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The Miracle of Prayer

Posted
August 10, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Spiritual Insights
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9 Comments

As mentioned in the last post, the 70-mile distance between Austin and Eureka was intimidating. Even if we’re cranking out 20 miles a day, it’s still a 3 ½ day journey for us without a guarantee of water or new food.

As we walked along, we ended up taking longer than we’d initially planned. What we thought would be a 4-day trip, maximum, was progressively turning into a 6 or 7-day trip, minimum. We knew we had enough water prepared, but our bigger concern was becoming our food supply. While we definitely had enough to survive for a few extra days, there are only so many peanut butter sandwiches and crackers you can eat before you want to avoid peanut butter for the rest of your life. Lindsie and I were starting to hit that point.

Then, to make matters worse, we started to notice that Lindsie’s right cart wheel was starting to look more and more bent out of shape. Like…looked like a cartoon after Daffy Duck runs his bike into a rock bent out of shape. We tried bending it back and forth with minimal success. In fact, I think I actually made it worse as a result of one bending attempt.

Needless to say, we were disheartened. We were running low on our food, we were still two days outside of Eureka, we had no cell phone reception, and we had wheels on Lindsie’s carts that looked like they were about to snap in half and leave us stranded in the desert forever. And it was getting hot.

As Lindsie and I looked at each other, we felt like we were running out of options. So, as usual, we left it up to God. We hugged each other and said a prayer that God would send somebody our way who could help. Whether it was a person with a truck who could drive us into town to get the tire looked at or just someone who knew a thing or two about bike tires, we didn’t care. We just needed help.

And of course, as He has every step of this journey, God answered our prayer.

While we were praying, we noticed an SUV driving by. We finished our prayer, looked around, and wondered what would happen next. About 15 seconds later, that SUV pulled up alongside the road. The driver looked out the window and asked if we needed help. We gave him a resounding “YES, please” and he got out to take a look.

Within seconds he told us the problem – our spokes were WAY too loose. As in, you could pluck them easier than guitar strings loose. He also noticed that our inner tubes for Lindsie’s tires weren’t working the way they should’ve been.

He introduced himself as Richard Smith and mentioned that he was on his way across the state so he and his family could go to church the next morning, run to Walmart, and see family. Rich said he’d grab us some better inner tubes at Walmart and asked if we needed anything else. We mentioned that some extra bread and peanut butter (we recognize that we were ready to give up on peanut butter forever a few minutes before that, but peanut butter doesn’t exactly go bad and it’s filling, whether we get tired of the taste or not). He said he’d get that no problem and would drop it off the next day after church.

Rich asked why we were walking and we told him it was to learn to rely on God and get ourselves out of our “normal” life routine. His short and immediate response was more inspiring and motivating than many sermons we’ve heard in our lives – “My family and I serve the Lord 150%. We’ll be back with that stuff for you as soon as we can be.”

As Rich drove away, Lindsie burst into tears of thankfulness and gratitude, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little choked up myself. Not even 3 minutes before they pulled up, we were both wondering if we’d even make it to Eureka with food in our stomachs and our carts still functional. Suddenly we had a solution for fixing our cart and knew fresh supplies were on the way in less than 24 hours.

And the most incredible thing is that God sent us this family of Road Angels DURING our prayer for help. Not a day later. Not several hours later. Not never. He sent us help IMMEDIATELY upon hearing our prayer.

I’m pretty sure people wouldn’t even believe it if I were writing a fictional story. I barely believe it myself. But the wonders God works can often be too crazy to believe, even when they happen to us.

We stopped on the side of the road, said a prayer of thanks and gratitude, and tightened our spokes. Needless to say, that fixed our problem almost 100%. After taking our afternoon rest, we were able to continue on down the road and keep making progress toward Eureka.

On an interesting side note, Lindsie’s mom’s cousin Nancy, who had recently met up with us in Cold Springs Station with her daughter Deanna, has another daughter, Autumn, who is currently in Nevada herself. Although she lives in Alaska and is part of the fire crews there, Autumn was down here in Nevada fighting some of the summer fires that pop up in this incredibly dry desert.

