Through the Door: A Look Back At Wonder Voyage’s First Year

Wonder Voyage is celebrating 25 years of connecting people with wonder this year. Our blog will be filled with stories of our staff and partners around the globe. We can’t wait to connect you with the stories that make up the heartbeat of our organization. To get us started, we are looking at the birth of Wonder Voyage way back in 1998.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – Bilbo, The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien.

One of my favorite things about the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings is that they don’t want to be heroes. They’re either too old or too young, the journey too far, and the danger too great. They use these and other perfectly sane reasons to stay home. I also love how the Hobbits still long for a little adventure in spite of their comfortable routines. They’re just like us. And they go on to become truly heroic once the right situations come along to push them out the door.

Though Shawn Small, Executive Director of Wonder Voyage, would not fashion himself a hero (and certainly not a Hobbit), his journey started a little bit like The Lord of the Rings. Wonder Voyage was founded by desire and a little push.

It was 1998. Shawn had just turned thirty and realized he had no idea where his life was headed. He was comfortable and safe but hungered for something more. His only recourse was to give himself completely to God. Shawn’s prayer, captured in one of his many journals, is intense: in it, he asks God for brokenness, avows submission, and allows for divine direction. It draws heavily from Psalm 51, in which the psalmist begs for God to recreate his entire existence. The entry ends with the innocuous and sincere request “to open the doors of adventure.”

At this point, Shawn’s experience in leading groups of travelers was slowly growing: as a student minister, he had guided a couple of trips to New Orleans, Ireland, and a few other places. The desire to create a pilgrimage company started bubbling to the surface in his subconscious- though it was still a dream without form. There was no way Shawn could have seen the results of his words, but as he concluded his prayer, God started planting the tiny seeds of Wonder Voyage.

But before it could begin to form, Shawn needed to be out the door. He’d expressed his desire for adventure (though perhaps he didn’t know it), but Shawn was still far too comfortable.

So God started to push. Shawn attributes the loss of his job as a pastor as motivating the process: “It took about a year. I was just stubborn enough to hang on that long. First, they took my benefits, then cut my pay, and then they started calling me into the office [. . .] Finally, they fired me. If they hadn’t done that, I don’t think I would have ever left.” God continued to push and push, answering Shawn’s prayer and strongly inviting him to have a real adventure.

The organization that started with an open-ended prayer now leads dozens of trips per year, employs several full-time staff members, and many volunteers and supporters. We are born out of a desire to have some real adventures and, in many cases, a healthy shove from God out of our comfortable Hobbit homes. We have stepped onto the road, and God has swept us to many unexpected and beautiful places. Shawn’s prayer started this journey, and it is our continuing prayer for God to meet us wherever He wants.