Sometimes it’s not miles that measure how far we’ve traveled from home. It might be the circumstances that caused us to pack our bags and begin the journey in the first place. Whatever and wherever you’ve traveled, how did you get there? Was it a lifelong dream; a bucket list adventure? Was it right around the corner, or the next state over? Every journey begins with a move in a specific direction. What was yours?
My furthest journey began with a prayer. I would listen to my mother crying in her homesickness each time she received a red, white and blue airmail envelope from Okinawa, her faraway homeland. I knew she missed her family there, particularly her mother, and would have loved to visit. My parents just didn’t have the funds to purchase airfare to fly so far. So, with childlike faith, I began to pray each night that God would provide a miracle so that my mom could go home to see her parents. I had learned the Bible verse in the gospel of Matthew that said, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
I began to pray and ask God to move a mountain and provide money so that my mom could buy a plane ticket to Okinawa. I knew it would take faith and it would take no less than a miracle. But, God had promised.
When I was 15 years old, God moved that mountain in ways I could not have imagined. My dad had retired from the Air Force as a master sargent in 1962. Retired military personnel and their families were allowed to fly internationally, on standby, for a minimal cost. So, in 1972, our entire family of five, flew from southern California to Okinawa, Japan for under $50.
We spent two weeks exploring the island, spending time with our Japanese family, meeting our mother’s friends, and visiting the places our parents had once lived and worked and enjoyed. We saw water buffalo pulling plows through rice paddies. We saw origami flags decorating hillsides and learned they were tombs. We heard a sweet sounding tune coming from the street below our host apartment and learned it was the garbage collector, not the ice cream vendor like they have in the U. S.!
It was an unforgettable, magical time, in a breathtakingly beautiful place.
This was my furthest journey – a journey across a vast ocean; a journey of discovery as I met my grandparents and visited my birthplace; but most of all, this was a journey of great faith as I learned a lifelong truth — that faith the size of a mustard seed can, indeed, move mountains, valleys and oceans to take you to places you never thought you’d go. And, I learned that God is faithful to prayers of the faith-filled.
My Mother and Grandmother
The Honeycomb 
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