Abraham, the First Backpacker – Becoming an Ivri

Most everyone wants a place to belong, a place they can call home, where everyone “knows their name”. But more importantly, there is no greater human need than to know and pursue our creator. However, for some, such a pursuit requires striking out alone…very alone…, leaving all that is familiar to wander as nomad and foreigner. Accepting such a call runs so contrary to our innate desire for belonging, that many miss it all together and of those who do see it, the risk of leaving everything to cross over into a world of the utterly unknown for an unseen future, it is not only unappealing, but terrifying.

This is the story of how I nearly missed one such defining moment in my life and how that has shaped the purpose of IVRI Media and this blog Hicks, Hoodlums, & Highrises – an IVRI Media publication.

If it were not for uncertainties, we would have no need to walk by faith. – Elizabeth Elliot

It was February in Wisconsin. For those who may not be familiar, February is the longest month of the year as the darkness and cold feel as they will never end. This February was worse than usual as many found themselves without even the unwelcome, but needed, distraction of work. It was the height of the Great Recession and double-digit unemployment had frozen Northeastern Wisconsin colder than the February ice.

I found myself spending my days in the basement of the kind of friends that are family, Micah and Joan. They had better internet connection than my family’s farm and offered a place to work free of distractions. I was one of the fresh university graduates that got the terrible timing of graduating into the greatest economic recession since the great depression. Having worked my way through university, I had done better than most by managing to dodge layoffs and hold onto work, and in my profession nonetheless. However, I wouldn’t be able to hold on forever, and as I stared out the small egress basement window my future was looking bleak as the snow outside that reflected the dark blue hue of the overcast sky. 

That’s why I was in the basement, to come up with a plan to fix that. At this point, I had been at researching and job searching for months. It was miserable. A true Midwesterner, I was raised by diligent hard-working folks who bordered if not crossed the line into “workaholism,” and I had the work ethic to match…and probably the addiction. While I was tired from the long hours that put me through university, and the constant turmoil that was an everyday part of being in management during such an economic downturn, the anticipation of being without a job felt so much worse. Thoughts of being without the routine, a place to go, and the illusion of purpose were just some of the concerns rolling through my mind. However, as they did, I knew I was wrong, while not ashamed to work, I knew something needed to change. 

As I prayed on the subject, thoughts of New Zealand came to my mind. A few years earlier, I had attempted to study abroad in New Zealand but heavy costs and a promised delayed graduation shut down the idea. Now free of tuition and credits, the possibility resurfaced. Then, like a dance, I began a list of “reasons” why not; yet, no sooner had I come up with a “reason,” then it was it was eliminated:

• I needed a valid passport that could take months to get.
  • My failed study abroad attempt did leave me with a shiny new passport without a single stamp in it having never traveled outside the US.
• No one just up and goes to a foreign country…alone…as a woman.
  • At a random New Years Eve party, I had found myself in a lengthy conversation with one such woman as she told me of her recent travels in Indonesia. As I listened, all I could think was, she’s crazy.
• I didn’t know anyone or anything about what I was doing for that matter. I had barely traveled outside Wisconsin and my people were even less traveled than myself.
  • Futile job searching turned into travel research where I stumbled across an agency that helps orient and connect solo travelers such as myself. Of which, I called so many times flabbergasted that people “just travel solo,” I could hear the exhaustion in the agent’s voice
• What would I do without a job there? How would I pay for it?
  • No sooner did I offer up this “reason” than I no longer had a job here. My financial diligence meant that despite my current situation, I had enough savings to meet the visa requirements with a tiny amount to live off of.

My list of “reasons” gone, I returned to prayer partially with the conviction that something needed to change, partially feeling sorry for myself, fully with the knowledge that God had the ability to provide me a job regardless the economy, which He didn’t seem to be interested in doing at the moment. However, as I sought Him, the following phrase resounded through my soul:

Now it was matter of either throwing all caution to the wind, getting on a plane and going to a country I’ve never been to with no plan, or stay in this basement and continue to travel in circles like the children of Israel in the wilderness in search of a job that brings me the comfort of the familiar…even if it meant misery.  With that, all my emotions shifted to a cataclysmic battle between my fear of God and my fear of the unknown…or concern that I had just gone crazy. There in lay my final excuse, I must confirm I am in fact not crazy.

