The Comfort of Siblings

And no need to impress

Growing up in my family was…unusual. Now, when we were young, our life was quite normal to my siblings and me. As we grew older, we started to realize most children do not travel the country, stopping for Dad to preach revivals along the way. It also dawned on us that not all families spend the entire summer going from one gathering of churches to another.

Thanks to this traveling-preacher lifestyle, we spent a lot of time living together in small spaces. One week, it was a hotel room. Yes, all five of us in one room. Someone either got a roll away bed or a blanket on the floor. At the next place, us kids might bunk in the spare room of a host pastor’s home. Summer found us in a family cabin at various Christian campgrounds around the country.

During our middle school years, our parents purchased a twenty-four-foot travel trailer. This became our home on the road. Our family of five (three of us teenagers) lived, ate, slept, and had school in that home-on-wheels. When it wasn’t raining…