On the move

This is little photo pretty much described what happened to us; we changed. We didn't want to feel like we were a part of the rat race anymore. What was at the finish line anyway?

Gone are our dreams of living the "American dream" and climbing the corporate ladder.

One of my friends posted an article to Facebook the other day that had two quotes that

succently described how we feel:

"They pass from a materialist to a post-materialist phase, where they start thinking more about quality of life and meaning of life"

"The good thing about crisis is that maybe it awakens this other side of us, and helps us to step off the treadmill a bit, and think about why we're here — besides just paying a mortgage."

While the article was about Spanish people flocking back to church during their financial crisis, I thought those two sentences really said a lot.

We want something totally different. We're going to leave it all behind. No, not right away. We have to plan, of course. In about 2 years we'll sell our house and move to the house we currently use as a rental. At that time both of our cars will be paid off and we can focus on paying down the remainder of my student loans. In about 4 years we'll sell the rental house, our cars, any household goods of value and donate the rest. Then we'll make that change I'm talking about; we'll become professional travelers. We want to see the world and spend time learning with people from all walks of life. I call it my mission to "learn with and love on people around the world" but Jackson thinks the term "love on" is sketchy. I assured him it was more of a Christ-like term than anything else, but he is not budging. Typical. ;)

This plan has radically changed our spending habits already. We're not going to buy things that in 4-5 years we won't take with us on our journey. We have no idea how long we'll be gone so it seems silly to amass a bunch of things here just to leave them behind for an indefinite period of time. The plan has also made me change my perspective on a lot of things. It made me realize how easy life is here: groceries down the street, friends close and Grammy close to watch MacKenzie just to name a few. It also made me realize that if we settle for an easy life we are doing just that: settling. We don't want to settle; we want to seize the day!

We're researching a ton into the rules in different countries about how long we can stay and what all we can do while we are there. We hope to find some kind of work overseas perhaps a teaching job for me; we'll see. There is a great need for us to mobilize and show the people of the world that they're loved and that they matter. We want to stop working to make our lives "better" with material things and start making it better with relationships and experiences. Please pray for us as we continue to work on this somewhat long-term plan. We're pretty excited!