We had discerned the substance of our dreams and knew we were meant to live with intentionality, spend time together as a family, travel and, above all, listen to how God would guide us.
There would still be a lot required to turn those dreams into a plan, but we were determined.
First question was: what would this look like? There are various ways those 4 values could be lived out together. And we discussed a few of them. One big piece of the puzzle is that we have a lot of places we want to see together in this country, places we want to experience with Petunia, and our limited time off of work was going to leave way too many trips untaken. For several reasons, we were not comfortable with the idea of putting off such journeys until the "normal" time. No one is promised tomorrow, and with some health challenges we really are not willing to take the risk of waiting. Besides, we want our plan to involve all of us, not take place in a future where Petunia may be off at college or less enchanted than she is now with spending quality time with us.
Have you noticed in life that you usually get out of something what you put into it? Or maybe you've heard, "The greater the risk, the greater the reward"? We knew we were asking a lot of life and we had to be willing to go all-in. So...
We chose to resign from our jobs to take a year-long sabbatical, downsize a very large portion of our belongings, buy an RV, and travel around the country together from this summer until next summer!
To say we are thrilled and expectant barely begins to describe our feelings! From the beginning we have known that this would be a story worth living AND that this story would not just be about us. I know this plan began with God before it hatched in our minds, and we want to let Him tell it the way He wants to!
In the short amount of time that we have been preparing for this new reality we have been amazed at the ways we've seen this plan touch so many more lives than that of our family. Some ways have been small, some have been and will be bigger! I used to think when God was calling us on a big adventure that He had big plans for us. Now I realize that His plans are much more encompassing than I could have imagined.
Hopefully there will be many more special connections made as we both live and share this story. We invite everyone to be a part of it, however that might look like to each person. Also, while our specific choices will not be the right choices for everyone (okay, or even many), we do hope you may be inspired to take a fresh look at what you and your family value highly and take courage to make a bold step in that direction!
As for this crazy Powell Posse, we Have Heart, Will Travel!