When choosing my journals for this year, I decided on two notebooks with the same design of passport stamps. It seemed an appropriate motif for this year when I'll be away from home more than usual. It's not that I'm travelling more often than normal; in fact I'll probably be doing fewer ministry trips, but I'll be staying longer in each destination when I get there.
After a bit of drama this week, when an airline website seemed to be taking my card payment but not confirming my flight, I finally managed to finalise my tickets for my first trip, which will be in March this year. 2016 is the fortieth anniversary of King's Kids International, and so we're holding our KKI international leadership team meetings this year in Kona, Hawaii, the location where the ministry first began, 40 years ago. In order to get the best airfares, I decided to fly out at the end of February, which will allow me to have a couple of days' break before our meetings start at the beginning of March.
My next trip after that, and my longest trip this year, will be to West Africa during July and August. That will be for a two month period, embracing a KKI leadership workshop, our Planting Together outreaches, and an international leadership assembly of staff and leaders from around the world. I'll probably end up spending six weeks in the Ivory Coast and two weeks in Senegal. I'm encouraged that I've been able to find several different house sitters who'll come from Scotland to have a holiday and look after my cats while I'm away.
Meanwhile, back in my passport-stamped journal, my plan this year is to read the Bible book by book and character by character. So far, I've reached Genesis chapter 14, and I've considered insights from the lives of Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham and Lot. Watch this space over the coming months for further reflections on lessons learned from the lives of different Bible characters.
