Why We Travel: Stories That Change Us

Robert Anderson: As mentioned, my name is Rob Anderson and I am the director of Global Campus.
And to those of you who won anything from the writing carnival, congratulations.
For those of you who just participated, maybe even sat and listened for a few moments in the reading, congratulations.
Because you've taken the opportunity to take your story, the story that is you, and enter it into another story.
And when you go into another story, you always come back different and better.
Your story grows from being a part of another story.
I oversee the traveling that happens, academic travel that happens here.
And I believe the same thing happens when you travel.
I believe that if you do not travel, you do not fully understand your story.
You don't necessarily know fully who you are.
And let me give you an example of what I mean by that.
Let's suppose for just a second that Lubbock, Texas is the only place you have ever been or will ever be in your life.
Tell me about the world.
The world is flat.
I don't mean flat earth.
I mean the world in which we live in has no mountains, correct?
It has no trees.
If you're from Lubbock, trees are those things with green stuff on top and a long brown pole that sort of puts the leaves up into the air.
Lubbock is flat. It has no trees.
And the wind blows.
And sometimes it blows lots and lots of dust.
But yet, the dust is what makes awesome sunsets.
I don't think I have to tell you that that is not a full picture of what the world looks like as we travel to other places.
And I would love to just stand up here today and say here are all the reasons you need to take a trip somewhere else with Global Campus.
But I think to fully explain that, you need to understand why we travel in the first place.
And to understand that fully, I think you've got to know a little bit about my story and how I ended up here.
First time that I traveled internationally, we went to Guatemala.
Our church sent my parents to visit missionaries.
We got to go along, we being my sister and I.
I was 11 years old.
This is what I remember from the trip.
I ate bananas directly from the tree.
That was pretty cool.
I got to go to a beach and I saw a hammerhead shark.
That was pretty cool.
And we drove in a Land Rover all over the entire country of Guatemala,
listening to Captain and Tennille's cassette, Love Will Keep Us Together. Those of you who don't
know what that is, don't look it up. I remember I was car sick the entire trip. I think it may
have been the music. The second time that I got to travel internationally, we got to go to the
Prague, Czech Republic. My wife and I had been married for a year. My parents had given us a
trip. And so we're in Prague and I'm excited to see all of the cool things. And we got to see
lots of cool things. We got to see castles and we got to see cathedrals and we got to see Charles
Bridge. We got to go to Old Town Square and there's this really cool clock in Old Town Square.
And we got to drive around Czech Republic. We got to go to different castles out in the woods where
they hunted from, et cetera, et cetera. We got to ride the Metro. We got to do all kinds of things
and eat strange food, and I hated every minute of it.
I hated it.
Because I didn't understand what people were saying.
And because we kept crowding in,
and people kept getting into my personal space
when we got into the metro.
And we would eat stuff that I had no clue what it was.
And I remember 10, 11 days into that trip
just being so absolutely frustrated,
and just like, I'm done with this.
I want to go home where they say,
and y'all and they eat barbecue and drink Dr. Pepper.
That's what I'm looking forward to.
I had a lot to learn.
I had a whole lot to learn.
Those of you who've had me for class,
I teach adjunct Bible here.
If you've had my class,
shouldn't take you very long to recognize
I was living a whole lot of kingdom of me moment.
That is, it's all about me.
I am the king of the world
and everyone should cater to me
and my wishes and my desires and my wants. And there wasn't a whole lot of kingdom of God that
was going on. But thankfully, God is gracious and he teaches us. And so through the years,
I have learned some things about the importance of travel and why we do that and why it changes
who we are. So let me tell you three lessons that I learned. Number one,
Travel and cultural engagement makes you a better missionary.
Now, you may be sitting there going, I don't want to be a missionary.
I want to be a banker.
You go back and read carefully what Jesus tells his disciples.
Matthew chapter 28, he says, go into all the world, right?
And you are supposed to make disciples, baptizing them, teaching them, follow things I command.
What you may not realize is what Jesus is saying is not go over there,
but he is saying as you go to different places in the world,
tell the story about me.
Let people know who I am.
I don't care if you go to another country
or down the street to First National Bank.
When you arrive there, you are telling other people
the story about who Jesus is
based on the words you say and the life that you live.
And when you engage in other people,
you understand that there are good ways to do that
and there are poor ways to do that.
And cultural engagement, engaging with other people who are not like us, helps us tell that story so much better.
Number two, that takes humility.
That takes the humility to recognize my way is not the only way.
My way is not the way that you absolutely have to follow.
There is good in your way as well.
I just have to be humble enough to listen and to ask questions and discover what that is.
The Spaniards have this great thing that they do in the afternoon that I wish we would adopt here on campus.
Somebody help me, Dr. G, help me out.
Let's get this adopted on campus.
About 2:30, they shut down and they take a siesta.
You may say, I want to go to the store.
And you can go to the store and stand outside the store, but it is closed.
Why?
Because everyone inside is taking a nap or they've gone home to rest with their family.
They are taking Sabbath every single day.
How incredibly biblical is that?
I would love to see that here.
But you've got to have the humility to hear what it is that other individuals have as a part of their story that can benefit your own.
And lastly, when you travel, you understand the stories of other people, which changes your ability to show mercy to other people.
We always talk about how great it is to be in America, and there is a lot of great things.
But the history professors, we don't even need the history professors.
You guys know if we go back in history, it doesn't take very long before we discover that we got our stuff, don't we?
And here's the thing, other countries have their stuff too.
Other countries have faced great moments and very bad moments.
Other countries have faced moments in which they were in war, in which they were in civil war.
Other countries have been incredibly economically prosperous, but other countries have also suffered famine.
They have suffered economic crashes.
Other countries have dealt with natural disasters, and some of them did a great job recovering,
and some of them are still trying to recover from disasters.
But as we listen to the backgrounds and the stories of other people,
we are reminded of the need that we have to fulfill the word of Micah,
the prophet Micah, chapter 6, who says, what are we supposed to do?
We are supposed to act justly.
And we are supposed to love mercy.
And we are supposed to walk humbly with our God.
See, that's why we travel.
I can tell you the cool stuff about traveling, but you've got to understand the why before you ever go.
I was fortunate enough early this year to go on a trip to Peru.
It was a medical mission trip.
closest thing I've ever come to medical is one day I thought in college I might want to be a pre-med
major. That didn't last very long. I have no medical background, no medical training, so I find
myself here in Peru with these people who are doing medical stuff. We took pre-health professionals.
It was a fantastic trip. I loved it, but I recognized the story that God has given me,
My story.
I was able to use that story because I listened to what was happening in that moment.
And when you recognize your story and who God is calling you to be and the identity that you have in him, in Christ,
it doesn't matter if you go down the street or around the world.
you're able to take your story and enter into another story and come home,
just like you do in the fairy tales and the incredible literature we read.
You get to come home a changed person.
That's why we go places.
Now, having said that, I do want to tell you all about the incredible opportunities
that you have to travel with LCU.
And we're going to do that tonight at 6:30, from 6:30 to 8, in the CDC atrium.
We're having a reception there and I'm inviting every one of you to show up if you've been on one of our trips
Come along and tell people about what a fantastic it opera
Fantastic opportunity it is if you're interested if you're going on a trip show up
Let's talk about that if you have even the slightest inkling that you may want to go
That's the place to be and let's talk what you can do and why it is you get to go do it
Thanks for your attention. Have a fantastic day
Thank you.