It seems fitting to have our first blog share our journey to vanlife.
What started as a mere thought and occasional conversation, quickly became a shared dream. In 2019, I came across an Instagram page called “The Bus and Us”. A couple was living out of a van and traveling the world. I instantly thought, this is incredible, but I could never do that. I shared it with Kyle anyway, and that moment sparked something in us. It became a common theme to share adventure, travel, and van life videos. It was a fun, mindless, side hobby that brought us joy. Dreaming that in another life, we would someday do that. I say another life because our reality included routine, structure, and a plan! For me, that was finishing school, becoming a registered nurse, landing a job at one of the best pediatric hospitals, getting married, buying a house, working as an RN, and eventually… raising babies in Michigan. It was simple- work hard and stick to the plan! Nowhere in that plan included quitting our jobs, moving out & renting our house, buying a van, and traveling the country. Because those new plans would mean leaving our careers, family, friends, house…everything we cherished and worked so hard to create. But here’s the thing, sometimes you have to make decisions based on what is best for you/your marriage and not the outside opinions of society (or even your own internal doubts/limits).
What we were willing to leave behind and/or “lose”, ended up being the reason we gained more joy and happiness on the road.
Amazing isn’t it? How God works in our lives! What we thought was our “perfect plan” wasn’t what God had in store for us. He had better plans. Plans that included taking a huge leap of faith and making significant sacrifices. The journey was scary, incredible, challenging, and beautiful.
So let’s backtrack. In September of 2022, Kyle bought a home in Comstock Park, Michigan. I was still finishing school so I didn’t move in until December. At last, we were roomies! This was a huge milestone for us. After 3 years of distance, we began a new chapter together. In January I started working as an emergency RN at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI. At the time, Kyle was also starting a new job as a clinical pharmacist and finally working a normal 8-5! He had spent 4 years working the night shift as a hospital pharmacist. For him, normal hours were huge! Unfortunately, for us, that meant working opposite schedules. He worked 8-5 no weekends/holidays, I worked 3p-3a, every other weekend, alternating holidays. In a way, it felt like we were back to doing distance. Except this time, the distance was in our own home. But, to us, it was worth it. We loved our careers and knew this was all a part of the plan! Months passed, and soon it was the summer of 2023. The weeks (& months honestly) leading up to the wedding were jam-packed. Showers, bachelorette/bachelor parties, last-minute planning, DIY projects, extra shifts at the hospital…& while it was amazing, it felt like Kyle and I were in constant passing! To say we were excited for our two-week honeymoon would be an understatement! The wedding passed and we had the most incredible weekend celebrating with our favorite people!
Next stop: Cape Town, South Africa! (A quick shoutout to Kyle for planning the most EPIC honeymoon)!! Our honeymoon was the first time in 4 years of being together that we had a long vacation just us! Until then, vacations were with family or only over a weekend! Our honeymoon was two weeks long and full of activities! Most people book relaxing honeymoons, ours was quite the opposite. We stayed at 4 different hotels, hiked, went on safaris, saw whales, wine tasted, biked, and more! Two weeks of intentional time just the two of us- it was heaven! One evening we stood overlooking the coast of Capetown from our balcony and saw multiple camper vans parked along the coast. We found ourselves silently observing. Both staring at the same thing. Both internally referencing all those videos we had sent back and forth over the years. Both telling ourselves the same lie we say every time we are reminded of vanlife “It's not a part of the plan! It doesn’t fit our lifestyle or careers. We can’t leave.”
I vividly remember Kyle turning to me and saying “I hate that when we go back home, we will go back to working separate schedules and hardly seeing each other. I want to see more of the world with you. I wish we could just pack up our things and travel the country”. I paused, and replied, “Well, who is stopping us from doing that?”. At that moment, it didn’t feel like just a dream anymore. It felt different. Because it was different! This was the first time we spoke hope and light into our dream. We spent the rest of our honeymoon enjoying every second but fully knowing that when we got back, we were going to buy a van. We didn’t know how or when, but we knew.
