By Erica Froese
She’s rarely in one place for more than six months before the travel itch takes Erica Froese on to new adventures. An unexpected encounter in post-Katrina New Orleans then showed her there’s purpose to her wanderlust.
It started when I was two. My parents and aunt took me to EXPO ’86 in Vancouver and so, truly, part of this unquenchable desire to travel is their doing.
I grew up in a town of 1,200 people in the southwest area of Manitoba. After high school graduation in 2002, I received my first one-way ticket out of that small town. I went to Germany to go to Bible school and got a lot more than an education. I got the travel bug.
Now, several years later, I’ve lived in four major cities in the world. I’ve been to over twenty countries. I have crisscrossed the United States.
What can I say? I love traveling. Meeting person after person, encountering culture after culture, is intoxicating.
During my year in Germany, it only took nine months for me to see most of Western Europe. I would have seen more, but funds ran out.
Guatemala, Africa and the Middle East followed.
Encountering Purpose in New Places
My passion for travel drives my parents nuts sometimes. No one can keep track of me and I am generally in a new country or place every six months.
Traveling brings me a sense of worth in the world and my experiences are unending.
I have ministered to the poor, sick, and injured in Guatemala, played soccer with children everywhere and even peed on a friend’s foot on a deserted island to soothe jellyfish stings. I’ve swum in almost every major body of water.
My life goal is to hit every continent without regrets. I am like a nomad. When I try and explain my life to people that’s the only thing I can think of. I am a member of a people group having no permanent abode. I travel from place to place to find fresh pasture. The bug just won’t go away!
Why New Orleans changed me
Most recently I ventured back to New Orleans, this time with a group of 12 Trinity Western University (TWU) students. The first time I went to New Orleans was a month after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. The devastation was so intense, I couldn’t help but go back. Two months later, in Feb 2006, I went to New Orleans for the second time. That trip pretty much changed my worldview.
I had already been to 15 other countries, but there was a moment in New Orleans when all these life experiences began to make sense.
I remember the day clearly. We were gutting the home of a police officer that had been hit hard in the lower ninth ward. I was ripping down some of the moldy drywall. What I found attached to the drywall took my breath away: a frayed piece of paper stapled to the wall. Amidst the debris and other unsalvageable family possessions I found a note written by a child. It read: “Dear God, Please help my mom get off drugs.” Signed by the police officer’s grandchildren.
Tears continue to spill from my eyes even years later as I recall this story.
It broke my heart. Knowing that I was actually helping people in the midst of their struggles, knowing their faces and their plea with God, blew my mind.
Getting to meet and minister to this family was such a blessing. I told the police officer’s son: “Don’t give up on God because he hasn’t given up on you.” He looked a little confused, but tears started dripping down his cheeks.
Finding that letter and then later meeting the children who wrote, was one of the most powerful moments in my life. I still have the note tucked away in my memory chest.
I knew then my nomadic travels were helping to influence and change people’s lives. No cost comes close to the reward of this kind of influence and impact.
Dear Erica, did you find the mother who was on drugs?