WanderLOST:
Stories from the winding road to significance
An early life memoir by J. Daniel Sims / Available late 2022
A generational tale of adventure and awareness
This exuberant coming of age story charts one millennial’s decades-long globetrotting exploits in pursuit of personal meaning, significance, and belonging.
Along the way, he reckons with a society (and church) which too-often idolizes heroic stories of self and abandons the more humble, courageous journey of learning to love.
“Jake’s is a story which asks us to recognize our own finiteness and insufficiency to do anything beyond radically loving those “others” placed in our midst. This is the best kind of story, not just because it is interesting and relatable, but because it is true.”
David Eubank, Founder/CEO – Free Burma Rangers
What is it all about?
Through compelling and entertaining anecdotes, WanderLOST beckons the reader to question our prevailing cultural mandate — that we must, at all costs, pursue meaning for our lives via material/experiential acquisition and external validation. Readers will come away with a deeper posture of questioning about the cultural status quo for Christians living in America at this time in history.
The adventure of a lifetime
WanderLOST opens in the midst of an adventure in a remote Jordanian desert as the author reflects on a life devoted to the quintessential globetrotting, ‘snowflake’ millennial life and how it all left him profoundly empty. It then flashes back to key vignettes from a privileged American upbringing; a searching, stumbling college experience; and a decade of global travel spanning six continents and over 70 countries. Whether working in war zones, refugee camps, government offices, or college campuses; climbing 20,000+ foot mountain peaks or lounging on lush tropical islands; moving to remote rural heartlands or to global urban centers – he finds it was all in headlong pursuit of the unattainable mirage of personal fulfillment.
Throughout, he beckons the reader to journey with him in lifelong pursuit of the question: “isn’t life about something more?”
“WanderLOST is a beautiful story, a tremendous-global-adventure kind of story. Jacob asks all the right questions. He gently invites you to ask them with him…offering the hope he has found with a humility that invites you to ponder with him where you have found hope. This is one wanderer sharing with the rest of us where he found home. One hungry traveler telling us where we can find food. One young man in the wilderness telling us where there is a source of good water...”
— Shane Claiborne, Activist, Author, co-founder – Red Letter Christians