Explore Church in Missoula recently went on a mission trip to Brazil. For the next few days, we will be posting journal entries that were written by a member of their team.
Day 1
Seven hours of driving from Missoula, Montana, to Salt Lake City, to fly two hours to San Francisco, to fly to Panama City, with a 10-hour layover, then to Manaus, Brazil. Cheap flights are funny (and cheap). Only budget fliers understand these backwards directions. “Budget-fliers” is typically code word for “poor,” but in this case, I would rather get more bang for my buck, and more flights and trips in a year, for the same amount of money; quantity over quality.
Departing Missoula at the crack of dawn, we arrived in Dillon, MT, in time to stop at a dive bar for breakfast. It wasn’t our original intention, but the place we intended to stop at was closed and there aren’t many options in the one-and-a-half horse town that is Dillon. We were not disappointed with the enormous farmer’s breakfast that the Klondike Inn delivered. We stopped again in Pocatello, ID, for the only decent coffee within a hundred miles. Mormon country can be rough and decaffeinated. We made it to Salt Lake City with time to spare. The spare time is sometimes the best time. Time to explore and discover. I would always prefer to be early rather than late.
Antelope Island sits in the Great Salt Lake. (The great stink lake, if you ask me.) Antelope Island is the home of bison, antelope, bighorn sheep, and mule deer. It is an amazing place with sweeping vistas of the Great Salt Lake. We hiked the trails. I ran a ridgeline and bumped into a huge mule deer buck. He disappeared instantly into a field of tumbled boulders, like a ghost.
You have to enjoy what there is to enjoy in long, slow international travel. Every moment is a chance to be present, to experience the life we have been given; to see, to smell, to hear, and to appreciate. (Even if it is airport food.) Long, slow travel is analogous of life. We have the opportunity to choose to enjoy our every day. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is praiseworthy, think of these things.
Don’t let it pass you by. Even if you are a poor part-time missionary. Drive a whole day to save a dime. Sometimes my life seems so unbelievable, it doesn’t even seem real. Living your dreams can be like that.
Day 2
A sky afire with every imaginable shade of orange wakes us on the second day. The view over the wing of our aircraft is stunning, mesmerizing, breath taking.
The cares of this world choke out our purpose and the beauty of life.
In some ways going away is easy. Going is simple. Your mindset changes. You have purpose. You are a representative. Nothing else matters. Your focus is singular.
We don’t take the time, or make the time, in everyday life, when we have groceries to get, soccer practice to shuttle to, or work meetings to endure. Our lives are about our to-do list.
When you go, when you leave your routine for a higher purpose, you start to ask God, “What is it you want me to do?,” “What good works have you prepared for me in advance, to complete in this life?,” and you don’t know. Your spiritual ears are clogged, your spiritual eyes are hazy. Your hearing is hard. So, you sit and wait. You ask and seek and knock. There is nothing else to do but wait.
Long slow travel; so much sitting. It is endurance-sitting, ultra-sitting, and still more sitting.
About the Author
