This was written at my seat in an America Airlines jet somewhere over the Irish sea, heading west back to North Carolina on our way home from Poland by way of London. It was January 3, 2025. Rebekah and I had just completed three weeks living in a tiny apartment just off the Vistula River in Old Town Krakow, a short quarter mile from Andrew, Alicia and Mr. T.’s home for our first Christmas overseas….

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From another perspective I have been “overseas” my entire adult life. As a child, family travel was limited to the United Kingdom, where we enjoyed lots of holidays in England, Scotland and Wales. As a teen my parents took me to Switzerland – twice – then we made one trip to Norway when I was sixteen.

Everything changed after 1975’s epic three-month odyssey through Europe, the Middle East and behind the Iron Curtain. Later that year I boarded a DC-10 to America for what was supposed to be a two-week visit for my brother’s Florida wedding. Instead, I stayed and became a Citizen of the World in earnest.

It is not so much that I lost my mooring in one country as I put my anchor down in deeper waters. I believe, if I had to be philosophical or spiritual about this, that my commitment to follow Jesus as someone who believes that God both created and cares about this world compels me to a more global outlook. Everyone has to be born somewhere, but our singularity as European, North American, South American, African, Middle-Eastern, Asian etc – or more likely some combination thereof – is absolutely subordinate to our identity as children of God, members of the human race fashioned in the image of the Creator.

This outlook likely facilitated our son Andrew’s deep fascination with the world and atlases and airplanes and destinations, starting well before he ever went to school. It is no accident that he met Alicia in Italy while she was working in Kiev, and that after their 2013 wedding in Michigan they lived in Vicenza Italy, Tashkent Uzbekistan, Dresden Germany, Manama Bahrain, and now Krakow Poland. Always looking up and out, always wanting to learn and understand and experience more.

Rebekah and I try to live with hands open rather than fists clenched tight, open-spirited, openhearted and open to learning; travel keeps us honest in that regard, so we try to curate experiences where we see the world through the eyes of other people rather than making everything “all about me” via the inward focus of our own comfort zone.

I say “try” because sometimes try is as far as we get. We’re brave, but not always fearless enough or adventurous enough to throw ourselves much more than waist-deep into the wide wild world. But I will give us credit for effort!

Then there is the practicality of making life work and the limitations that come as the decades fly past and we slow down. Vacations involve itineraries and planes to catch and there is work to return to as well as the countless details that tend to get in the way of real cultural immersion. And so, admittedly, some of our travel has involved little more that being spectators around the world; nonetheless, we do make the effort, and we at least travel with eyes wide open.

We have, over the years, taken to referring to our travel as “adventure.” When we return home and I put together the latest photo-album describing the current season’s big trip I title the book “Great Adventures with Rebekah and Derek,”  Or “Epic Journeys” along with the year and the destination. You can find scores of these on our living room bookshelves, from Appalachia to Niagara Falls to Alaska to the Great Pyramids to the Holy Lands to Italy or Scotland and more.

Granted, some expeditions (like climbing Mount Sinai before dawn) can be more adventurous than others (like flying Business Class to England). A Caribbean Cruise is all about rest, comfort and convenience, but then we make sure to add a hike and zip-line in the Costa Rican rain forest or take a bus far away from some touristy port in Mexico to where we can climb over and to learn about the Mayan ruins. And, always, we do our best to get off the beaten path, eat local, talk with real people and listen to their stories.

These past few weeks over Christmas and New Year’s in Krakow have reminded me – and not for the first time – that the gap between what I understand and what I still have to learn remains huge. There is no way that I can ever know enough about this wide, complex, amazing, intriguing, sometimes dark and always wonderful world to pretend any expertise. But I can learn enough to become more aware, more understanding, more respectful, more open to people who live and think and believe differently, more of an advocate for others than a defender of myself and my own sometimes narrow point of view.

I just finished reading the excellent book “Small Things Like These” (Claire Keegan) where the main character wonders to himself if there is any point in being alive – if life has any meaning at all – if we are not helping one another. It reminds me that in a similar fashion, when our own point of view, our own prejudice, our own prosperity, our own wants, our own need to be right is exclusive and comes at the expense of others then – when we are only helping ourselves – it follows that life has little meaning.

When we do not “travel” – and by travel I mean enter – into the thoughts and the beliefs and the priorities and the wants and the convictions and the emotions and the language and the culture and the world view of other people, then we are not doing anything other than helping ourselves; and only helping ourselves falls a long way short when it comes to the meaning and the point of it all.

Self first and often only, egocentricity, protectionism, nationalism, “I’ve got mine”ism, self-serving political policy and tribalism all stand in opposition to the most fundamental teachings of Jesus and the intention of God.

Don’t worry, it’s okay, I have not fallen into a naïve kumbaya mentality where we throw everything into a pot, we share equally and everything is all roses and beautiful. None of that, I just want to nudge us toward a Philippians Chapter Two orientation where we do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but rather, in humility, value others above ourselves, not looking to our own interests but each to the interests of the others (verses 3-4).

This is how I think sometimes when I travel, travel with my eyes open, when I see the world as it is, when I am prompted to see myself as I am, when I am challenged to remember that we are all sisters and brothers and that the point of life is not personal gain and certainly not power, but love and compassion and service to others.

I guess I feel more alive, and more connected to humanity, and less insular when Rebekah and I have adventures. And I don’t guess, I know, that the citizens and the residents of Poland – these complex, long-suffering, industrious, patient, resilient people – are every bit as precious in the sight of the Almighty as I am, and equally in need and deserving of God’s grace and care.

We cannot make this world right by coercion; but we can get a long way there through leadership. We can all be obedient to the simple calling that boils down to a straightforward mandate, to live the Good News message so clearly and so compellingly that others are encouraged to join us. The invitation of Jesus is not about control or dominance or personal gain or better doctrine or Bible-quoting acumen or proving ourselves right or condemning others to hell or anything other than the fundamental and compelling witness of goodness and grace and generosity.

This message is not complicated. That’s the beautify of it. Elegant, simple, pure, true. And, yes, sometimes I have to travel literally thousands of miles – I have to go all the way there and back again – to remember.