Hello!
I am grateful you have stopped by. My name is Essie & I live in Georgia, USA. I have traveled to over 107 countries. About Travels with Essie—this blog created to share my experiences that I have learned through my travels & to share the hope that vibrates within our hearts when we travel.
The planning of my epic trips took hundreds of hours, while the joy & excitement in the planning has always made me come alive. I did a lot of research because I could not find enough info online. So I am here to make your life easier & help you in your travels. .
My late parents from Malaysia believed in education without borders & missions. They have instilled in my brother, Samuel & I the importance of helping the poor worldwide. Two weeks before our Mom, Pastor Grace passed, she sent us to the Golden Triangle (Thailand, Laos & Myanmar) for the humanitarian trips and help the poor. Today, I continue their legacy by helping build schools & orphanages worldwide.
I am your everyday gal that works, unlike a digital nomad. My experiences are very practical & it is my hope that I can take you on your own travel dreams & aspirations while you work a full-time job.
“Life is a daring adventure, or nothing at all .”
Hellen Keller
My Story
I was born in the beautiful country of Malaysia in Southeast Asia. A melting pot of cultures, Malaysia is made up of three dominant people groups known as Malays, Chinese, & Indians. I grew up speaking Cantonese at home, English at church, Mandarin with my cousins & Malay at school. We loved speaking several languages in one sentence! The rich culture also included delicious delicacies as Malaysia is known as a food paradise. Malaysia is a predominant Muslim country, followed by Buddhism, Hinduism & the minorities, the Christians. We respect each other religions & learned to live together in harmony.
how I got Here
The Birth of a Dream
My parents worked very hard in their secular careers & also pastored the second largest church in our small city. They had a remarkable conversion to Christianity when Mom almost died in a car accident but was miraculously saved. Many of my days were spent in my pajamas at church while they juggled on how to create a safe place for the growing number of people that attended their church. Their church was also the place where many missionaries from all over the world came to visit, live in our home, & they taught us what they knew. It was my first experience encountering the caucasians & the beautiful people from Africa. They told us stories of their worlds & it was in these sacred moments with them that a fire was kindled in my heart to travel beyond my small world.
Then one day my life changed. My parents took Samuel & I to America to experience Disneyland in California. It was in Disneyland that I learned to dream that I can one day live in another country.
The Power of Friendships
Fast forward a few decades, I migrated to America to pursue my academic degrees. While in college, I had the privilege of meeting people from over 100 countries. We were all broke & ate at the cafeteria all the time. There are many moments when a table of 12 of us represented ten countries. These experiences I would later learn, are golden opportunities that crafted my future in world travel. Today, I am still in touch with a few of them & their friendships have been a bridge that took me into nations.
My Journey in America
At 23, I graduated with my Doctor of Theology specializing in Church History & Women in Leadership. My intense hunger for spirituality & the divine later earned me a Doctor of Divinity at 33.
I also pursued a Business Degree in Marketing & Business Administration online while working full time for an extensive itinerant Christian humanitarian organization, where work took me all over the states including Hawaii & Alaska.
I worked at this Christian organization for 17 years that added to my experiences of managing events worldwide while running a global Christian School with hundreds of thousands of students from over 175 countries.
The favorite part of my job at this stage of my life was being part of the dream of thousands of lives in earning their Bachelor, Masters & Doctorate degrees.
Being with them from day one of enrolling as a student and walking them to the stage where they graduate has been one of my deepest joys.
In a world that still favors men in business and ministry, the degrees earned by the students I have worked with have enabled them to enter worlds where women are not always respected unless they hold a Doctorate degree. These degrees have opened platforms and enabled our students to speak into cultures where women are often marginalized or their voices are not heard.
This season of my life was made up of 90–100-hour workweeks, extensive travel, and life-changing moments. One of the standout moments was meeting the Vicar of Baghdad, Canon Andrew White, who has the most amazing stories from his years of ministry as a vicar.
My Transition to the Grocery Store Industry
My career was coming to an end, and a new season was beginning. It came out of tragedy when my mom, who was living in Malaysia, was diagnosed with cancer and given four months to live. I relocated from Florida to Georgia to be closer to my aunt and uncle, and with their help, I was able to navigate one of the hardest seasons of my life.
During this transition, I was hired by Publix Super Markets, Inc., which has now become an unexpected and rewarding chapter in my career. My team has constantly asked me why I am working at a grocery store with all my degrees, and my answer has always been simple: “It’s because God wants me here.”
As a manager at Publix, I have worked at eight stores so far. Through this journey, I have had the opportunity to encounter and connect with people I would never have met otherwise. Each store, each team, and each person has become part of a new chapter in my life, and I have discovered that sometimes the places we least expect can become the places where we are meant to make a difference.
Humanitarian Project with Eliza Taylor
I was introduced to Eliza Taylor, the lead actress of Christmas Inheritance and The 100 on Netflix, through a humanitarian project to help build schools in Papua New Guinea. In order to meet her in person, I attended my first Comic-Con, Unity Day in Canada, several years ago. It was quite an experience for me, as I even watched some of Eliza’s movies and The 100 to become more familiar with her work.
I have had the honor of serving on the Board of Directors of Little Hearts Learning alongside Eliza Taylor and Bob Morley.
People have often asked me what it’s like working with a celebrity. My answer is very simple: “It’s like working with anyone else.” Eliza is one of the kindest people I know. She is brilliant, hardworking, and fun to be around.
You can check her instagram here: @elizajaneface
My Life with the Persecuted Church in China & Vietnam
My late father, Pastor Christopher, traveled frequently to China throughout my childhood, smuggling Bibles into underground churches beginning in the 1980s. Underground churches, also known as the persecuted church, are communities of Christians who meet in secret or hidden locations and may face persecution, imprisonment, or even death if discovered by the government because of their faith. The term generally refers to unregistered Christian gatherings that operate outside government structures. Persecuted churches can be found in countries where Christians face religious persecution, including nations where other faiths or communist governments are dominant.
In my late teens, my father took me to the underground churches in China for the first time, and the experience changed my life forever. The impact of that experience is still embedded in my heart today, decades later.
While attending Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas, I had the honor of meeting Summer and Linh Tran, the daughters of the pastors of what was, at that time, one of the largest underground churches in Vietnam. We later became roommates. Their story was so powerful that Voice of the Martyrs produced a short film about their lives, and their story was also featured in the book Jesus Freaks by DC Talk.
We go along in life & our path is supernaturally directed by God, leaving breadcrumbs on our path, and when we look back decades later, we realized that His hand is on our lives all this time. My exposure to the underground churches as a teenager, has been one of the pillars in my life that has led me into my destiny.
“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.”
Mother Teresa
Our lives carry importance. We each have a role to play in painting on the canvas of our broken world today. Let us continue to spread kindness, love, and peace to this hurting world.