I have a great app on my cell phone called “Fighter Verse.” My memory verses for this week are Romans 12:11-13.
Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
This is exactly what home exchangers do: Practice hospitality.
As a real estate broker, I have often quoted the mantra–and you all know it–location, location, location. The value of the home you are looking at depends on its location. In the world of home exchanges, the value of your experience depends on a different mantra–flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.
The best home exchange belongs to those who are flexible and creative. So often, those who are flexible are rewarded with special serendipitous adventures and chance of a lifetime opportunities.
You will be amazed by the kind of wonderful growing experience that can come your way because you swapped homes with someone in a town you have never before heard of. A small town may be totally unfamiliar to you, but just a short commute from Copenhagen–and your experience in that community may provide you the best of both worlds.
To make the flexibility mantra work, all you have to do is take a moment to look up unfamiliar city names for available home exchange listings on a map. If everyone who traveled confined their travels only to Paris, what a sad commentary on the imaginative powers of world travelers!
Many of us are baby boomers and now is the time of life when we need to re-ignite the creative streak from our youthful past. Let’s see and experience the world as travelers, not just as tourists. We are not consigned to the role of travel consumer. We have a choice. We can be travel connoisseurs. We can discover and savor the many far-flung corners of spaceship earth. By taking advantage of home exchanges, we can travel more often than we ever thought was possible. The only out of the ordinary living expense for our travels may be the price of the airline ticket, train ticket, bus ticket, or fuel we need to get from here to there.
Flexibility is important when it comes to the dates–as well as for the destination–for your home exchange. When you open up your flexibility about the date for your home swap, you can add tremendous value to your actual home swap adventure. Make your box of available location and dates too small–and maybe it would be better for you to just stay in a hotel. But, keep in this in mind: after your first home exchange, you’ll realize how narrow and limited was the experience of staying in a hotel. To live as a local, not just as a tourist, holds the promise of so much more–more fun, more meaningfulness, more to remember and treasure in days and years to come.
Go ahead. Stretch yourself. Be open to where–and when–you are willing to travel. Remember, the best home exchange belongs to those guided by the home exchange mantra–flexibility, flexibility, flexibililty!
Recently, I attended the funeral for a woman who died at the age of 91. She requested that the pastor read First Corinthians 13 during her funeral service. She wanted everyone to know that life is all about love.
When I returned home, I re-read First Corinthians 13. As I think about traveling and connecting with people around the world, I believe these verses about love speak to me. I want to see the world and connect with other Christians. Love and trust are the basic ingredients for a Christian home exchange.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV):
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
“Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” When I talk with people about doing a home exchange, I often hear people comment about their “small cottage” and wonder out loud, “Why would anyone want to swap homes with me?” I try explain to them that a Christian home exchange is not a competition where people compare their home with someone else’s home. People share their homes and communities, of whatever size and shape they are. You might have a castle in the mountains that you are willing to exchange for a small condo in the city or cabin in a rural setting–and it is all a fair exchange.
“Love always protects, always trusts.” Many times those who have never exchanged homes worry about their possessions. Other Christians who live by the Word of love (e.g., 1 Cor. 13), are going to work hard to protect your home and possessions. When you do a home exchange, it is important to remember that, not only are you placing your trust in others, but they are likewise placing their trust in you. When it comes to a home exchange, trust is a two-way street.
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.
(St. Augustine of Hippo)
If you have ever thought of doing a home exchange–and you are a Christian–why not help build the Christian Community at ChristianHomeExchange.com?
One benefit of this Christian Home Exchange organization is that it is part of an international home swap network with over 40,000 listings so you can easily find someone with whom to do your next home swap, even if you cannot locate another Christian who is available to fit your timetable and your destination.
We also heard of another strategy that is possible when you have such a vast selection of home exchange possibilities. We were talking with a couple nearing retirement. They wanted to see the world as Christian travelers. They had the idea of doing a sequential series of home exchanges. To begin their planning, they checked out available home exchanges in the Christian Community. Next, they referred to the larger home exchange community to “fill in the gaps” with other places to stay in the locations where they wanted to do a home swap.
It really is a special privilege when you can do a home exchange with other Christians. Even when you do not know if the other person is a Christian, go ahead and identify yourself as a Christian to your home exchange partner. You never know what resources they may share to help make your home swap a part of your faith walk.
At the very least, we encourage you to worship at a local church during your home swap. Let people know you are a temporary resident in their community as a home swapper. The Lord just may open up opportunities you could never have imagined– opportunities both to experience the area where you are staying and opportunities to develop friendships with Christians in different parts of the country or even different parts of the world.
As a young traveler to Europe in 1970, I clung to my copy of the Arthur Frommer Travel Guide. Again in the 1980s, Arthur Frommer was our trusted resource when we traveled as a family. Now, Arthur Frommer has an excellent travel website, www.Frommer.com.
Recently, a blog posted by Arthur Frommer gave me a lot of encouragement when I read his firm belief that home exchanging is one of the most intelligent and rewarding methods of travel today. He cites the elimination of the high cost of lodging, how one becomes a resident in the places to which you travel, how home swaps expand your world view, and how doing a home exchange helps you use a valuable asset (your home) as part of your travel, rather than leaving it vacant and unused during your absence.
Arthur Frommer knows a lot about traveling. I have trusted him as resource for my travels for more than 40 years. I continue to appreciate his wisdom and practical advice as he lists the benefits of home swapping.
Life with God in Jesus Christ is a gift and it is a journey.
