It's time to get on with blogging - to let you know what life looks like for a Faith Traveler.
The beginning happened many years ago, back in the mid 1980s, when I did my first backpack travel trip to Scandinavia and Europe right after graduating from university in Canada. I managed to obtain a student work exchange job in Sweden, in the field of my study, forest resources management. I spent over 4 months there, being part of several 3-4 person forest survey crews, collecting forest data in different parts of the country. I was able to travel Sweden, experience Swedish culture, and got paid for it! The money earned help finance 6 weeks of Travel in Europe later, and when I returned home to Canada, I even had money left over.
It was while backpacking and traveling in Europe that autumn, that I began to 'experience' God, to discover that perhaps God was real, and that some of the incidents and situations I found myself in, could not be explained rationally, that left me 'wondering'.
My faith in God, at this time, as I look back in life, might have been considered nominal. Though I had been raised with a church background, I cannot say I really say I had discovered what it meant to have a relationship with God, and how practical God might be.
One such incident occurred on the day after I visited Neuschwanstein
Castle, in Southern Germany. Traveling by train south, I was concerned about not arriving in time in the town of Oberammegau at the local youth hostel. The previous day, I had phoned the hostel to let them know I intended to stay the following night, but they informed me to arrived before 5pm, as it was low tourist season, and the doors would be locked at that time.
It was late autumn, and I realized that the timing of the train would bring me into town after dusk, and close to the 5pm hostel closing. I had never been to the town before and still had to walk and find the hostel in the dark. So, I was somewhat worried about arriving late and not being able to check in on time.
However, on the train ride, though there were only a few people in my train carriage, I met a Canadian girl and discovered that she was actually already staying at that very same hostel. She had headed out to visit the castle that day, but it was a public holiday, which she was unaware of, and discovered that the castle was closed. I shared my ‘worry'about not getting to the hostel in time with her, but to my encouragement, she said she had been given a key to access the hostel.
Upon arriving in Oberammegau, she led me to the hostel. It was almost 5 pm. There was no one at the front desk, and even though I tried ringing the bell to call for someone, no one responded. But since the girl had a key, she let me into the common area of the hostel and also was able to open the door into the dormitory, where I was able to choose a bed and sleep for the night!
No hostel staff ever appeared that evening to check me in - but at least I was IN, and did not have to worry about having to find another place to stay in town.
To me, it was amazing having met this girl on the train that day, a fellow Canadian, who ‘happened’ to be staying in the hostel I was heading to, who ‘happened’ to have the key to a ‘locked’ hostel. The only other people staying that night in the hostel was a young German family.
So, was I just lucky this particular day, or was there a God I was beginning to discover, a ‘God’ who knew of my situation, and somehow knew in advance what was going to happen. Did this ‘God’ have things planned in advance for me this particular day?
