I Want To Be Your Guide: South Dakota and Alabama

With our 50 States of Wonder initiative, our Guides are eager to lead trips. We asked several to pitch which trips they’d like to lead. We will feature two a week for the next three weeks. This week, we introduce you to South Dakota and Alabama.

Brett Boyd: South Dakota

Brett Boyd served as a youth minister for years and honed his guide skills leading mission trips around the world. He is a person called to the heights.  He believes the hills are alive with the sound of music and it is his job to find out where that music is coming from.  If you love adventure, Brett is the guide for you.

I love when the lands transform from the plains into great heights.  South Dakota has diverse terrains. From the flat plains to the desolation of the badlands to the Black Hills in the east, it is easy for me to hear the heartbeat of God in those places.  There is a connection there to the great land we live in that started with the Native Americans.  I want to walk my team through gold mining towns, live in the history of the early explorers, and visit one of the most beautiful mountain lakes you will find.  Imagine hiking to the top of a grand rise where you can see four states at the same time. Who knows? I might even take you to a monolith in Wyoming. A two-state adventure for the price of one!  Come join me on an adventure to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Justin McGee: Alabama

Justin McGee is the philosopher of Wonder Voyage. His deep, thoughtful insights earmark the voyages he leads. Both easy going and adventurous, Justin is a calming presence to any team he leads. Running his own company, Incarnational Coaching, gives him a special skill set to speak into the lives of leaders. Let Justin lead your group in a heart journey that will challenge them to seek truth and live lives founded on love.

Places are filled with contrast and paradoxes — opposites held in tension with one another. There is light, and there is dark. There is joy, and there is pain. Alabama epitomizes the intermingling of these contrasts. One moment you can find yourself exploring the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains or swimming along the white sand beaches of Gulf Shores, encountering the grandeur, beauty, and rest of God. The next moment you are remembering the people and the stories of those who fought for the restoration of their humanity and dignity in Birmingham, or you are walking the Edmund Pettus bridge Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis traversed in Selma. Your imagination is inflamed as you are forced to reckon with your own place in the story of the state. This is the type of pilgrimage I want to go on — journeying with fellow wayfarers, remembering a God who transcends the pain of this world, yet all the while being called to see its brokenness clearly, so we can go home and be people of reconciliation in our communities. Will you join me?