Autumn met up with us on the road and walked with us for almost two days, heavy backpack and all. It was fun for Lindsie to catch up with her (they hadn’t seen each other since Lindsie was a 3rd grader) and it was great to meet her myself. She spent one night camping with us, which brings us back around to Rich and his family.

Around 10:00 that night, Rich pulled up and dropped off our bike tubes, the requested bread and peanut butter, and much, much more. He and his incredible family—wife RaeAnn and daughters Anastasia and Chloe—also dropped off two gallons of extra water, two bottles of sunscreen (on our list of things to buy in Eureka), a first aid kit, some bags of M&Ms, chapstick, and then the motherlode – 5 freshly cooked and still warm steaks, a bag of ribs, 3 ears of corn on the cob, and an entire bag full of rolls.

We had a feast on our hands at 10:00 p.m. in the middle of the Nevada desert, and Lindsie didn’t hesitate to dive into the steak right then and there, with only her hands for silverware. Ironically enough, Lindsie had just been telling me and Autumn that she really wanted steak and potatoes when we got to Eureka, and, as if God wanted to add a cherry on top of this perfect ice cream sundae, we were given delicious steaks without even asking for them. Talk about a  true blessing in every sense of the word.

Rich told us to keep in touch as we got into Eureka so we could connect with them there, and we thanked him as much as we could (which, in our opinion, still wasn’t enough).

The next morning, Autumn walked a half day with us and then headed back to Reno to get back to work. We said farewell to her and continued on to Eureka. That night, the Smiths drove BACK out to drop off some ice water. The reason they made the 30 mile journey to drop off ice water? “We were just sitting on the couch watching TV and thought you guys might want something cold to drink.” Talk about an amazing family.

We made it to Eureka soon after, and the Smiths (and their close, close friends the Moons – Arron, Vicky, and their kids Arron Jr., Jocelyn, Julianna, and Jenavieve) have essentially adopted us. We’ve had a number of delicious homemade breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and we’ve been able to do laundry, clean ourselves up, and—far and away the most important thing—had amazing, spirit-driven conversations about our faith and beliefs.

Everything these two families do is driven and inspired by the Lord, and it is a blessing we can’t even begin to describe. Lindsie and I were afraid we’d feel empty and drained crossing the barren desert, and instead we’ve spent several days in Eureka getting as spiritually and emotionally filled as we have in any other place we’ve visited on this journey.

By the time this post goes live, we’ll already be down the road toward Ely, but we just wanted to share with everyone how incredible the Lord can be when you need provision.

Isaiah 58:11 says, “The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.”

Similarly, Paul writes to the Philippians in Philippians 4:6-7, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.” Later, Paul writes in verse 19, “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”

I’m not sure how many more verses could be more applicable to this situation. I’d imagine there are dozens of similar verses (and if you know of any, please add them to the comments on this post or mention them on the Facebook page so we can mark them in our Bibles), but my point is that God tells us CONSTANTLY throughout the Bible that all we need to do is ask for His help and He will provide. We mentioned that in this post about answered prayers back in California, and there have already been several other times on this journey where God has answered our prayers – as soon as we remembered to ask.

That’s what I’d encourage you to do after reading this post. Take a look at the things you do in your everyday life that worry you, wear you out, or take away from your time with the Lord, and just ask God to lift those burdens. Whether He answers your prayer in seconds like He did with us through the Smith family or He answers it weeks later, God WANTS to help those who trust in Him and ask for His help. It says so right there in the Bible. Want proof?

In the book of James (which has been one of my favorite books to read throughout this cross-country journey…take a look for yourself and you’ll see why within the first three verses), James writes in verse 5, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” And, like I said, there are TONS of verses that back this up completely.

Anyway, this post is getting long, but it’s hard to keep things short when God is relentlessly working miracles in your life.

