Traveling Man

Traveling always brings to mind certain things, doesn’t it? When you travel you are either going to some type of work or away from it. Traveling means finding adventure or going back to a safety and stability that you can only find at home. At a certain age travel means desperately never needing a bathroom (if you catch my drift) or having bathrooms becoming the desperate focus of your entire being!

Our ministry has required me to travel a great deal over the years. It is one of the things that I do without too many questions. Many missionaries remain with the same tribal group for years without leaving. I haven’t unpacked my traveling shave kit since it was given to me over ten years ago. With one hundred and fifty missionaries serving with International Teams in Latin America there is always a trip I am about to make and a few that I should have made, but simply didn’t have the time or budget.

St. Augustine said, “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” As for me, I have found great joy and occasional boredom in reading many pages of that book over the years.

A good question for some of you might be, “What does Woody do on these trips?” (I know that Susan occasionally asks the same thing!) My trip last week to Quito might provide a quick answer.

During my six-day visit to Ecuador I did the following:

• Met with twenty eight individual missionaries, missionary families and/or work teams.
• Drank twenty cups of coffee in meetings or meals with those folks. I still needed Brad Miller to bring me a cup every morning when I was having my devotions. (Thanks for that act of love, Brad!) I am afraid the reading of the Word of God in the morning and coffee have become inextricably linked in my mind. Every man will have some type of legalism in his soul. I believe I have chosen mine well.
• Led a devotional time with two groups.
• Visited three churches. I found out I was preaching in the final one only when the pastor introduced me as the speaker for the morning. Note to self: NEVER travel without a sermon in my back pocket.
• Discussed romance and marriage (and how they combine with a missionary career) with four starry-eyed singles.
• Spoke with several Ecuadorians to talk about investing their lives in missions.
• Watched part of one missionary kid soccer game and one MK volley ball game.

In total, excluding travel time, I worked eighty-six hours in six days. (Please don’t write the email to Susan about me needing to slow down. She has read that letter several times, absorbed it and made her best attempt. She has concluded that she cannot be successful in all areas of life.)

John Ed Pearce said, “Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.” I resemble that comment. It doesn’t matter if it has rained steadily for the past four days (it has) or the in-box is overflowing (it is). It is still home. The coffee is smoother, anxiety about bathroom facilities is dissipated and the pillow “just right.”