June 1, 2026

After some time of reflection, here are 10 things I learned as part of our Hope for Today World Journey. Chongae and I will continue to travel. We have a river cruise planned for the fall from Amsterdam to Budapest, but as not to be repetitive, will only blog from cities that we have not been to before.

#1. Three years go by very quickly!

#2. Our world is dominated by the immediacy of smart phones. Fast is no longer fast enough. Reading is slow. Writing considerably slower still. Committing time to anything just seems like too big of a task. Why sit down and read a book when you could watch hundreds of Tik-Toks in that time? This despite the fact that one can go to any thrift store and pick up a dozen paperbacks for the cost of a Grande Frappuccino. Only 16% of Americans maintain a daily recreational reading habit, down from 40% in 2003. The United States literacy rate ranks 36^th in the world!

#3. Stairs around the world go both ways, up and down. However, for every step you take downwards, you can expect to take two going back up. I don’t know how that works, but I am certain I am accurate. Or at least it feels that way.

#4. Our journey became most enjoyable when we stopped worrying about doing more. Aren’t you going to visit the sites? The wonders? We’ve seen sites and wonders. What we loved was following God’s pace.

#5. When you visit a country one time you romanticize the people’s way of living, you have a tendency to exoticize people. Look how different everything is! After multiple visits you realize we are much more similar than different.

#6. It seems that most of us walk a line between the need for constancy and the need for change. What is it about life that demands our expression of it? The human compulsion to create. To express. All of us seeking to broadcast some message, which, when distilled as fully as I can distill it, sounds to my ears like a question: Can you see me?

#7. It’s funny, the memories that stick with us, the ones that never fade away into the quiet darkness of our minds. Maybe all the banalities of our lives contain hidden multitudes of sorrow, pain, happiness, and joy. Maybe the memories we least expect to be significant are the ones that will haunt us the most.

#8. The common denominator that I found in the countries we visited: WAR. Since 1946 there have been 285 major armed conflicts! Large-scale military warfare has been happening for as long as humans have had access to weapons. Perhaps it is time to consider another alternative.

#9. Christians continue to be persecuted worldwide. In North Korea, 30,000 Christians are imprisoned in inhumane conditions. In China, millions of surveillance cameras identify those who attend church. In Cuba, it is illegal to construct a church. And on a very personal note, Thongkham Philavanh, a missionary in Laos whose organization we support, died after being shot seven times by Laotian soldiers for teaching against animist religions. He left behind his wife, Sengdara, and 2 daughters.

#10. Yet, after this journey, Chongae’s and my faith is stronger than ever. Is it right to propagate an idea that will send people to prison, torture and death? God’s redemptive plan is not to ultimately save individuals, but to build a people-who are privileged to carry out a mission that will bear fruit for eternity. God is the anchor that we, and you, need in this world. It is our prayer that these messages have brought you to that understanding so that you too may have Hope for Today.

Thanks for traveling with us.