More Travels
The children were grown when we went on some of our longer trips. One summer we went to the Holy Land. This trip was so inspiring. I stepped into the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized. A white bird descended (dove?) but David said, “It’s only a seagull.” I was amazed to see that the Mount where Jesus taught was covered with wild flowers. We walked the path passed the Spring where many were waiting to be healed,went to Golgotha and the Tomb where Jesus lay. We walked the Palm Sunday trail from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem. My big disappointment on that trip was that we were right on the border to Egypt and didn’t go across. No pyramids or towering statues. We’ll save those for another trip. But will there be another trip?
We arrived in Bombay, India in the middle of the night and were met by pencil-thin boys who wanted to carry our luggage. Stepping over bodies (sleeping or dead) we made our way to the home of a Missionary couple sponsored by our church. I was startled by the sharp contrast that I saw everywhere –intense poverty and magnificent elegance. Mountain high piles of garbage were being scavenged by families, crows, and unharnessed cattle. Taxis moved in bumper-to-bumper lines as beggars carrying limp babies in their arms ran among the traffic knocking on car windows. In contrast we were served in silver dishes by waiters in spotless uniform in nearby hotels.
After attending a World Methodist conference in Brazil we took a trip up the Amazon. Monkeys swinging from trees, pariots flying near the ground, and cat-sized rats roaming freely. The wild animals we saw were all in cages. We sailed by schools of pyromania fish and saw natives swimming among these flesh-eating fish. We were told you were safe if you did not have any cuts or abrasions on your body. We also saw where two rivers merged and were amazed at how those two different colored waters existed side-by-side. We saw a floating restaurant but no houses along the Amazon.
Another World Methodist conference took us to Africa. The meeting was held in Kenya but the most exciting part of the trip was the safari we took afterwards in Massamari country. We rode in an open jeep seeing dozens of migrating wildebeests, families of lions relaxing in the sun, roaming packs of hyenas, giraffes and a rhynosarus.
Our most exotic trip was to Sarawak. Vinc Sutliff had been a missionary to Sarawak in the 1950s. He was teaching at William and Mary when we were in Williamsburg. He kept in touch with Sarawak and traveled back several times. When he invited us to go with him we jumped at the chance. Read details in The Land of the Headhunters.
We had side trips to other countries. We went to Switzerland where we went inside a glacier,
to Italy(Assisi) where we walked in the footsteps of St. Francis, and to (Florence) where we marveled at the statue of David. References to our travels and examples from them are made elsewhere on my Web Pages.
- Montreal, Canada – see excerpts from Christmas letters2011
- Africa – see Three Sets of Eyes
- Toronto, Canada — Niagra Falls
- Nottingham, England —- Our Finest Hour
- Scotland – Appalachian Trail stories