The World Beyond

A few years into our marriage, Sarah asked me what I thought about the idea of moving to South Korea. We had both grown to love the food, the music, the amazing people, and so much of the Korean culture that we could imagine a big life change in that direction. South Korea presented itself as a realistic adventure we could see ourselves enjoying and connecting with. Still, I was very uninterested in this opportunity at the beginning, and I did not want to leave my comfort and familiarity in the life Sarah and I had begun building in our first few years together.

I distinctly remember a car ride from Kentucky to Ohio with Sarah and her dad, discussing together all the concerns and reservations keeping me from wanting to take the leap and doing something completely off the grid. The reasons to go certainly outweighed the irrational fears and hesitations, and we were even approaching what looked to be a natural life transition point that would allow us the perfect space to leap with some confidence. Still, I couldn't budge.

Then one day, while sitting at my cubicle staring at piles of meaningless tasks I still needed to complete that day, something in me snapped. I went online and, almost involuntarily, began filling out my application for a teaching program Sarah had told me about: a chance to work as full-time ESL teachers in local South Korean public schools.

I remembering picking up the phone and calling Sarah to tell her I had just sent in my application and that she should complete hers right away. I was both excited and terrified that Sarah would not be happy with my impulse decision. Thankfully, she was reinvigorated by my spontaneous excitement and quickly sent hers in as well.

Months flew by, we quit our jobs, said goodbye to our families, and hopped in a plane to the other side of the world. I'd love to tell you it was all excited bliss, that everything about this just made perfect sense. The reality is- we were terrified. We had been out of the country before, but neither of us had ever committed a year of our lives to living in another part of the world in a culture far away from all of our family and friends. I remember after landing in Seoul, we boarded a bus to our training site. Sitting in the back of the bus, all kinds of jet-lagged, I remember everything at once turning grey in my mind. A twisting discomfort began to form in the pit of my stomach. The walls of the bus grew narrow. My palms became sweaty. And then I remember yelling internally, in a way that could almost be heard, "What are you doing, Brad?! You just left everything you've ever known behind! You have nothing to go back to. You're stuck here. Everyone speaks a different language. This is for a whole year. You're gonna die!" Life flashed before my eyes in that moment, and I began to internally break down the way most people confront a new and unfamiliar chapter of life. But would I ever get back to that high I felt when we got on the plane?

Fortunately, the dread went away quickly. We acclimated fast. We fell in love with the culture all over again, but in a much more vivid array of colors. We made many incredible friends within the first few days of our teacher training, and many of those people still represent some of our dearest and deepest friendships today. We got to see landscapes we'd never seen before. We saw history and cultural identity much different than our own. We met people from all over the world and found a global community within the neighborhood we eventually moved to for our teaching assignments. It was, without question, the most life-changing, eye-opening, and truly remarkable year of our lives. To this day, we talk about our memories there at least once every week.

Because of South Korea, my passion for travel and experiencing other cultures has grown immensely, and my understanding of the world and desire to know more of it expanded beyond my loftiest expectations. The world has grown smaller in that we feel connected to much more of it, but bigger in the sense that we now see how where we had come from was actually far less than all there is to experience.

I've been fortunate in my fairly young life to have been able to travel to several different countries whose cultures are vastly different from my own as well as each other. This remarkable and diverse set of experiences has blessed me with new eyes and a much wider perspective. It's amazing that when you get to know people from all different walks of life from every corner of this earth, ideas and philosophies become more intertwined, and the things we start to care most about affect all of us in ways that are inseparable and interwoven.

I've seen orphanages in Guatemala, mountainous landscapes in South Korea, beautiful temples and history in China, and I've seen refugees welcomed and cared for in Sweden. In all of those places, I've met people who have changed my life. They are people who have shown me what real sacrifice is, what caring for those less fortunate really looks like, what appreciating our differences and the beauty of diversity can actually bring about, and that God's goodness and presence is so much farther reaching than the borders that surround the United States, where my comfort and limited vision often reside.

Our world is currently caught in an age of populist nationalism, where literal and figurative walls are being built to separate people, where what makes us different has been demonized and made to be something we fear rather than something we cherish, and where our global perspective has been replaced with protecting what we are afraid of losing. We are far less interested in getting to know people and their stories than we are lumping people into groups and labeling them "the other." As a result, our worlds have become insular and separate. Our resentment for those we don't like are fueled by what we don't know. And what we don't know causes us to ignore a world beyond it that offers a grander and more harmonious kingdom where all people have value and have stake in who we all can become toegether.

When you meet people in the dirt villages of the mountains in Guatemala, you see a people who have learned how to work hard and live simply. When you speak to Syrian men and women who have found refuge in Sweden, you can hear stories of families separated by war and violence and the risk it takes to find freedom from it. When you see healthcare in South Korea that allows people to receive good care regardless of who they are and how much money they have, you start to dream up a better way in your own corner of the world. When you see religious persecution happening in subtle but powerful ways in China, you are soberly reminded that freedom of religion is not a reality to everyone.

Travel connects us to a bigger world, a world that is more real than isolation in just our own. We see new natural landscapes. We try new foods. We see different political ideologies that we can both learn from when appropriate and be more aware of when avoidable. We see rich histories and resilient people. We come back home forever changed. The world no longer revolves around our familiar.

If I could wish for my children to have anything, it would be first to have a personal faith that shapes their lives, and then second to have the opportunity to travel to new places, meet people who are different than them, and experience the awesome beauty that is beheld by strange new worlds beyond our own.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start exploring and experiencing. The saddest thing we can ever do is stay in one place.

As Dr. Seuss puts it so perfectly in Oh, the Places You'll Go- "Somehow you'll escape all that waiting and staying. You'll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you'll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you're that kind of a guy! Oh, the places you'll go!"

Go find some places.