So far, my friend Karelin and I have done close to 60 land tours, 16 Ocean Cruises with Holland America, 8 with other Cruise lines – Carnival, Norwegian, Caribbean Cruise Line, Cruise & Maritime Voyages, and Celebrity, 10 River Cruises with – AMA Waterways, Viking, Avalon, Vodohod (Russia), American Queen Cruises, and American Cruise Lines. That is a total of 34 cruises and at least four more coming. Between my traveling for work and my retirement travels, I have now visited more than a thousand cities and 86 countries of the world.

Of course, we have more trips planned!

In all these trips we have always encountered people who were interested in knowing about us. Are we twins? Sisters? How long have we been friends? Why do we dress alike? Etc.

These are our usual answers. No, we are not twins; we are “identical friends”. We have been friends since 1987. We dress alike when traveling because we discovered that it is much easier to find each other if we are separated.

Usually, we tell them the story about when we decided to dress alike. We were on an excursion in Greece during our Mediterranean Cruise. We were climbing the Acropolis to go see the Parthenon. It was crowded. I was going faster and Karelin stayed behind. I had to continue following the crowd so I reached a point where I could take good pictures of the famous ruin. (It was amazing to see in person the building that I had admired since I was a little girl reading through the encyclopedia my parents had given me as soon as I learned to read. I dreamed of visiting Greece, learning about that fabulous mythology.) I could also see the Erechtheion much farther, but with the time we had, I could not afford to walk so far. After taking many pictures I went back, trying to find my friend. I could not see her among so many tourists coming up and down. Then I remembered that we were wearing identical hats–big-brimmed, foldable hats with beautiful flowers painted on them. We had bought them at the Dallas Arboretum. They were perfect for protecting us from the Mediterranean sun. So, I started asking people if they had seen a lady wearing a hat like mine. It worked! More than one American tourist lady had noticed the hats, and they pointed where they had seen the other lady wearing it. Walking a little further, I found Karelin and together we went up the Acropolis again so she could see the temples.

When we came back home, we remembered the experience of being separated, and we decided that dressing alike would help to find each other on our next trips.

Other questions were: How did you meet each other? What did you do before retiring?

That last one was the question I always looked forward to. It gave us the opportunity to speak about our faith in Christ.

I met Karelin when I went to the first class she taught. She had learned how to use Ventura Publisher, a desktop publishing software, that had just come on the market and revolutionized the way we were typesetting Bible translation projects. (Karelin was a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators–an organization that my organization worked closely with.)

Ventura Publisher was the first desktop publishing package for IBM PC compatible computers. It was based on running the GEM extension to the DOS operating system. The software was originally programmed and developed in 1986 by Ventura Software, a small software company founded by Michael John Meyer.

It was a pleasure to attend Karelin’s classes, and all the students had the opportunity to talk to her during the breaks and lunches and after classes. Karelin and I had a similar background working with computers. It was easy to become “instant friends”.

After the class, I translated most of her teachings to Spanish, and I used it while training people involved in Bible Translation in South America.

That was also the answer to what we did before retiring. We met at work. We did missionary work supporting other missionaries in the field, or at home, when they were either starting the translation of a native language, or at the end, when they were ready to publish the completed translation.

Many people showed interest in our work, and we gave them more details about our organizations and how we pioneered so many interesting computer and software (apps) developments between the 80’s and the 90’s.

However, where we made more interesting advances for the kingdom of God was with stewards, waiters, and people that attended the religious services on Sundays on the ships. It was a joy to bring some Indonesian or Philipino girls to Christ, and to console and pray with one steward who had recently come to Christ and was having trouble resisting temptation, immersed among the low moral habits of the crew in a big ship. I continued praying for some of them. Especially for Rudy who was interested in making enough money to go back to Indonesia and opening a restaurant. He had a wife and two children.

So many ways God has favored us in all our trips! It is a gift! This reminds me of Paul writing to the Corintians in 2 Corintians 8 about traveling with Titus. “We are taking precaution so that no one will [find anything with which to] discredit us in our administration of this generous gift.  For we have regard for what is honorable [and above suspicion], not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.” (“Bible Gateway Passage: 2 Corinthians 8:20-21 – Amplified Bible” 2019)