Growing up in a home bursting with creativity – music, literature, theatre and more – a young boy begins to draw and discovers that it is the source of his own joy.

  She began as a reader on the bookmobile in her small New Jersey town. Her next chapter was as a writer, but these days she lives on an olive farm in Italy, and she’s back to reading in her role as a coach, guiding authors through the process of writing their own books.

  As a young man, author Noah Charney dreamed of living in Europe. Anywhere in Europe. In fact, he tried out life in some six different countries before landing in Slovenia, the country that would steal his heart.

  A mother based in Spain is offered a monthly book subscription from her children’s grandmother in the US. Offput by the shipping charges and red tape, she decides to start a company that offers the same benefits for kids in Europe. Amazingly, she launches the business while on lockdown in the early days of the pandemic.

  She’s thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. She’s trekked in Nepal with a 3- and 5-yr-old. She’s taught all over the world. But the groundwork for these adventures was laid when she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Central America.

  Raised in the Belgian Congo, a young American signs up for the Peace Corps and is assigned to a feedlot project in Lesotho. She plans to employ her animal husbandry skills, but finds she is called by her faith to care for vulnerable children.

  A young woman volunteers for the Peace Corps straight out of college. The skills she develops there – speaking French, becoming resilient, learning the local customs – will pave the way for her career as an expert in African democracy and development.

  A young couple flies to Lesotho to meet the little boy they’ve adopted, but all the clothes they’ve brought will have to wait until he grows into them because as it turns out, he’s only 18 months old. Just a year or two later, it’s the Democratic Republic of Congo that awaits when they make the trip to meet their daughter.

  Fresh out of college, a young writer accepts a job with an NGO, which takes her to Africa on several trips. The connections she makes there – with primates, with nature, with local communities – will give her a new perspective that lends her writing a sense of joy and delight.

  A college senior suffers a stroke just weeks before her graduation. After four years of rehabilitation, she feels called to take a “victory lap,” visiting every continent on earth, including Africa.