Home exchanges can help remind us that this is so.
The following prayer was included recently during worship at our local church.
It is one of those wondrous and blessed gifts that attend the simple gathering together with other Christians for Sabbath-keeping. How often the time spent in Sunday worship yields such fruit! What a difference it makes to have our perspective reframed by prayers like the following (from Evangelical Lutheran Worship) as we go back to work on Monday morning:
O God, you have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown.
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us
and your love supporting us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
How long or short can my home exchange be?
What do you want it to be?
Do not rule out the benefit of a home swap because of your assumptions about what is involved. One of the common misunderstandings is that you have to plan on a month or longer if you want to do a home exchange. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In point of fact, you can probably find someone to do a home swap with you, regardless of how long (or how brief) the duration you have in mind.
Want to be gone for a long week-end? Can do. Want to be gone for 2 weeks? Can do. Want to be gone for two months? Can do. Want to be gone for a year? Can do. Want to do sequential home swaps? (What do you suppose is the answer? Yep.) Can do!
It is a big world out there. Chances are good that someone out there is looking for a home exchange that is as long or as short as the one you have in mind.
We have seen an interesting trend that seems to really break wide-open creativity when planning a home exchange. I am referring to the increasing rise of people offering more than one home swap listing. What’s happening is that people are listing their vacation home–and then mentioning a couple of interesting things. One, they are willing to make their primary residence available also–at a different location. And, two, they are willing to schedule non-simultaneous home exchanges.
A “non-simultaneous home exchange” is just what it sounds like: people make their home available to you based on your schedule, rather than sending you away because they are looking for a different time frame than you. The result is that people have a much greater selection for the time frame (and the timing) of their preferred home swap.
So, how long or how short can my home exchange be? Almost anything is possible. All that limits what is possible is your imagination.
Most people we know have bought and sold, at least, one home. If you are thinking about doing a home exchange, you probably own a home, right now. One way to sell your home (so other home exchangers want to do a home swap with you) is to look at your home “through other peoples’ eyes.”
Taking steps to sell your home to potential home exchangers is a really important part of planning for your home swap.
Write a description of your home and community, making sure that you highlight what others might find appealing. Start by thinking about what you like about your home and where you live. Then, expand your vision. Try look at your home and your locale from the perspective of a complete stranger, someone who never before has visited your part of the world and who never before has lived in the type of home in which you live. Stretch yourself to imagine what such a person might possibly enjoy about both your home and where you live.
Before you sit down at the computer and stare at a blank form to be completed for your home exchange club, take a few moments to jot down some notes in which you describe your home and your location.
Be specific and positive when you describe your home. Of course, you want to be truthful, but keep your focus of what is best, what is most charming, what is most conducive to what others might enjoy. You never know what someone else is looking for. They may want lots of activity (places to go and things to do) or they may be looking for quiet privacy (time to reflect, paint, or catch up on their reading) .
You may live in a very popular destination for travelers and tourists. However, assume that others know nothing about your country or the region where you live. People view distances very differently from country to country. In one country, a tourist attraction that is 100 miles (160 kilometers) from home might require 1 1/2 hours of driving time; somewhere else this distance may require 4 hours of driving time. Help prospective home swappers understand distances in terms of both miles (or kilometers) and travel time (whether by car, by train, or by bus). Perhaps you think of your home as “near the mountains” or “not far from the beach”; but, give your reader a sense of how long it will take to get to a destination, as well as how near or far away that destination is from your home.
The key is to look at your home and community through new eyes. Try to look at your home and your part of the world from the point of view of someone for whom both are new and different. Then, write up a helpful, but honest, description in which you praise both your home and your locale. You will be amazed what a difference this exercise can make. It can increase the number of contacts you receive from other people interested in doing a home exchange. But, this exercise can also give you a new way of looking at how someone else describes their home or its location. It is quite commonplace for someone to think of their home as “plain and ordinary,” when it may, in fact, mean so much more to you: It may be home base for the holiday of your dreams!
Article after article today laments the economic downturn and the effect this will have on Baby Boomers who haven’t saved for retirement.
“Retirement.” I hope that is a word my fellow Baby Boomers will never use.
Remember when we were going to change the world? Well, perhaps the current economic reality is just what we need to get back on track. Maybe the current situation is a wonderful opportunity and challenge for Boomers who look forward to doing what they can to help their children and grandchildren appreciate our Global Village. We have the opportunity to leave our acquired comfort zone and to enjoy seeing the world as travelers, not just as tourists. We CAN change the world if we travel as temporary locals, not just as sightseers. I believe Boomers want to claim Spaceship Earth citizenship and to put this citizenship to good use to see the world and to share what we see with our loved ones.
The savings of home exchange travel is just a small part of the opportunity of home swap traveling. What really matters to Baby Boomers is the experience of Living Like A Local–that is, meeting people in different parts of the world, sharing ideas with others face to face, bringing new ideas back home, while pursuing a green (earth-friendly) vacation. As an educated generation, Baby Boomers should be able to see and recognize the win-win scenario of combining “meaningful” with “fun and entertaining” that comes with choosing destinations for home swap exchanges.
If the old way of doing things and the idea of a “golfing-and-cruising retirement” lifestyle has lost its economic base, maybe our new “forced economy” is a good thing. This new economy demands creativity so the Fourth Stage Of Life is not about retirement, but is about the ADVENTURE of traveling as world citizens in search of brothers and sisters in different neighborhoods in our Global Village.
