In “Travel as a Political Act” Steves makes clear that there’s a lot more to his passion for travel than the mere novelty of eating local delicacies or visiting ancient historical sites. For him, travel is a way of connecting people across the otherwise seemingly insurmountable chasms of culture, politics, and religion – the very factors at the center of so much global turmoil.

With chapters focusing on various parts of Western Europe as well as Iran, Turkey, Morocco, El Salvador and the former Yugoslavia, the book more or less takes as its credo Mark Twain’s famous words from Innocents Abroad: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

Steves says his thinking about “travel as a political act” is the culmination of his decades of experience, but that it really came to fruition in the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11. The events of that terrible day made clear that Americans could no longer maintain the myth of isolation or immunity from the world’s events. Rather, only by traveling and experiencing the vibrancy and heartache of the world around them could Americans build bridges with vastly different cultures.

A self-described Lutheran and political liberal, Steves wears his convictions and opinions on his sleeve, but he does so with a refreshing degree of humility and grace. While not everyone will agree with his conclusions on matters like the legalization of drugs and prostitution in Europe, or the role of the United States in El Salvador’s civil war, one would be hard-pressed not to respect his intellectual process as he wrestles through minefields of controversial and complex real-world themes.

“Travel,” Steves writes, “has taught me the fun in having my cultural furniture rearranged and my ethnocentric self-assuredness walloped. It has humbled me, enriched my life, and tuned me in to a rapidly changing world. And for that, I am thankful.”

While Steves has dedicated much of his life to international travel and to encouraging others to do the same, he says that “the happiest day of any trip is the day I come home.” Indeed, travel not only nurtures an appreciation for the rich cultural diversity in our world, but very often leads to gaining a new appreciation for our own homeland.

But that doesn’t mean blindly accepting everything our nation and our neighbors do. “Holding our country to a high standard and searching for ways to better live up to its lofty ideals is not ‘America-bashing,’” Steves says. “It’s good citizenship.”

Note: this book review was written for the ePistle, a weekly online publication from Evangelicals for Social Action and is shared here with permission.

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Photo credit: Flickr user laparisienneavelo

Guatemala is pretty small, as far as countries go, but as Nobel Prize-winning novelist Miguel Angel Asturias once commented, if the country were ironed out flat, it would be bigger than China. In the middle of those highlands in western Guatemala is Lake Atitlan, which Aldous Huxley called the most beautiful lake in the world.

In this piece, Sundeen describes how outsiders’ perceptions of Guatemala have changed over time, and though serious problems persist elsewhere in the country, the rural highlands are much safer now than during the civil war. He chronicles a three-day trek he took through an outfit called Quetzaltrekkers, “a nonprofit that operates a school and a youth home with the funds it raises through these trips.” I thought this paragraph was especially poignant:

I guess I expected resentment toward the unending stream of foreign do-gooders — from missionaries to the Peace Corps to Quetzaltrekkers — who can create one set of problems as they address another. I was surprised by Don Pedro’s earnest appreciation: the closest translation of his words was, “We love tourists here.” And I suppose that’s what I’m looking for when I ramble across other countries — not obliterating my own identity or merging with the locals, but just that thrill of not knowing what will happen next.

When planning your next get-away, why not consider a place like Guatemala? You can truly experience another culture and contribute to a local economy at the same time. You might even manage to escape some of the crowds and all the tourist kitsch that will be just fine without you.

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Over the span of a month and a half Veasna and I would have long conversations as he expertly maneuvered us in and out of rush hour traffic between my apartment and the office where I worked across town. What I remember most about those conversations was the way that stereotypes – both his and mine – were constantly being challenged.

We talked about his view of the world, rooted in Buddhism, and mine, centered on the person of Christ. Because Cambodia is almost entirely Buddhist, I was surprised to learn that Veasna sometimes attended a Christian church on the weekends. I’d somehow concluded that church hopping was a uniquely American pastime. He seemed surprised to learn that “American� and “Christian� aren’t necessarily the same thing, and listened intently as I attempted to explain my belief that the way of Jesus is not only quite different, but in fact far better and more life-giving than the hedonism, the materialism and the addiction to whatever is big, powerful, shiny or new, all of which my culture as a whole does not question.

