One of the things I love about travel is the increased openness I feel to see and respond to daily opportunities. Travel is an invitation to spontaneity. It is a chance to live how we would like to live if we didn’t feel too busy to do so. In this way it also reminds us to dust off the interests and passions that we have allowed to lay dormant and to live more fully by focusing again on what we love.

Pouring over lists of hostels last week my only concern was to find a place to stay somewhere in between Crater Lake and Lassen Volcanic National Park. Realizing that I would probably leave Crater Lake in the evening I thought it might be nice to have a place to crash after a few days of camping. I also love hostels and jump at opportunities to discover new ones. Finding a hostel in Ashland, Oregon looked perfect for my route.

Visiting the wonderful Noble Coffee Shop in Ashland, Oregon I decided to try something new and ordered the “Siphon Service.” This alternate process for making coffee is not only intriguing to watch but it also produces the cleanest cup of coffee you will ever taste! Here is a video that demonstrates the process!

After a rather long hiatus I’m back to blogging and I could not be more happy about this! Where have you been, you ask? Actually I never quit writing it’s just that the writing I was doing is not of the sort that you would read here. My last six months of grad school were rather demanding but I am glad to be done and to have a little more time to begin pursuing some of my interests again, including writing about the rich experiences of life. There is so much more to come…

I am taking a road trip all the way up and back down California, with the possibility of a little Oregon mixed in. Nearing the end of graduate school I began planning this road trip with great expectation. Sporting a new camera I have now set out to explore the “rest of California” that I have yet to visit!

During my first day of driving I took a different route to Monterey than I normally take. Traveling up 5 North and exiting at Jayne Avenue, I took 98 over to 101. The scenery along 98 is absolutely gorgeous. This particular mountain took my breath away! I will be adding ongoing photo updates to my new Tumblr blog as well at www.andyjohnson.tumblr.com/

When we sing Away in a Manger, we still picture a crib for Jesus’ bed. This is perhaps because we don’t have anything to relate a manger to in our own experience. Laying a newborn baby down to rest in anything but a comfortable little bed is unimaginable to us.

One of the unique features of the Christmas story is that due to the intervention of history, a Roman Emperor’s call for a census, Jesus came into the world under circumstances that were far from ideal. Rather than preparing to give birth in the safety and comfort of her home, Mary embarked with Joseph on an arduous journey to Bethlehem in the final days of her pregnancy.

Thanksgiving is a bittersweet time of year for me. For the first 24 years of my life, I always spent Thanksgiving with the extended family on my mother’s side. It is a time of belonging, sharing hearts in conversation, eating the best Thanksgiving meals ever prepared, and topping it all off by playing football with the cousins. Since I am one of the two members of my extended family living West of Indiana, and due to the logistics of flying home for a short weekend in the middle of a busy season at work and school, I have not made it back to the family Thanksgiving for several years now.

I woke up this Thanksgiving morning struggling to feel thankful. All I could think about was how for yet another year, I can’t be back with my family for this special time. Realizing that ingratitude is often a matter of perspective, I tried to think again about my circumstances and made an important discovery. I am thankful for friends who become like family.

As of 10:00 PM, on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009, I am officially debt free! After five years of struggling to pull myself away from the spending habits that kept me in debt, I am finally 100% out of debt and not looking back! So why am I telling you about this? It is rather personal and embarassing but my hope is that if you are not in consumer debt, this will encourage you to stay that way and that if you are, there is hope and good reason to do whatever it takes to free yourself.

Strolling through the gate camera in hand, I was delighted to finally be back at the orphanage I have long hoped to revisit. Pausing for a moment to take a picture in the middle of the courtyard, a little boy suddenly came running with arms outstretched and wrapped himself around my legs. Reaching down I picked him up and took him into my arms. Here a little boy who has no idea who I am yet feels the confidence that if I am there, allowed into his space, I must be safe and welcome. This is what happens when children who have lost everything are welcomed into a community of hope.

El-Shaddai Hope Center for Orphans is all of these things. It is a place of refuge, as indicated by the Hebrew name for God that is used “El Shaddai”. It is a place where hope is built in children who without this home come from hopeless situations. It is a center dedicated to orphans. The place is all about them and Stephen and Beatrice Njau, along with their children and a few staff members, are giving their lives for these children.

I met President Barak Obama’s grandmother in a village in Kenya. She is a gracious 86 year-old woman who says that she loves receiving the visitors that her grandson’s fame brings her way. My Kenyan friends met her several years ago and wanted to take me to meet her. Realizing how unique this opportunity was I readily agreed. While pulling up to the front gate of her home, I did not know what to expect. On the one hand it seemed that she should have a better situation than most for this area of Kenya but on the other maybe it was fitting that her humble home and life fit so naturally into her local context.

Can you imagine losing every member of your extended family in a matter of weeks? To be the only survivor among the people you loved the most? This is exactly what the young man in this picture experienced and I sat there listening to him sing about it. Through the help of a translator I learned that the lyrics went something like this;

When I remember my past
My heart is filled with praise
Because God did the impossible for me
I remember the people who died all around me
But after they tried to kill me several times I survived
And that is impossible