🌎 Godbeat Globetrotting: 5 Memorable Moments In World Religion Reporting 🔌
Weekend Plug-in 🔌
Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.
MATANZAS, Cuba — I’m not a world traveler.
I mean, I’m not a good world traveler.
I pack too much. I’m a picky eater. Mostly, I prefer my bed at home to global adventure (unlike my colleague Erik Tryggestad, who has plenty of mosquito net stories).
Yet I am an inquisitive journalist and a big fan of on-the-ground reporting, so I’ve kept my passport up to date and covered stories in 20 countries during my 35-year career.
READ: Planes, Trains And Automobiles (Even Motorcycles): The Road To Religion News
My most recent trip took me to this Caribbean island nation, where — as I noted in last week’s Plug-in — I reported on Christians keeping the faith at a trying time for Cuba.
Inevitably, such trips produce a memorable moment, be it frightening, frantic or funny. Sometimes, the notable occurrence relates to the actual story. Other times, an indelible personal experience stands out.
Bobby Ross Jr. takes notes during a visit to a church-operated farm in Limonar, Cuba. (Photo by Candice PinzĂłn)
Here in Cuba, I interviewed longtime preacher Tony Fernandez in the dark as one of the island’s rolling blackouts hit the short-term rental house where I stayed. I used a tiny flashlight to see the questions in my notebook.
Fernandez didn’t seem to notice the power outage. He’s used to such inconveniences.
But the circumstances were new to me.
So, too, were these five unforgettable experiences during past international reporting treks:
1. Mexican checkpoint: In 2012, as turf wars waged between drug cartels south of the U.S. border, I joined an Oklahoma church team on its annual mission trip to a remote mountain village.
The day the team left, a Facebook friend was kind enough to post a U.S. State Department warning for everyone “crazy enough to travel to Mexico.” That same day, I read a news report about the violence — and statements such as “If you go, you better bring a body bag along” — making U.S. aid groups skittish.
So during the drive through Mexico, I was concerned when a convoy of trucks filled with men toting machine guns and sporting green military uniforms zipped past the Oklahoma team’s white rental vans and set up a makeshift checkpoint.
By “concerned,” I mean that I prayed hard.
As it turned out, the soldiers behaved extremely professionally as they examined the team’s cargo. They assured the Americans that they were trying to protect them from any potential threats.
Mexican church members and American visitors enjoy fellowship after a 2012 worship assembly. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)
2. Missing luggage: In 2009, I traveled to South Africa to visit a preacher-training school east of Johannesburg and report on signs of racial harmony 15 years after the end of apartheid.
I flew from Oklahoma City to Houston to catch my international flight and was assured my suitcase would meet me at my final destination.
Wrong!
For nearly a week, I had no peanut butter crackers (I generally bring such snacks just in case I need them). Even worse, I had no change of clothes. I didn’t bother to pack any in my carry-on bag. I learned my lesson.
Before I had a chance to go to the store, my friend Mike Avery — a minister who was on that same trip — loaned me a pair of Fruit of the Looms. Actually, “gave” is a better verb there because he insisted I keep them, and we still laugh about it.
Bobby Ross Jr. makes a new friend during a 2009 reporting trip to South Africa. (Photo by David Duncan)
3. Missile attack: In 2019, after a busy day that included a tour of a high-tech company in Ramallah, West Bank, and a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, I was wrapping up dinner when my phone pinged.
“Your mom just called super worried,” my wife, Tamie, texted from 7,000 miles away.
About the same time, a friend emailed to make sure I was OK.
What in the world?
As I soon learned, rockets fired from the Gaza Strip had set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv, where I had been earlier in the week. No damages or injuries were reported, but the attack quickly made international news.
In a nation with more than a million bomb shelters, this strike — which quickly drew an Israeli military response — was no big deal. I tried to assure my mom of this. And myself.
Israeli Brig. Gen. (Res.) Nitzan Nuriel, a counterterrorism expert, briefs journalists, including Bobby Ross Jr., in the Golan Heights in 2019. (Photo by Emily McFarlan Miller)
4. McDonald’s in Manitoba: In 2017, my daughter, Kendall, then a high school senior, accompanied me on a reporting trip to Canada, where I covered Syrian refugees in both western and eastern Canada.
We left Oklahoma City at 3:30 a.m. the day the trip began. We flew to Dallas and then Toronto, arriving at 10 a.m. Oklahoma time. Yet our day was just getting started. After a six-hour layover, we still had to fly halfway across Canada — to Winnipeg, Manitoba — and then drive another three hours to the small farming community of Dauphin.
Short version of the rest of our day: Despite our hunger as we left the Winnipeg airport, we passed up a McDonald’s we saw. We decided to eat somewhere better later. Ultimately, we spotted a bunch of snowy fields and cattle grazing along rural Manitoba’s two-lane farm highways. But somewhere to eat? Not so much.
Finally, at 11:30 p.m., we made it to Dauphin and drove toward our Super 8 motel. And we spotted heaven on earth — the Golden Arches.
Starving and exhausted, we both laughed giddily. Who could have guessed that one of our precious memories from this trip would involve Chicken McNuggets?
Bobby Ross Jr. with his daughter, Kendall, on a 2017 reporting trip to Dauphin, Manitoba. (Photo provided by Bobby Ross Jr.)
5. Medieval rideshare drama: Just this past fall, my wife and I spent 10 days in France, where I did a series on spiritual renewal in the secular nation (along with a Plug-in column on “love in many languages”).
At 4:45 a.m. on our final day there, we found ourselves rolling our 50-pound suitcases (Tamie didn’t pack lightly either!) along dark sidewalks in Chartres in search of our rideshare driver.
Roadblocks in that medieval French city — famous for its Gothic cathedral — made it difficult to find him.
When we finally caught up with him, I dozed off on the hour-long ride to the Paris airport. But Tamie stayed awake and held on for dear life. Zigging and zagging along a major highway, she prayed as the driver exceeded 100 mph.
I won’t soon forget this. Tamie won’t let me.
Thankfully, the driver delivered us in time to make our flight. Which was promptly delayed.
Tamie Ross rides a train from Le Mans to Chartres during the trip to France. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)
Back to my Cuba trip: I did something out of the ordinary for me. I boarded an international flight without checking a bag.
I’d like to suggest that this signifies deep growth on my part, that I’m becoming a better world traveler.
Actually, I learned before leaving that if I checked a suitcase, it’d go all the way to the Varadero, Cuba, airport — and I wouldn’t have access to it during my overnight stop in Miami.
So I forced myself, just this once, to pack lightly. But please don’t count on me to make it a habit.
Inside The Godbeat
After 2½ years with The Associated Press in Michigan and Indiana, Isabella Volmert has returned to the Dallas Morning News to cover faith and religion.
“I’m so excited to have you on our team,” Colleen McCain Nelson, the Morning News’ executive editor, said on X.
Volmert, a 2022 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, previously worked as a breaking news reporter for the Dallas paper.
The Morning News’ former religion writer, Adrian Ashford, left late last year to cover campaigns and elections for the South Carolina Daily Gazette.
The Final Plug
FYI for anyone attending the Religion News Association annual conference in Atlanta next month, I’m organizing a Friday night group outing to a Phillies-Braves game.
I still have a few tickets left. Please contact me for details.
Religion News Association members pose by cherry blossoms at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., during RNA’s 2025 annual conference. (Photo provided by Bobby Ross Jr.)
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.