Micro-Stories From My Travel Journal

Changing of the Guard

 On a recent overseas trip, two interesting truths occurred during the same week but on different continents. One truth was spoken and one was written. Here is what I noticed.

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    Jim and I had perfectly timed our arrival at Hellenic Parliament to watch the ceremonial changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece.

    The weather was perfect, and soon languages of the world began to gather around to form a large semi-circle. The Changing of the Guards in Athens takes place 24 hours a day, every hour on the hour. 

    The guard exchange would take place in 15 minutes, and I had my iPhone in a ready position. 

    

    "What a perfect spot," I heard the accent next to me.

    "Yes, look at us. Perfect timing for great photos. Where are you visiting from?" I asked.

    "We're here from Australia. What about you? The U.S. I'm guessing."

    "Correct. From Phoenix, Arizona."

    The crowed hushed. We turned to see fresh guards split the crowd into two sections and  march through them in perfect rhythmic step toward the two attending guards. The exchange had begun. Our conversation ended and our phone videos were humming. 

    The ceremony ended within ten minutes, and the semi-circle was abuzz with discussion. We resumed ours, too.

    "How long do you plan to stay in Greece?" I asked. 

    "Oh, for a few days then we will move on. We're on holiday in Europe for ten weeks."

    I almost swallowed my tongue! "Wow! Ten weeks?  We are visiting Spain and Greece but for only 31/2 weeks."

    "Well, good on you! We are from down under and it's long way to anywhere. When we leave there, our plans are to stay gone until the end."

    That's a long time...til the end.

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    Halfway around the world in the states, a 10-year boy had made a profession of faith. His Mom wrote, "The first prayer I ever prayed for him the moment I found out I was expecting was please let this child come to know Christ as a personal Savior and spend eternity with Him in Heaven."

    

    Both my Australian acquaintance and this Mom had something in common: plans that encompassed a journey til the end. 

    There was nothing wrong with the plans my Australian friend made, and there was everything right about the Mom's pleas for her son's destiny.

    

    As Believers, we are on a journey, too, "But our citizenship is in heaven..." after we accept Christ's intentional plan that safely secures our journey "til the end." 

    

    My Australian friend and I chatted for a while, and we even introduced our husbands. We discussed the places we had been and places we planned to go. We looked around and the crowd had dispersed. We exchanged God's speed for safe travels and parted our ways.

    We didn't think to ask their names, but that's often the case. When we stop to chat with someone along the way, we don't usually ask their names. They become a memory or a lesson learned. That's the beautiful experience that travel offers us. 

    Thanks for coming along today. 

    Keep Looking Up,

   

     J:m and L:nda

The Micro-Stories in My Travel Journal

 

Every photo holds a micro-story

 Choose the country, select the dates of travel, then, buy the Page-A-Day leather journal. It has to have rounded corners, measure 5" x 7", have lined pages, a ribbon bookmark, and an elastic closure to secure the pages. It can never be a spiral journal notebook. The spirals snag everything inside a backpack. 

    "I counted 48 countries travelled," Jim puts his pencil aside. 

    "I counted 50 travelled," I reply.

    "Perhaps 50 because I've been to Viet Nam and you haven't, and you've been to Morocco and I haven't. 

   "Well, then, what can we say...to be honest?" 

 "To keep learning, understanding, and sharing, let's add a few more countries and a few more micro-stories."

"I like the way you think. I'll stock up on more journals."

    We have drawers, shelves, and bookcases where we store finished travel journals. Who will read them, we don't know. Sometimes, we like to refer to them and recall a village or restaurant, or day tour for someone on a travel thread who is seeking information. 

    I keep the journals and faithfully write at the end of each day regardless of how tired I am. I write to make sure we remember people, experiences, encounters, and discoveries.  So, how do I organize a travel journal? I'd like to share my way.

    On the inside cover, I write the date of the adventure, the countries involved, departure and return dates, and add one address label in case the journal is lost. The following pages outline the devotions we'll find and read each day.  Next, I list the shoes we take because a trip to every country oddly requires a different type of shoe. Finally, I list the backpacks we take, which are always Ospreys. (Except for a recent 2026 Camino in Spain, we took only Fjallrave Skule 28L used for our 10-day walk.) So why is it important to list shoes and backpack sizes? When we plan our next trip, we always refer to our journals and the shoes we took, the weather there, the purpose of the trip, and the usefulness of the shoe type. If the shoes were faithful in all those ways, then we can trust them again. We've never made a mistake.

The following pages of my travel journal hold to a pattern: dates, locations, people, culture, languages, food in detail, complaints (yes) and finally, blessings of that day. 

    I have written late into the night so I will not forget the unusual encounters we have experienced that day. We meet some of the most interesting people along the way who openly share their culture with us. I think cultures and people are drawn to backpackers. My guess is they see us as truly experiencing their culture as independent travelers. I write what they say, what we try to say in their language, and what we learned about their culture that day. 

    We have truly seen the purest of people who genuinely want to help the backpacker. One micro-story happened recently in Ferrol, Spain early in the morning as we began our Camino out of town. Pilgrims on the Camino are constantly searching for the Yellow arrows that may be found on sides of buildings, on standing markers, or small signs to direct our path. Sometimes they are evasive.  Suddenly, we heard a barking dog behind us and a man's voice loudly calling out. We stopped and turned to see an old gentleman tottering on a cane beside the barking dog. He was pointing. We were walking away from a Yellow arrow we had missed...away in the wrong direction. We were following our last arrow sighting and had failed to see the change in direction. We could not say "Gracias" enough! Both the dog and the gentleman earned a place in my journal that night. They also earned the "blessing of the day!"

    We enjoy opening pages of journals from decades ago just to read about who we were. We compare countries and cultures and the changes we notice now. We laugh at ourselves and how we barely managed in some countries. Still, certain people in certain locations vividly remain unique based on how they changed us. 

     We fully believe every people intersection we have had along our journeys have been orchestrated by God. 

    We'll keep buying Page-A-Day journals and keep writing!

    Thanks for coming along with us today.

    Keep Looking Up!

    J:m and L:nda, who want to stand firm in the Good News of the gospel so His peace will shine through and be that Light.