"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to…”

Hello everyone,

As many of you already know, I will be circumnavigating the globe this fall semester through a program called “Semester at Sea”. This study abroad program allows us to take classes while at sea and give us free time to explore and go on trips while at port. I will board the MV Explorer (a converted cruise liner) next Thursday (Aug 26^th) in Montreal, Canada. We will the sail to Casablanca (Morocco), Tema (Ghana), Cape Town (South Africa), Port Louis (Mauritius), Chennai (India), Penang (Malaysia), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Hong Kong & Shanghai (China), Kobe & Yokohama (Japan), Hilo (Hawaii), Puntarenas (Costa Rica), Havana (Cuba), and finish in Fort Lauderdale (Florida). I will be taking four classes: Cross-Cultural Psychology, Sacred Places (Architecture class), Popular Music around the world, and Global Studies (everyone takes this so they can learn about each country we visit).

            For me, the adventure began this past Sunday. All throughout the summer we have been planning and preparing for my trip  - you would not believe the obscure things you buy and the innumerable pills I have – and I had a lot of anxiety Sunday as everything began to converge and things got rolling. There are many firsts that I will encounter over the course of this trip and the looming menace of the unknown certainly intimidates me. I’ve never been on a ship, never been in a completely new place without knowing someone else, never had a legit job (one that I actually got paid for, even though this work study is actually going to my tuition), never been without daily communication with my family, never been in a foreign country or somewhere English is not the main language, etc. Needless to say, it’s a shot in the dark. Fortunately, I’m not alone because I go forth with Jesus. In fact, our service Sunday was reassuring, even though it was completely unplanned. Our preacher wasn’t feeling well so our Assistant Minister gave the sermon for the next week and the special music that my brother, friend and I performed was not what I had been expecting and had actually never heard it until the day prior. The song we performed was called “Never Alone” which was certainly comforting to know that God will be with me each step of the way, but He also gave me a gentle reminder that He has some purpose for me on this trip (not just fun) as the sermon was on “What the Bible says about Evangelism”.

I am not sure what the Lord has planned for me on this trip, but I am sure that it will be better than I could imagine. Sunday evening, we flew out from Norfolk (my first commercial flight). I had been imagining a smooth flight to New Hampshire, sitting with my mom and brother. Instead, we had to rush to the plane because it was boarding early to sit down split up and find out that it had been delayed an hour and a half. So once we finally ascended into the air, we hit quite a bit of turbulence (although the lightning looked really cool in the sky) and was delayed another half hour in Baltimore due to the storm. Despite the rocky flight, we eventually got to sit together and didn’t lose any luggage so overall it wasn’t so bad of an experience. I think this trip might be kind of like that flight – a bit rocky, but everything will turn out alright because I’ve got the best pilot steering the plane. Which is why this post is a “Lord of the Rings” quote – because I hope it will be an epic journey filled with many adventures. So I will post whenever I am in port to tell you all about each place I visit and anything interesting that happens at sea. I will also be trying to reference/quote as many movies as I can to make it more fun and entertaining. So this blog will be a smorgasbord of my visits to God’s handiwork around the world J

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9