Hello! We are Matt, Julia, Marika, and Annika. We have taken a year out of our very fulfilling, but very busy lives to do something different – travel the world. This idea was sparked by a Reader’s Digest article in the early 2000s about a Canadian couple who sailed around the world with their children. While the sailing part did not appeal, the rest of the idea did, and Julia held on to it ever since. It took some convincing, but eventually, Matt came on board with the idea.
After 15 years, that thinking and dreaming nearly became a reality in 2020. While a few close friends and family knew of our dream for years, it was about 2017 that word started getting out, the girls started talking about it with others, and we needed to time limit some of our volunteer commitments. Even just having other people know about and ask about it started to make it seem more real and in some strange way, held us accountable to that dream.
We were scheduled to leave on April 30, 2020, and Julia had just finished her last day of work in March, when the world literally shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is us on that very sad day.
Although that was incredibly disappointing, we were also very thankful that it happened six weeks before we left, and not six weeks after. We’ve weathered the pandemic at home.
Now, in 2022, we are going to make another attempt. COVID certainly adds another element of complexity and risk to the adventure, and we are also much more aware of how lightly we need to hold our plans. This past year has been incredibly busy as we juggled everyday life and getting ready for/planning this trip. We have not done as much learning about the places that we will go to in advance as we had hoped, but we will certainly be learning along the way, as we homeschool the girls throughout and intentionally make this a “year of wonder”.
We chose “our year of wonder” for our blog, as that is truly what we hope this is:
- that God would open up our eyes in wonder at His incredible creation as we move through magnificent, enormous scenery and study the intricacies of the details
- time to wonder at our own place in the world and how we can best serve and use our gifts to help others
- wonder at God’s grace in our daily lives
- wonder at the many different cultures, languages and people we meet along the way
- wonder at this gift of family and love we’ve been given
- wonder, time and space to rest wholly in God’s love for us
For those who care to follow along, we hope to share our wonder with you along the way. Thanks for joining us!