Hobbit: You! Mr. Bilbo, where're you off to?

Bilbo Baggins: I'm already late.

Hobbit: Late for what?

Bilbo Baggins: I'm going on an adventure!

On Wednesday, my family of five leaves on a 4-month trip across Morocco and Europe.

We're very excited, a little nervous, and ready for the adventure to begin.

In one sense, this trip feels like a huge deal for us. In another sense, a trip of 4 months isn't very long or daunting and will be over before we know it.

After all, I know military families that have to move across the globe regularly. My 3 brothers-in-law have travelled to Japan, Guam, and beyond for work, often for extended periods of time. Just yesterday at church I was chatting with a friend who moved to Mexico for a year and a half.

Most of those trips were longer and more disruptive that ours will be. Many of the trips went by (for those of us who remained at home) remarkably quickly.

It's strange, I think, that something so 'big' for us, will realistically be so 'small' for almost everyone else.

And it isn't because friends and family won't care or miss us. I'm sure they will. I know we'll miss them.

It's that things are 'big' for us and 'small' for others because life, and all it's experiences, are so intensely personal. We can't possibly feel the same joy, sadness, excitement, hurt, burden, etc, that others feel.

This adventure, while it carries to potential to be powerfully transformative for us, will mostly result in "Wow, it's been 4 months already? It went by so quick!" for most others we know.

That realization, that we can create significant change (hopefully lifelong impact) for our family while hardly disturbing the status quo of everyone else's life in the meantime...well that's very exciting to me for three reasons:

1. I don't want to be afraid of what people think or say.
2. I don't want to 'remain the same' because it's convenient.
3. I don't want to let precious years with my kids slip by without intention.

Below, I'll share a bit about why each of these ideas are important to me and why they prompted this trip.

I don't want to be afraid of what people think or say.

Sometimes, I give the impression I'm 'above' the influence of others. I can tend to be pretty stubborn and confident, which only adds to that image. And yes, while I am a pretty independent, assertive person, I care deeply what others think.

I think this is a good thing, by and large, except when it turns into a version of 'let's not rock the boat' because of what others will think or say.

The truth is, most good things in life happen when you rock the boat.

We wanted to rock the boat.

The entire purpose of this trip is to shake things up, to break the mold. We want to live in different cultures with different people. We want the kids to learn to be outsiders. We want to introduce change and learn to adapt.

These things aren't easy to do when you're afraid of what other people think or say.

So Kirsten and I decided we'd commit to a trip like this without asking anyone for advice or opinion. I felt that if I'd started shopping the idea around to others, it would surely look different than it does.

Once we committed, we were open to all sorts of advice and feedback, but we'd committed and fear wasn't going to derail the plans, which was the important part.

I don't want to 'remain the same' because it's convenient.

Too often, we get stuck in ruts. Even good ones.

I've been running for a few years now. While I enjoy it and helps keep me in shape...it's almost too easy to slip into a predictable running pattern. So, what do you do?

You switch things up. You avoid letting things 'remain the same' and vary your running between recovery, speed runs, long runs, progression runs, etc...

As is life.

As our kids have gotten older and work has gotten busier and life fills to the brim with seemingly good and fruitful things, it encourages a 'remain the same' rhythm. And it's my firm belief that rhythm (and I do not mean habits) needs to be disrupted regularly...at least for our family.

A 4-month trip is anything but convenient. Add to that the fact that we're only taking 1 carry-on each, flying budget airlines as many places as we can, and generally not thinking of this trip as 'vacation' but as 'life' in another country...and it's actually really inconvenient in many ways.

But that's OK. It's intentional. More rocking of the proverbial boat so that we do not 'remain the same'.

I don't want to let precious years with my kids slip by without intention.

Perhaps more important than anything else is the growing realization I have that my time with my kids is limited.

My oldest son, Gideon, is 13 years old. He'll be 14 this summer. He's very independent and I fully expect him to want to move out at 18 and strike out on his own. He's just that kind of guy.

That means I have 5 more summers with him as a 'kid'. Only 4 or 5 more Christmases of him waking up in a bed in our home and wandering out, bleary-eyed, still being 'our little Gid'.

Let me be honest with you for a moment: I have tears in my eyes, right now, writing that out. It's not that much time...

And so intention it is.

What can I do to show him how big the world is? How small we are?
Will this trip bond us as we travel the world together?
Will this help ours kids realize the preciousness of siblings?
How can I create memories that will last a lifetime and allow us to laugh and cry about them years down the road?

These are the questions I'm asking. This trip will help answer a few of them.