Three days, nineteen hours and thirteen inches later. Last Saturday at 2:00pm was another milestone in preparations for heading abroad. About five and one half years ago, my brother, Michael, decided to enlist in the Coast Guard. At the time, he was 24 years old and had a head of long, straight dirty blonde hair. Upon arriving in Cape May, New Jersey, Uncle Sam saw fit to cut it all off, officially beginning the dehumanization and reprogramming process. So, that day I decided to start growing my hair long as a personal protest. Well, Saturday, my protest officially ended. I will be sending a thirteen inch pony tail to locksoflove.org which will be used to make hairpieces for financially disadvantaged kids who have long term medical hair loss. It would have been far too difficult to travel with all of that hair and the Department of Homeland Security does not look too fondly upon bottles of product!
On other fronts, Idalis has two weeks of school left and then leaves for Phoenix in June and Charlotte in July for National Board training. I have thirty seven days of work left, as of today. Preparations continue. The ipod continues to get fed with music to accompany us on our long journey. Visa applications go in soon. And mid-life retirement party plans move into high speed. We are currently hosting Olivia and Omid, from Switzerland and Germany, respectively. They were our first guests through hospitalityclub.org. An organization I highly recommend if you don't mind opening your home to travelers and spending time hosting good people from all over the world. It has been a wonderful experience, though it has reminded me how old I am getting seeing as Olivia and Omid are only nineteen and twenty. I couldn't help them too much with their inquiries about the hottest clubs to visit!
Every day, the journey becomes more and more real. Your focus begins to change and realign with your new goals. Idalis and I are also starting to ponder the reality of being away from our friends and family for an extended period of time. We have been doing all we can to spend as much time as possible with them. We were recently involved in the wedding of our good friends Shawn and Sarah. It was great to see them so happy and it was great to be part of something so special. To the rest of our friends and family, and there are a lot of you, we thank you for your support and words of encouragement. It will be the thoughts of you that will help to ease lonely times, which are bound to happen, and the prospect of returning to your loving arms that will make the transition homeward much more comforting!
5 comments:
Oh my dear brother and sister (not by birth but by love and relationship to my brother)! How my heart breaks at the prospect of "losing" you for so long. I could not be more happy for you if I tried, as I know this will be a dream trip come true. And I would not wish for anything that you not do it, as it would just be selfishness on my part to wish you not to go for so long. My heart's desire for you both is that you have a safe, fun, exciting, educational, eye opening and wonderful journey...but the biggest desire is that you will return home safely where our arms, it is true, will warmly welcome you home. You are an inspiration to so many people. And we are going to be able to live vicariously through your blog. I hope and pray that Jeremy and I will be able to join you at one or more of your destinations. We love you dearly and will miss you greatly! (Oh, and you can't be that old...or else I'm getting old! Egad...no!!!)
to my dearest kevin and idalis...
there are already tears in my eyes as i think of you leaving us so very soon for so very long.
yet, i am excited for you as you see your dream of traveling the world coming true.
my hope is that you will have a wonderful, exciting, educational, and fun experience every place you go (ITALY, yeah!). and see the awesomeness of God in the great beauty of the world and peoples He created.
the world is a big place but love holds us togeher far or near.
when you arrive back home you won't have to run into our arms...we'll all tackle you with hugs and kisses!!!
Kevin,your words are like a soul stirring sermon...ah...can I get a amen? :-)
I'm just smitten by your caring mannerism... the hair thing just again confirms what a unique and very special guy you are. (will I recognize you without the tail ?):
Although I may not see you and Idalis often, know that I'm proud to describe you as friends...and you're both loved.
Look'n forward to more updates! :)
Wow! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown and how close it is to the day you begin your journey! Pretty soon I will begin my count down for when I meet you in India. The research has begun, now we just have to sit down and finalize all the details. Yeah!! And then, of course, I will begin the count down for when you come back home to all of us! I will truly miss you!!
Alas, the time, it draweth near for us to bid thee farewell. May you have the wind beneath your feet, may the Lord bless thee and keepeth thee. May thy return be swift, lest thou leave us in such angst.
In other words, Godspeed my friends, but please hurry and come back -- the parties won't be the same w/o you!
p.s. Steve says he's wondering where your updated business card is
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