HeyJaredCairn & Compass
Adventuring into wild places and liminal spaces through fiction, photography, and real-world travel adventures.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 30, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Aug 5, 2026
Latest issues
Worst Train Ride Ever, Part 1 (opens the original)
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<img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="971" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JsRm!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F024050c4-97ba-4da3-a784-fc3aff29f730_6000x4000.j
The One-Eyed Soldier of Abidjan (opens the original)
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It had finally happened. The exact thing our missionary trainer had drilled into us TO NEVER LET HAPPEN. That airport role-play back in Kansas was more than ten years ago by now, but her stern warning still flashed in neon lights through my mind: “When you’re traveling internationally, never, ever let anyone get separated from your group. And never, ever, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, let the authorities take one of you away from the group alone.”Well, here I was, alone, in a tiny airport police offi
I Was a Cog in the Machine of Missions (opens the original)
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“I need to take care of myself and ensure I’m healthy so the ministry thrives.”When a friend said this to me, it was like listening to my (recent) past self.I’ve heard others in ministry tout this philosophy, so maybe that’s how I came to hold the same view about self-care and why we invest into our own well-being. But I don’t believe this utilitarian view anymore: that self-care is primarily for the purpose of ensuring we are more effective in serving God.That’s why, when my friend said this to
Imprisoned in a Lebanese hotel room (opens the original)
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Note: A memory from our time overseas as missionaries, where, if something super crazy could happen to us, it usually did. Some names and details changed.It was my second visit to Lebanon, and Andrew’s first, when our good friend Nadim picked us up at the airport, took us out for dinner and then drove us to our hotel in Beirut.It was after dark by then, so the day-time hotel staff were gone, leaving a lone Sri Lankan migrant to troubleshoot at night. He didn’t speak any English and very little A
Don’t Make U-Turns in Germany (opens the original)
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Note: I am folding an older Substack into this one by moving over some of those travel stories from our missionary years. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I might be going the wrong way.On the road leaving Triberg, a popular tourist destination in Germany’s Black Forest, I lost my sense of direction. Back in those dark ages before smart phones and GPS devices, I was dependent on road signs and paper road maps or pages of directions I would print from Mapquest before leaving home. (Who else remembers
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