Sailing Faith: The Long Way Home

We find, while preparing for our voyage in Hampton, Virginia, a number of folks planning voyages of their own and a few who have actually left the dock. The planners are dreamers, conjuring obstacles to maintain the dream. As soon as the boat is all ready; boats are boats, and will never be all ready. As soon as they have accumulated enough money; there will never be enough. As soon as the kids are older, or the kids have moved out, or …

I recall a man I worked with years earlier who refused a sizeable Christmas bonus. “I always wanted a Cadillac,” he said, “but as soon as I get my Cadillac, the dream is gone. I just think the car can’t be as good as the dream.”

People know when they leave the dock, the dream is gone.

My marketing plan for my book is to speak to as many groups and individuals as possible about our family’s journey. My wife and I have been busy scheduling as many groups as we can to present our story to. Last week, we scheduled upcoming talks at seven different Rotary International Chapters in Michigan.
This [...]

This becomes a recurring theme: places are special because of the people there. We’re meeting many people in different places, but are yet to find one of the places where they don’t value human life like we do.

Many people around us hold keys to valuable insights, and the only path to those keys is to minimize my arrogance and hope they can overcome their fear of condescending.

Another American curiosity was brought to our attention from people in every place we visited where it became a topic of discussion. “The Constitution of the United States of America is the greatest document ever written,”

Memories of Indonesia:
As Americans, we live in invisible test tubes of about an arm’s length called our space and we feel uncomfortable when someone violates it. In Indonesia, and in all of the non-western cultures that we visit, personal space does not exist, and we learn not to miss such space.
We use, wherever possible, local [...]