1) How can I help encourage travelers to utilize a portion of their hard-earned miles/points to go and participate in charitable travel?
2) How can I help charitable travelers achieve affordable travel?
2) How can I help charitable travelers achieve affordable travel?
3) How can I help identify opportunities to go and participate in charitable travel?
You may be wondering who I am to be offering advice or resources, and so I offer a brief background as to how I've gotten here.
Missional Miles is my response.
You may be wondering who I am to be offering advice or resources, and so I offer a brief background as to how I've gotten here.
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| A few of my percussion students in Guatemala, 2002 |
My Introduction to Foreign Missions
Following my high school graduation in 2001, my family took a quick 9-day missions trip to work in Casa Para Niños Aleluya, a large children's home outside of Guatemala City. My older brother John and I spent those few days providing simple construction assistance to the ever-expanding ministry, hanging razor wire for the 350+ children's security and digging sewer line trenches for a newly built boy dormitory. It didn't take long for those children to help me recognize my cultural naïvety and fall in love with this unique people and place. I nearly missed the entire experience though, having been reluctant to go on the trip at all since it was going to "interfere" with my summer plans with friends back home in Mississippi.
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| The boys dormitory where John and I lived in Guatemala, 2002 (me up front) |
Upon returning to the States, John and I didn't wasted any time and began plans to return to Guatemala the following summer. Our preparations included soliciting new and used musical instruments to ship down for a 3-month "class" that we offered the children of Casa Aleluya. If just 9 days during the previous summer could produce such a profound impact in my life, what could 3 months accomplish? I knew that I was ready to find out.
My Introduction to Cheap Travel
I could tell story upon story about how that summer of 2002 and the missions experiences of years to follow would help to shape me into who I am, but that is not the point of Missional Miles. The truth is, my priorities had shifted by the time I finished college and continued to shift even more so by the time I completed my Master's Degree. Travel had become a mixture of business and personal craving. This happened so subtly that I forgot what it was like to travel out of a heart for service and ministry.
In the meantime, I learned quite a bit about free travel via miles, points, and cash back opportunities. My job required considerable travel at the time, and it wasn't uncommon to be on a flight to Montana, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Colorado, or Georgia a couple times a month. With a growing interest in frequent traveler perks, I began to research reward credit cards and to actively follow a number of great travel bloggers (listed on my page under "Great Blogs") who provided me with a much-needed foundation for this artform. As a result, I became an efficiently frugal traveler, but I began to sense that something wasn't completely right.
My wife and I were happily using our points to fund trips to places like Key West, New York City, Vermont, Disney World, and the Colorado Rockies; but I had lost sight of something huge--something that I once genuinely understood and valued. Those points, and everything else that I possess, are not mine. I have simply been lent, or entrusted, these tools with an expectation that I will use them well. Will we continue taking traditional vacations? Absolutely! Time to get away and relax will always be critical. But we also need to keep in mind our responsibility to go and to serve as we can.
So, Missional Miles is just as much for me as it is for any reader who chooses to join me in this adventure. Let's maximize our travel, and let's travel for good.
My Introduction to Cheap Travel
I could tell story upon story about how that summer of 2002 and the missions experiences of years to follow would help to shape me into who I am, but that is not the point of Missional Miles. The truth is, my priorities had shifted by the time I finished college and continued to shift even more so by the time I completed my Master's Degree. Travel had become a mixture of business and personal craving. This happened so subtly that I forgot what it was like to travel out of a heart for service and ministry.
In the meantime, I learned quite a bit about free travel via miles, points, and cash back opportunities. My job required considerable travel at the time, and it wasn't uncommon to be on a flight to Montana, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Colorado, or Georgia a couple times a month. With a growing interest in frequent traveler perks, I began to research reward credit cards and to actively follow a number of great travel bloggers (listed on my page under "Great Blogs") who provided me with a much-needed foundation for this artform. As a result, I became an efficiently frugal traveler, but I began to sense that something wasn't completely right.
My wife and I were happily using our points to fund trips to places like Key West, New York City, Vermont, Disney World, and the Colorado Rockies; but I had lost sight of something huge--something that I once genuinely understood and valued. Those points, and everything else that I possess, are not mine. I have simply been lent, or entrusted, these tools with an expectation that I will use them well. Will we continue taking traditional vacations? Absolutely! Time to get away and relax will always be critical. But we also need to keep in mind our responsibility to go and to serve as we can.
So, Missional Miles is just as much for me as it is for any reader who chooses to join me in this adventure. Let's maximize our travel, and let's travel for good.
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| My wife and I enjoying a point-paid trip to Disney |
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