Halfway

Today marks our final full day in Fiji. I am writing this in a cheap apartment I found online and paid upfront in cash, an unusual move for me. We can tell the apartment is near the airport by the bombing-of-Dresden feeling we get every hour or so, but it’s temporary.

We have been travelling for nearly six months and we are only getting started. Let’s recap.

We flew into Honolulu late on December 31, 2025 and were welcomed by the craziest fireworks display we’ve ever seen. The transition from Canada to Hawaii was stressful. Our house was left in mild chaos when we left and the renters noticed things we missed. That stung, since we are tidy people, but in hindsight, expecting a spotless exit while scrambling before a year-long trip was unrealistic. At the end of the day, our property manager fixed everything and we pay the cost associated with that fixing over the course of the lease.

You see. It all worked out.

But waking up in Hawaii to the sounds of a screaming child (which later I found out was a rooster) with adrenaline still pumping through my body absolutely forced my brain out of its comfort zone. Any zone really. I stumbled out of the Airbnb and down the driveway to the ocean. And blam! The awesome reality of the situation, the situation being that we were starting the grandest of adventures for our family, hit me for the first time. The sun was rising and the palm trees were swaying to the sound of waves on the rocks.

Hawaii was a month of fun going to beaches, going on hikes, horseback riding, and exploring famous landmarks.

Then off to New Zealand.

The YWAM Family DTS in Matamata, New Zealand was a late but necessary addition to the mega trip. It provided some solidity in the mush of the rest of the year, an island of stability in an ocean of moving pieces.

We needed that chunk of time to know we would be on someone else’s schedule and not responsible for making every meal or charting the course of every single day.

We definitely got that. And more.

Exploring New Zealand was not our main goal. We explored regardless. Hobbiton was amazing. We learned what biscuiting was, fished with friends, and discovered the famous Wai-o-Tapu hot pools for ourselves. But the lecture phase of the Family DTS, which lasts 12 weeks, was focused primarily on God things. That means that we went to a lot of lectures, attended a lot of prayer meetings, and sang a lot of worship songs. “Did I ever get tired of all that Christian stuff?” Yes, I absolutely did. But the natural boredom that crept in at times was surpassed by the life-changing and marriage-shifting experiences that punctuated those 12 weeks. I am not the same person I was before the lecture phase.

Then blam! Fiji! Again, we found ourselves in an island paradise. The initial, superficial similarities to Hawaii wore off quickly. Fiji is a foreign land. Truly foreign. For people who love to travel, “foreign” is music to our ears. You can read about my impressions of Fiji here.

We leave this complex, wonderful country tomorrow and we are filled with gratitude for our time here.

Fiji changed me deeply. I am leaving enriched. The Wanderers are especially fond of Suva. Living there, we avoided all the resorts and nonsense that characterize so much of the other side of the island. The Fiji we know is one unknown to the Western mind. And for that I am truly grateful.

Back to NZ for a couple of weeks and then on to our next location.

Japan. I have no idea what to expect in Tokyo.

Dawson