Life has been pretty crazy over the last couple months. I know.. I have not written in quite some time. This blog is meant to catch up on what has happened over these last few months. Well, against the suggestion by the World Race, I did begin dating a wonderful young woman named Stephanie Rogers. We were both seniors at Cedarville University and after some twists and turns, I decided that I truly cared about her and was willing to deal with long distance. I totally understand the sentiment of the World Race, to ask people not to date because it could distract people from the ministry they are engaging in, but I decided that a Christ-focused relationship could only help to encourage my ministry and help me to want to have it shape me to the man I want to be for Christ and for her. If, and hopefully when we make it through the 11 months of the World Race, that is if I can raise the funds, our relationship would hopefully be stronger than ever, preparing us for marriage upcoming.
Beyond that relationship which has cheerfully taken up some much of the remainder of my school year and summer, I embarked on a 17 day backpacking journey through Europe! I went with 2 great friends from school named Ryan Beach and Sam Goodrow. We went through 8 countries of Eastern and Southern Europe. We visited Budapest, Hungary where Ryan had family that we stayed with a few days, Vienna Austria, Munich Germany, Milan Italy, Monte Carlo Monaco, Zurich Switzerland, Nice France, La Spezia Italy, Cinque Terre Coastal Cities in Italy, Rome Italy, Florence Italy, Brussels Belgium, and Toronto Canada makes 9 countries total besides good old ‘Merica. The trip was absolutely amazing. Europe is beautiful and to experience such different cultures and languages was very interesting. The food…oh the food was just incredible. Always fresh and portion sizes that almost always filled you up. Plus the bread. I’ll let you guys in on a secret of mine… Bread is my favorite food. I know, its kinda weird. But its true and im not ashamed of it. There was fresh bread and baguettes all over shops and stores, so I was always able to grab some and eat it on the streets, and wasn’t look at as if I was weird like I do in the States.
Anyways, there is so much I could/want to talk about concerning the trip, about what I learned, experienced, and how it was beneficial. But I think what is most relevant is that I learned firsthand how to backpack. Living out of a single backpack is not necessarily easy. It took a few countries to get the hang of moving to and fro with huge backpacks and just simply what we needed and didn’t need, how to pack up more effectively to allow for ease of access to certain things, and all sorts of other stuff. I truly think that this was a great prerequisite for the World Race. While the backpacking we will be doing will not be through more urban cities through Europe, the fundamentals of backpacking were learned.
There are many other things I have to say, but I will save those for the next couple days when I will be catching up on lost time for blogs.
Ta-ta for now!
-Ben
