When the Heart Calls .... Answer

I was raised to be a good girl, dutifully putting others’ needs first and ignoring my

own, but deep inside, I had a rebellious streak and a wanderlust. I longed to break free,

to do something daring. But what? A busy schedule with five children and a husband to care for, a full-time job, along with community and church responsibilities left no time for my dreams.

Besides, we had no money for indulgences. My husband was working long hours to get

his fledgling business up and running, and it drained every penny that didn’t pay the

bills. Still, I made a commitment to myself to take a tiny step forward.

Two years later, after scrimping and saving, I had three hundred dollars and a

burning desire to travel abroad. Despite all the sacrifices I’d made, I didn’t even have

enough for a plane ticket. How many more years would it take? By the time I saved

enough to pay today’s rates for a ticket, the prices would rise again. I wanted to go now.

I’ve often found that speaking a deep yearning aloud to God and the Universe sets

miracles in motion. And I discovered mine. A few days later, I read an article about

traveling as a courier. If I agreed to go luggage-free, the sponsoring company would pay

for my flight so they could use the cargo space to transport goods to another country. I

could carry only a backpack and had to agree to stay ten days.

I had a week’s vacation time, but if I combined a national holiday with two

weekends off, I could manage. Surprisingly, my husband was supportive, even though it

meant he had to shoulder all the responsibilities of the children and their activities along

with his grueling hours of work. My children thought the idea was cool.

With the courier service, you could choose where you wanted to go if your

schedule was flexible, but with my time restrictions, I could only travel standby. That

meant I had to go wherever they sent me. I had no idea whether I’d head to a tropical

destination or an arctic climate. With only a backpack, I couldn’t prepare for multiple

options. I stuffed in necessities, two warm outfits, a sleeveless dress, and a tiny pouch

with a raincoat (which turned out to be a godsend).

Several weeks later, I boarded a bus to New York clutching the address of a

courier company. If they didn’t have an opening when I arrived, I’d have wasted all my

vacation time.

My heart sank when I reached the door of the rundown building and climbed

three narrow flights of stairs. With a broken elevator and peeling linoleum, the business

didn’t appear to be doing well. What if this was a scam? I opened the door of a tiny office packed with hopeful faces. After I signed in and showed my documents, I took the last seat in the cramped room. One by one, people’s names were called until only two of us remained.

The man at the desk fiddled with paperwork and avoided our eyes. If I didn’t take

off in the next few hours, I’d have to leave for home.

The phone rang. The man murmured into it, jotted some notes, and hung up.

“Switzerland,” he announced. I’d always wanted to travel there, but before I could open my mouth, the young man beside me jumped up and raced across the room. “I’ll take it.”

All my joy and excitement leaked out.

“Sorry,” the man mouthed to me as he directed the young man to a back room to

complete the process. Seconds ticked into minutes. Minutes ticked into an hour. Two hours. I fidgeted in my chair and swallowed back disappointment. I’d need to leave for home soon.

Please, Lord, help them find a flight for me.

Then the phone rang. I scooted to the edge of my seat. Would it be the call?

Across the room, the man’s pen scritched on paper. The phone clunked down.

The man broke into a smile. “Ready to go to Denmark?”

Denmark? What did I know about Denmark?

Not much, but who cares? I jumped up and raced across the room. I barely heard

the instructions. All I remembered was that I had to disembark in Amsterdam, meet a

man who’d take some paintings for a museum (and me) through customs, and then re-

board the plane for the flight to Denmark. In ten days, I needed to be at the airport three

hours early for the return flight to be escorted through customs with a medical

experiment headed to a New York hospital.

Ten minutes later, I was weaving through New York traffic in a cargo van beside a

tattooed hulk with piercings in every conceivable part of his body, being thrown forward

every time he slammed on the brakes. Rap music assaulted my ears, drowning out all

the honking and cursing as the driver swerved from lane to lane, nearly sideswiping cars

and buses. Shakily, I wondered if I’d make it to the airport in one piece.

Another thought crossed my mind. I’d trusted my life to this stranger. What if he

turned out to be a thug? What if he wasn’t taking me to the airport after all?

To my relief, we arrived at the airport just in time for the flight. And soon, I was

winging my way across the Atlantic.

At first, I was too excited to sleep. Eventually, exhaustion caught up with me, and

I conked out. I’d barely slept an hour before the plane landed. Groggy, I stumbled beside

my guide through back corridors far from the other tourists queueing up for customs.

He pushed a cart holding carefully wrapped paintings. The artist in me smiled. Well

worth giving up my cargo space.

I was too tired to find out what I’d be transporting to Denmark. All I wanted to do

was sleep. After I landed, I paid a too-large chunk of my money for a night in a private

house in Copenhagen. My hazy memories of that visit are of a tiny, blue-tiled bathroom

and shower, a hard bed, a deep sleep, and a delicious home-cooked breakfast.

I couldn’t afford to stay there, though, or I’d run out of money. After thanking my

hostess, I headed for the nearest hostel. The price fit my budget, but I was assigned to a

room with four bunk beds and seven rowdy young men in their twenties. One boy kindly

gave up his lower bunk for me, but they didn’t seem too happy to have an old lady

putting a damper on their partying. I assured them I had teens and could sleep through

anything. And I did.

For the next nine days, clad in my clear plastic rain poncho and a thick wool

sweater I picked up in a thrift store, I did a whirlwind tour of Denmark using my

Copenhagen Card. I got lost on trains going in the wrong direction, wandered around

small towns, toured museums, castles, and ancient houses. I even spent a day in

Sweden. And, for the first time ever, I celebrated my birthday alone, eating a Danish

pastry while calling collect to talk to my family for five minutes. It was the most glorious

birthday I’d ever had.

This time, when I returned to the airport, I felt like a seasoned courier as my

contact escorted me through customs with refrigerated boxes marked with red crosses

and the words “Fragile” and “This Side Up” stamped all over them. And I slept the entire

flight home.

My family all came to the bus stop to pick me up, and everyone hugged me for a

long time—including the teens who’d barely tolerated being around their parents when

I’d left. They even admitted they’d missed me. That magic lasted for several weeks.

I’d gotten so much joy from my trip of a lifetime, but the biggest benefit was how

much courage I’d gained.

For a shy person like me to expand my horizons and face so many new things, as well as being forced to communicate with strangers (even sometimes in sign language in the small villages), had been soul-opening.

I always look to that trip as the gateway to expanding my horizons, and no matter

how many unusual adventures I had after that (sleeping on a heating grate outside the

Marseilles airport while sharing my quilt with a homeless man, climbing Mount Halla

without water on hot summer day and discovering the Koreans’ kindness, eating deep-

fried water beetles in China while helping friends adopt a daughter, riding in a van tilted

sideways on rutted Kenyan roads to reach an isolated village to help with a school

feeding program, learning to tie rebar under the broiling Dominican sun, dancing with

the Maasai beside towering termite mounds—to name just a few), Denmark stands out

as a shining star.

I’m so glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to do something daring and stretch

my boundaries, but even more importantly, that trip became my legacy for future

generations. All of my children chose to study abroad. And my heart swelled with pride

when one son left to teach English in Korea. Another son travels regularly into the

jungles of war-torn countries for Doctors Without Borders. Even my grandchildren have

the travel bug.

One trip to Denmark rippled out in so many ways. I’ll always be glad I took a

chance on my dreams. It made me realize nothing is out of reach, no matter our

circumstances or our age. We can always find a way to do whatever our heart calls us to

do. I’m so glad I listened to that call. It enriched my life in so many ways.

What is your heart calling you to do?

A true story, written by Laurie J Edwards.