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Writer's pictureAiden Columbia

The Backstory


Since I can remember, I've always had an obsession with maps, geography, and the idea of being in a foreign place unlike home. When I would go on a family vacation in the United States as a child, I would pack my bag days in advance. I just couldn't wait for the adventure of leaving home and experiencing something new.


Fast forward to my junior year of college at Grand Canyon University in Arizona. I decided I needed a break from the rat race of education and work. Everyone around me seemed to be following the cookie cutter path of college, career, marriage, family, safety, and comfort.


I, on the other hand, dreamed of living a life against the grain. A life of adventure. And one that made a real difference.


I decided to take a year off from school to go travel and be apart of humanitarian endeavors. I went to India with some college students to serve an organization called Momentum Global who has created high quality education for impoverished children in the slums and farmlands of rural India. In India, I was struck with a life changing epiphany...


We look different, we speak different, we believe different, we have different socioeconomic backgrounds. BUT, we are all the same on the inside. We ALL need love, joy, peace, and the saving grace of God just the same. At this point, the whole world broke wide open to me. All people are just like you and I. Under the same sun and under one God.


I then went to a Christian bible school in Hawai'i. Three months in training, then three months on outreach in Papua New Guinea. Upon returning home to Hawai'i from PNG, I formulated a plan to finish college and ride the PanAmerican Highway.


Fast forward to April 2024, I graduated college with an entrepreneurial business degree and began working incredibly hard to make the money in order to embark on this journey. I tirelessly worked manual labor jobs. I then returned to India to lead a team. Then went straight to Alaska to be a commercial fisherman at sea. Next, I bought a motorcycle in Anchorage and rode it for two weeks all the way home to Colorado.


In Colorado, I worked as a ranch hand for two months and began preparation for the REAL journey.



And here we are...

I leave in one week. A world of unknowns before me. Many sleepless nights worrying about if I'm prepared enough or about what could go wrong. But thats where everyone gets stuck. When you go skydiving the scariest part is looking out of the plane over the horizon and your nervous system tries to tell you "DANGER DANGER" and you think of all the what ifs.

And then you jump...

You realize the thrill and majesty of such a thing. The beauty of doing something someone else would never dare. And you feel absolutely ALIVE. And so you are...








ALIVE


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Kayla Whitley
Kayla Whitley
Oct 30

Proud of you <3

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