[TEAMspinella] Face time--how much is it worth?

We're in the middle of a three week trip that has includes visits to Hong Kong, a city in the country next to Hong Kong, and Maryland, near Washington DC. We put these trips together because every year for quite a few we have had two events on opposite sides of the world scheduled either the same week or back to back. This year we dealt with that by going straight from one to the other--Friday we woke up in Hong Kong, jumped in a taxi before 8, got on a plane at 11, and flew 16 hours to get off the plane in Chicago. We went through immigration and customs, got on another plane to Washington DC, got picked up and driven through rush hour traffic to Silver Spring, and sat down to a late dinner with some new friends (approximately 24 hours after we left Hong Kong that morning.) Two of our bags caught up with us about 4am the next morning.

Thinking people have asked, "Why do we do this?" By that, I mean more than one, but mainly Laura :-). She asked me that actually somewhere over Vancouver, Canada, I think. The airplanes fly great circle routes, you know, so we also went over Alaska, or at least that's what the map in between the movies on the 747 showed. Shout out to any Canadians! (Well, okay, and Chicagoans.)

With the eerie journey between time zones and jet lag and the drone of four very large jet engines, I'm not sure there is any answer to this question, so basically I punted. Still Laura's question has stuck with me. I can't really write stories about the folks we spend time with on this sort of trip. (We each have the right to tell our own stories, right?) But I thought maybe you might wonder about this too.

We're basically pretty frugal people, so we think about things like this. After all, the Spinella fam's three rules of financial wellness are 1) Shop around, 2) Wait, and 3) Don't buy. To make this trip we just spent more on travel costs than we make in a month. (Math majors: monthly take home pay around $3000; cost for air fare, limited hotels, and visas for this trip close to $4000, after some shopping around.)

My answer to the question is ultimately in the subject line. We don't know for sure which conversations, connections, and shared experiences will be worth the cost, of both our time and our expenses, but we invest both, with hope, in order to get face to face with some valuable and precious people. And yes, we do get sticker shock sometimes (well, a lot) when we see what it all costs. People like us carry a heavy sense of stewardship because we know the dollars we spend come from ministry partners who are making hard choices of their own.

So my takeaways, at least for today:

1) It's okay to question whether it's worth the cost. We do that all the time. I think it's normal.

2) It's okay not only to invest so much ourselves, but to invite others to join us in investing in something that we believe makes a difference.

3) If you want to know how much we're investing or where we're putting the money, it's totally okay to ask us that. anytime. After all, it fits with our three rules of financial wellness.

And did we have some great conversations? Yes, we did, at least so far as we can tell. And we tried to do our part to schedule them, but also waited on the father to bring them about. We did that in Asia, and now we're trusting that to happen here in Maryland. One highlight I can tell you--we participated in a consultation on counseling in the Chinese world, including some presentations I did on family theology and core values (I can send you an old paper if you like that we used, in English or now Chinese.) This included time with people we have known for years, including some we have mentored or coached in ministry. But what's more, it included someone new to us--who is actively working toward becoming the next director of the Center for Counseling and Growth in Taiwan. The challenges for that ministry remain great, but it was great to be able to listen, share, and commit to the father things yet to come.

All the best, from the far side of somewhere, Steve and Laura

PS And we really look forward to the next time we can get face to face with you--even if you're not in Hong Kong or Maryland! We think it's worth a lot.

Steve and Laura Spinella

street: 1930 Springcrest Rd, CO Springs 80920

mail: 9685 Otero Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80920

Steve cell 719.355.4809, Laura cell 832.755.4261
TEAM, PO Box 969, Wheaton, IL 60187, 800 343-3144
<spinella@alumni.rice.edu> <lauraspinella@alumni.rice.edu>

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