Nela Holmes’ Europe trip brings fresh outlook on life

     The world is a big place; so big, that it can make things feel small. For those who are fortunate to have or have had a stable childhood, the lives we live become the size of our world. The local drive-in becomes the town haunt, the roads are memorized and shortcuts mastered, the people become main characters in the story of the town, and life begins to work within the borders and so creates a universe within itself.
     But what about outside those small worlds, the borders of what one knows and doesn’t know? A step into that uncharted territory is what can make humans feel so small. For Nela Holmes, life on her family’s Dows farm had become small, her perspective stale and her faith questioned.
     Holmes, 23, decided it was time to get a new perspective.
     From August through November 2016, she traveled to Switzerland and Holland as part of L’Abri Fellowship.
     L’Abri is an international network of “shelters” founded in 1955 by Dr. Francis Schaeffer and his wife, Edith. These communities are study centers through Europe, America and Asia, that encourage individuals “to seek answers to honest questions about God and the significance of human life,” according to the fellowship’s website. 
    Read the full article in the January 11 edition of the Hampton Chronicle.