We talked about our families. He told me about his sister, a widow, who was dying of AIDS. He told me he worried about her kids and that he wanted, more than anything, to be able to provide for them. He told me that in order to get a good job, he needed to improve his English. I remember both his pride and his gratitude the day he enrolled in an English certificate program, made possible by the steady work my commute provided him.

One afternoon, Veasna sent me a text message saying he wouldn’t be able to pick me up. Something had happened, he said, and he’d have to explain it to me the next morning. When he pulled up to my apartment the next day and slowly got off his bike, he was visibly shaken. His huge smile had vanished and he wasn’t making eye contact. His fists were clenched as he told me about the police officer who had found him waiting outside the very hostel where we had met not long before. Without warning, the officer had kicked him in the shins and hit him over the head for allegedly disturbing some tourists. These tourists, horrified by what they had just witnessed, insisted he had done nothing wrong, and the officer, without apology, turned and walked away.

Returning to the hostel was no longer an option, Veasna told me, even though it would cripple his ability to find customers who needed rides. I silently wondered which was worse for him, whether it was the fear or the shame. Either way, the damage had been done, and I’ll never forget what happened next.

Standing there with his fists clenched, Veasna looked up at me for the first time. He told me with a look of determination that if he had a gun in that moment he would have pulled the trigger. Once again he returned his gaze to the ground and took a deep breath, perhaps considering the overwhelming and terrifying weight of his words. He then added that he was glad he didn’t have a gun, because his sister and her family needed him in their lives.

I was at a loss for words. Veasna had told me his painful story, something he didn’t even want his family to know. I told him that what the police officer had done was wrong. I affirmed his courage and restraint and his thinking of others even in the middle of it all. And I reminded him that he was in good company; Jesus too had turned the other cheek. Jesus too had suffered. Jesus had been there with him.

When I got on a plane to fly home, the story hadn’t come to a neat conclusion. Veasna and his family were still poor. His sister was still dying of AIDS. As far as I could tell, Veasna was still Buddhist. And the police officer? He almost certainly got away with his crime. But Veasna and I have stayed in touch, albeit sporadically, and he often closes his emails by thanking me for my friendship and the kindness I showed him. I do likewise.

Before, I had held simplistic stereotypes of Cambodians and Buddhists and moto taxi drivers. In Veasna I saw through the stereotypes and recognized a person, an irreplaceable image bearer of God, which no stereotype can contain.

This post originally appeared over at Not Like Me, a blog based on a book by the same title by a dude named Eric Bryant.

The first thing I noticed upon arriving in Managua last Sunday night was that there were big illuminated Christmas trees in all the traffic roundabouts. This struck me as odd, since it was March.

The next morning I mentioned these trees to my taxi driver, who told me it’s political propaganda - a way of saying that with the Sandinistas in power, it’s Christmas year-round. That’s debatable, I suppose, but one of the other things that struck me about Managua was the ubiquitous graffiti. It was everywhere. And remarkably, everywhere the graffiti said the same thing: Viva Daniel! Viva La Revolucion!

Welcome to Nicaragua.

My three days in the country were mostly spent visiting different ministries. Monday I visited a home for abandoned kids with disabilities. Tuesday I went to the Managua garbage dump, La Chureca, with a pastor who was on a first name basis with many slum residents.

Wednesday I headed down to Diriamba, about 40 kilometers to the south, where a friend of a friend is helping to start the first free public library in the region.

What I saw and experienced can be easily overlooked by many who live and travel in Nicaragua: the orphanage is outside of Managua, down a quiet dirt road; the garbage dump, is, well, a garbage dump; and the folks making the library happen struck me as humble, genuine and fairly unassuming. Yet this is what the coming Kingdom looks like, I think: mustard seeds sprouting up where you wouldn’t necessarily think to look.

So, what do I make of Nicaragua? Well, oddly enough, I was surprised at how much it reminded me of Cambodia, of all places. Not Costa Rica, but Cambodia. It probably had to do with being hot and flat, with a lot of tuktuks and palm trees and remnants of civil wars in the form of dilapidated buildings.

Of course, Nicaragua is a large country, and the parts I saw were not representative. Tourists apparently do whatever they can to stay out of Managua, making a beeline instead for places like Granada and Leon and Lake Nicaragua and San Juan del Sur and even Bluefields. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to see some of them for myself. But in the meantime I’m grateful for these glimpses of the Kingdom - sneak peaks the beach-goers might not be privy to.