We love our friends… 

Each and every person we’ve met here in NC have become like family to us. We truly feel blessed to have met so many amazing people.

On Friday 11/22/19 we threw ourselves a going away party/friendsgiving. It was an awesome time and we certainly felt the love from many friends who stopped by. Thanks to all those who made us feel extra special as we get ready to head out on this big journey. 

Leaving provides a moment to stop and be thankful for everything we have. We made community here with intentionality, and wow, are we feeling it. 

We have had several going away parties in the last few years. Each get together has given us the opportunity to share our appreciation for the wonderful people who have come into our lives. The appreciation and love feels so good, and at the same time it feels so bad to say goodbye.

It’s also a time for others to stop and appreciate our friendship. It goes both ways. We don’t stop often enough to think about the people in our lives and how much we appreciate them. Don’t you think? Don’t wait till someone is leaving to share your thoughts. Fill your hearts and theirs by being real and telling people how you feel.

But before we dive in too deep about our plans how about a little backstory? 

2020 Trip Away from the US… But Why?

Do we need a reason beyond the obvious “Why not!? Probably a good idea right?

It’s been a long journey that has led us to this point. Working online and building out passive income has been a long time dream, and within the past few years we’ve had several confirmations to convince us we are on the right path: 

I sold over 10,000 copies of Volcanic Momentum (one of my books), we made a trip to Thailand, Miranda got a great job at a calendar app called Teamup, and we’ve been working from home together all of 2019. 

Most of the changes were brought about because we felt God’s calling for us to take a leap. Every time we take a leap, we come out better than expected on the other end. I firmly believe we have to take a step into the waters so that the sea is parted. God wants us to get our feet wet first before answering prayer. 

A brief look at our journey:

• 2015: We left good friends and nearby family to move from PA to NC to work in a retirement community.
• 2017: I moved into full time entrepreneurship after we left the retirement community and Miranda started her greenhouse job.
• 2019: Miranda quit her job and we went out of the country to Thailand for two months.
• Present: We are getting ready to leave on an even bigger journey.

Over and over again we’ve leapt not knowing if we’d land on our feet or fall flat on our face. Each time God provided us with something even better than we imagined. 

Why we are feeling the pull to travel more and give away all of our stuff? 

Is it a natural extension of being able to work from anywhere? Yes… but that’s not why.

Is it because we both firmly believe in minimalistic living? Yes, but again not the reason for going. We’ve been forced to dive deeper…

So what’s the reason? A continued search for our purpose and what God has for us. We DON”T know exactly why we are leaving comfort behind and leaping into the unknown, but we feel the pull nonetheless. 

And granted, we aren’t going into the jungle. We will still have pillows, WiFi, and espresso. But we are homebodies to our core. Harris Teeter pizza, cookies, and a Marvel movie on a Friday night is our comfort zone. BUT we don’t want to stay in this area of comfort. We want new sights, sounds, and feelings so that we can experience all that God has for us.  

We want to discover deeper meaning and our true purpose along the way. This is why I write, and thus I need to live it so I can give it.

The Purpose of the Trip

This is a list I put together as people started to ask why. Frankly, we’ve become so accustomed to leaping in with both feet we were ready to dive in before we had a good answer.

Some might call it foolish or careless… We call it living on the edge. 

Here’s that list of potential purposes (with the caveat that we don’t expect to know right now exactly why we are going):

• To continue to follow God’s will for our lives. We feel pulled to go. We don’t know why or even exactly where yet, but still we feel it. 
• To grow in our understanding of the world and to become more well-rounded people.  
• For more experiences to write about, which will trickle down into better content for my books and hopefully more people reached. 
• To shed comfort and get ourselves out there. The summer of 2019 was fantastic, and we are homebodies at heart, but we recognize the inner desire for more.
• To gain a deeper understanding of living the life of a digital nomad, in order to connect with this population of world influencers.
• To live in community in all of the places we go.
• To continue refining our goals and embrace the uncertainty that comes with life on the road.

This is a short list and not comprehensive. It has been helpful to ponder the potential growth areas and reasons, but we know that not everything is going to be made clear right away, yet we go.

As my favorite author Mark Batterson says:

“Go, Set, Ready.”

The Plan: North Carolina to PA 

Here are just a few pics of the move so far (click to expand):

We will be leaving for PA to spend time with family over Thanksgiving, and then will be stationed in PA for a few weeks. Near the end of December we plan to head up to Maine for Christmas, and then it’s off to Portugal from there.

This plan is one of those “figure it out as you go” type of plans. Yes we do have a general idea. Yes we are probably going to switch things up as we go.

We are firm believers in planning (we are both J on the Myers-Briggs!), but we also believe in giving the Spirit room to work.

For right now, we are super excited to spend some extended time with family.  

Keep reading to find out how to stay connected with us, and how you can support us as we go. 

Prayer Requests

As we go out and prepare to travel, we realize our need for prayer. Specific requests follow:

• Direction and an openness to the leading of the Holy Spirit
• Continued work so that we can keep traveling.
• That we could connect with like minded individuals and seek out people of peace (people that are open to hearing about Christ).
• Prayer that we would stay intentional and keep working towards our goals.

Below you’ll see a video of our Church, Life Fellowship, sending us out. Our pastor Ben prayed for us in front of the church to commission us as we go out. It’s an amazing feeling to have our church behind us as we head off into the unknown.

There’s also a measure of accountability from this. We know that God wants to use us as we go out, but the added element of a team praying for you is one more reason to do our best to accomplish our goals.

Thank you for coming on this journey with us.

*Go to 1:21:00(ish) to see the church’s prayer over us. 

Final Thoughts

So, over to you. Where should we go to round out our trip? Where is your favorite place to travel? We appreciate recommendations!

Scroll all the way down and add a comment.

Stay tuned for more updates, pictures, ponderings, and stories as we head off on our trip. 

Talk soon,

-Jordan and Miranda

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