To test if this was faith or stupidity, I determined to go to a person who I, not only knew would be my friend no matter what, but would surely dismiss the idea. My longest friendship, Ruth, a strong Christian herself, she had been my friend when no one else was, but unlike me, she was quiet and so reserved she worked as a librarian during university. Ruth would not be the first person one would think of to endorse wild ideas.   

I met her at a tiny café in our home town. Over a cup of tea, I told her extensively of my insane idea to take off to a foreign country alone, making sure to include all hesitations and downsides along the way. She sat there peacefully in her usual way just listening intently without flinching in her expression. When I had finally ran out of steam, I stopped, paused, looked at her and said, “So do you think I’m crazy?”

Never a rushed person, Ruth took a sip of her drink as she slowly lowered her drink to the table, pulled back her long blonde hair behind her ear, looked me squarely in the eye, “Sure I think you’re crazy,” she stated followed by a brief pause,”But I think many people were considered to be crazy for picking up everything to pursue God…like Abraham.” A small smirk began to crack across her face. “Can you buy the plan ticket tomorrow?” After a long pause, we both broke out in laughter.

I could feel my fear flee my body as I became overwhelmed with the realization that I was really going to do this thing. While the first, she was not the last on my “I’m not crazy” tour. No one, I mean no one, tried to stop me. I was bewildered as people of all ages, almost all of which had never been out of the country and barely the state themselves, egged me on to point of (unsolicited) financially sponsoring me to go.

As I began reaching the point of no return, another friend, Tomi, and I took cue from Jo De Messina’s song, “Heads Carolina, Tails California” and joked between ourselves of flipping a coin. However, the joke would become a reality when, later I consulted Micah on my “I’m not crazy tour”. After laying down my proposal, he responded somberly, “I wish I had the balls to do that when I was your age.” Seeing the clear astonishment in my eyes, Micah reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin, knowing nothing of the joke, and flipped it…it landed New Zealand.

With that I was off to fly halfway around the world on the literal flip of a coin.  After being saved by my mother’s “pack rat” super powers at 2 am the day of my flight when all my stuff didn’t fit in my bags, and being saved a second time by Tomi at the airport, while she laughed at me hysterically because my bags were too heavy, I found myself drinking ginger beer (which I discovered is definitely not root beer) on the, at that time, longest continuous flight over the Pacific Ocean. I had two nights booked in a hostel and I didn’t even know what a hostel was. As I looked out the airplane window, I realized my first act of faith upon landing would be lugging my now 3 very heavy bags alone.

But amongst the things I didn’t know, I did not realize that everything about my life was about to change for ever. When I finally did land in New Zealand, I would learn that I had, without knowing it, become a “backpacker.” “Backpacker” I would learn is a broad term for people who strike out solo, independently, hauling their earthly possessions often in fewer bags than I had at the moment as they wander foreign lands. The fellow backpackers I met and the Holy Spirit would become my guides on this adventure into the unknown.

Fast forward, after nearly a year in New Zealand and 5 years later, I had now traveled extensively across the US and to 15 different countries mostly alone. Becoming a backpacker was more than just one trip, it had become a lifestyle, part of who I was. On this particular trip, I found my way to a hostel in Jerusalem, Israel. As I opened the door, words across a mural on the wall welcomed me with the phrase, “Abraham, the first backpacker.” 

It struck to the heart. When I took that first international flight, I didn’t just cross over the Pacific, it was a spiritual crossing over as well. While Abraham’s journey may have been physically shorter, his crossing over of the Euphrates River not only transformed his own life, but entire course of history. On one side, the familiar side, he was the son of a wealthy idol maker, on the other he was a no one, a wanderer, a nomad in a foreign land in pursuit of a foreign god. He would live in contrast to the culture and society around him relying only on his faith in the One True God to guide him through the unknown. As others began to take notice of Abraham and his peeps, they coined a term, “ivri” (ivrim plural) which means “one who traverses” or “one who crosses over.” He truly was the first backpacker.  

Yet the same God who called Abram, or as we know him now Abraham, calls many of us too to strike out alone, away from all that is familiar, to become the other, the wander, the foreigner, the outcast, the anomaly, to become ivrim, those who traverse. IVRI Media is about sharing the journeys of ivrim and their discoveries as we adventure alone together.  Our hope is that by telling our stories, like Abraham, we will together change history.