10 Things we learned from a 6-month road-trip

As you can imagine, planning and executing a 6-month road trip for a family of 6 can be quite a chore, it’s almost like…work. It may sound like all fun and games, which it was sometimes, but it was also a super strategic part of our plan to get to Chile as quickly as possible. God taught us many things, but here are the top 10.

1. Gas isn’t cheap: Before we started I tried to estimate how many miles we would drive and how much I could expect to pay for gas per gallon. I was pretty close on my per-gallon estimate, but sorely under estimated the number of miles we would cover. The RV drove about 7,000 (which we expected) but we drove the van an additional 14,000 (I was only planning on another 7,000).

2. We have friends in every life-stage imaginable, and some imaginable: I knew many friends’ situations already, but others caught us off guard. We have friends in pre-marriage, post-marriage, re-marriage, others who are buying a home and some that are losing a home. I hope we were an encouragement to those that needed it.

3. There are Dollar Tree stores everywhere! See, I told you.

4. RVs need to be more accessible for itinerant missionary families: For us, an RV helped us squeeze 2-3 years of fund-raising into 6 months. This needs to become a more standard way to go about support raising, but it is expensive. If our donor had not caught the vision we had for it, it may have never have happened.

5. It’s amazing how many businesses and restaurants still ONLY take cash.

6. It takes money to raise money: Not just gas, but meals, appointments, new tires, insurance, life, etc. It was a lot, but not as much as 2-3 years of this would have cost. God provided every step of the way and our account was never even close to ‘in-the-red’.

7. Home-schooling is difficult: We were so focused on the trip that we underestimated the effort that effective homeschooling requires. We had a few big factors working against us, one of them being the lack of routine. Every day was different for us and didn’t allow for the regiment you need for kids to know what to expect in school.

8. I’m surprised by how many people don’t understand why missionaries ‘go’: Some questions we got were…
   

9. Isn’t that inefficient?

10. Can’t you do that here?

11. Don’t they have someone there to do that?

Every answer to these questions is a long story. (I’m planning to blog about this by itself eventually) You have a story too, about how God has brought you to where you are and how God has brought you to what you are doing. Who are we to dismiss or invalidate anyone’s God-given call?

1. God doesn’t always provide in the ways we expect, but He does always provide. I already wrote about this, here.

2. God wants us in Chile! And we are still on track to get there in the summer of 2018! If you would like to know more about what else needs to happen before we take-off, and what our remaining needs are, contact me Email Mark.