pounded. While I share very little in common with Harold, as I watched, I realized that I too boarded the same conveyer belt. . .and it scared the hell out of me. I have watched the movie 3-4 times since and each time the pounding returned, as if my heart was trying to tell me something.

It's funny how easy it is to ignore one's heart. For years mine pounded but I listened to conventional wisdom instead. In many ways, coventional wisdom is little more then "security salesmen hocking fear at the cost of our lives." I have written about this before so I will swiftly move on but it's worth noting again as it explains this.

2 months ago we got off. No more belt riding for the Closes. In an act of pure insanity we decided that we would puruse our dreams instead. As long as we can remember we've wanted to travel the world, experiencing other culture's worldviews and beauty. Like most people, our dream was constructed in a pipe, and like most, we never inhaled. Let me tell you, that first drag was amazing. We were dizzy for days. "We're gonna travel the world?!??!?!?!?" I remember wondering "are we even allowed?" Indeed. Conventional wisdom had done its work.

Since then, we've had our heads buried in travel books, maps and monitors. Apparently the world's a big place. A full year's devotion to its exploration only allows the speediest of travelers a brief peek. It's been a mixture of pain and exhilaration saying yes to some destinations and no to others. Just recently we decided the $1500 wasn't worth it to see Paris for 3 days, especially when, for the same money, we could live in Laos for a month. Pain and exhilaration. We've also ruled out South America, Eastern Europe, Africa minus Egypt, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand to name a few.

That being said, we have said yes to some including England, France, Spain, Italy and Austria this Fall and Egypt, China, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Borneo and Myanmar in 2009. Yes, the same Myanmar in the news right now.

We will spend about 40% of our time volunteering, helping people on their organic farms in Europe and teaching English in Asia. We will school our kids on the road giving them an education that will hopefully change them, and us, for life.

We have 4 months so a lot more planning is still to come but that's the big picture anyways.
We fly out September 20. At this point, we don't have a targeted date for return. One of the things we wish to do is open ourselves up to God and see what he shows us. Perhaps we'll come across a need and wish to stay longer or more permanent. Perhaps not. Either way, we expect this year to change our lives, at the very least forever eliminate life on a conveyer belt.

We'd LOVE for you to join us along our journey, even for a week. Truly, we already have people who are planning on doing just that and we'd love to add your names to the list. Let's experience Planet Earth together!

John and Ang