Fast forward to August 17th, 2023. We had a meeting with Drifter Vans and officially started the van build process. I'd love to say it went perfectly and to plan, but that is the furthest thing from the truth. I feel it's necessary to share the whole journey and not just the good parts. Due to Ford Transits being in such high demand, it took longer than we anticipated. During this time we worked with the design team at Drifter and planned out our custom build. Fun fact: our build model is now a new design at Drifter because of its desired layout! Although we fully designed the van & made our deposit, the official build didn’t begin until December 1st. In our eyes, we were already behind schedule. However, Drifter reassured us that it would likely be done in late January, so we felt hopeful! We stuck to our plan, and both quit our jobs the week before Christmas. We loved our jobs and leaving was one of the hardest goodbyes. We enjoyed the holidays and soaked in as much time with family as possible. The new year rolled around and we weren’t getting much feedback from the company so we asked to meet and discuss the new timeline. We were informed that due to unforeseen delays, the van will not be ready until the end of February.
By now we had renters living in our home and we were moved in with my parents. What we thought would be a quick 3-4 week stay, turned into us living there for 4 months. Not at all what we had in mind during our first year of marriage! However, we feel so blessed that my parents graciously welcomed us in. In hindsight, God knew we needed the extra time we got to spend with family and friends–but in the moment, we were struggling. Kyle spent 3 and ½ months applying for remote jobs. We went from bringing in two paychecks biweekly to having no steady income. Side note: I started working as a travel agent as a side gig in September, knowing that once I quit nursing, I would make the full-time switch. My income was solely based on commission. While I brought in a monthly check, it was nowhere near what we were making. On top of it all, we were told we had another delay and now the van would be ready by the end of March. Now things really weren’t going to plan. And for two individuals who thrived off of plans, we were hurting. We felt confused, lost, and unsure if we were making the right decision. This period of our lives was one of the most challenging seasons we walked through. In a matter of months, our lives did a 180! We were struggling financially, living with my parents, and what felt like no van in our foreseeable future.
Looking back, we know we made mistakes. We should have anticipated delays and treated the van build more like a house build. Parts get on backorder, things happen, and delays are inevitable. We also could have made sure Kyle had a job lined up before quitting. We were so committed to the dream that even our vision was cloudy at times. To us, we figured that if he didn’t have a job by the time the van was done, we would leave anyway and work seasonally out west and rely on my income until he landed one. We also reached out to our former bosses to pick up shifts and neither were looking to hire. It was a constant juggle, do we start applying for local jobs and take time and energy away from applying and my current job? Or, do we stay the course, become frugal with our spending, and trust that everything will work out?
Trust is what we did. We trusted in God. We leaned on Him every day. Through every delay, every job denial, every financial struggle, and every ounce of uncertainty, we turned to the Lord. Specifically,
Isaiah chapter 55 verse 8-9 “My plans aren't your plans, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my plans than your plans.”
This verse holds so much power. It is biblical proof that the plans in our heads are not always the same as God’s plans for our lives!
On March 25th, we headed to Detroit to pick up our van. During our drive, Kyle received a phone call. He was offered a job as a remote pharmacist through CVS Health. CRAZY right? The same day we picked up our new home, Kyle accepted a job. God works in wonderful ways.
We spent time packing it up, saying goodbye to family and friends, and then departed from Woodstock, IL (Kyle’s hometown) on April 7th, 2024. No words can fully encompass the feelings we felt on that day. Driving away, tears being shed, knowing the sacrifices and hardship we endured to get to that point.
Writing this, I can’t help but think back to those dark moments in my parent's basement when we felt so alone. But it was those exact moments that strengthened our marriage. Those moments are what make the moments we experience today that much more meaningful. We appreciate this nomadic journey more because we know the hardship we walked through and the sacrifices we made to get here.
God reminds us time and time again that hardship is good. Failure is good. It's needed. It teaches us how to depend on God and lean into his grace. Through mistakes, we learn, and then try our best to do better next time around. God’s forgiveness is abundant and merciful.
God also reminds us that His plan is far greater than any plan we draw up ourselves. We can do everything in our power to design & control our lives based on these perfect plans, but sometimes there's beauty in surrendering our need for control and tapping into God's unique calling for our lives.
Our plans didn’t go as planned. And I thank God for that every day.
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