We are so thankful for the Smith family and the Moon family. Like I said, the conversations have been spiritually filling, the food has been physically feeling, and the sense of peace Lindsie and I have felt in Eureka has been as emotionally filling as any place we’ve been so far. We feel so blessed to be here, and so blessed that we could share yet another incredible story from this journey.

Thanks for reading, as usual. Feel free to leave a comment of support here on the blog, over on the Facebook page, or via email. And, as always, please let us know if you have prayer requests. We have plenty of time for prayer on this walk.

We won’t have internet access for a few days on the road to Ely, so we’ll be back with another update as soon as we’re able.

-Mike and Lindsie

The Miracle of Prayer

Posted
August 10, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Spiritual Insights
Comments
1 Comment

As mentioned in the last post, the 70-mile distance between Austin and Eureka was intimidating. Even if we’re cranking out 20 miles a day, it’s still a 3 ½ day journey for us without a guarantee of water or new food.

As we walked along, we ended up taking longer than we’d initially planned. What we thought would be a 4-day trip, maximum, was progressively turning into a 6 or 7-day trip, minimum. We knew we had enough water prepared, but our bigger concern was becoming our food supply. While we definitely had enough to survive for a few extra days, there are only so many peanut butter sandwiches and crackers you can eat before you want to avoid peanut butter for the rest of your life. Lindsie and I were starting to hit that point.

Then, to make matters worse, we started to notice that Lindsie’s right cart wheel was starting to look more and more bent out of shape. Like…looked like a cartoon after Daffy Duck runs his bike into a rock bent out of shape. We tried bending it back and forth with minimal success. In fact, I think I actually made it worse as a result of one bending attempt.

Needless to say, we were disheartened. We were running low on our food, we were still two days outside of Eureka, we had no cell phone reception, and we had wheels on Lindsie’s carts that looked like they were about to snap in half and leave us stranded in the desert forever. And it was getting hot.

As Lindsie and I looked at each other, we felt like we were running out of options. So, as usual, we left it up to God. We hugged each other and said a prayer that God would send somebody our way who could help. Whether it was a person with a truck who could drive us into town to get the tire looked at or just someone who knew a thing or two about bike tires, we didn’t care. We just needed help.

And of course, as He has every step of this journey, God answered our prayer.

While we were praying, we noticed an SUV driving by. We finished our prayer, looked around, and wondered what would happen next. About 15 seconds later, that SUV pulled up alongside the road. The driver looked out the window and asked if we needed help. We gave him a resounding “YES, please” and he got out to take a look.

Within seconds he told us the problem – our spokes were WAY too loose. As in, you could pluck them easier than guitar strings loose. He also noticed that our inner tubes for Lindsie’s tires weren’t working the way they should’ve been.

He introduced himself as Richard Smith and mentioned that he was on his way across the state so he and his family could go to church the next morning, run to Walmart, and see family. Rich said he’d grab us some better inner tubes at Walmart and asked if we needed anything else. We mentioned that some extra bread and peanut butter (we recognize that we were ready to give up on peanut butter forever a few minutes before that, but peanut butter doesn’t exactly go bad and it’s filling, whether we get tired of the taste or not). He said he’d get that no problem and would drop it off the next day after church.

Rich asked why we were walking and we told him it was to learn to rely on God and get ourselves out of our “normal” life routine. His short and immediate response was more inspiring and motivating than many sermons we’ve heard in our lives – “My family and I serve the Lord 150%. We’ll be back with that stuff for you as soon as we can be.”

As Rich drove away, Lindsie burst into tears of thankfulness and gratitude, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little choked up myself. Not even 3 minutes before they pulled up, we were both wondering if we’d even make it to Eureka with food in our stomachs and our carts still functional. Suddenly we had a solution for fixing our cart and knew fresh supplies were on the way in less than 24 hours.

And the most incredible thing is that God sent us this family of Road Angels DURING our prayer for help. Not a day later. Not several hours later. Not never. He sent us help IMMEDIATELY upon hearing our prayer.

I’m pretty sure people wouldn’t even believe it if I were writing a fictional story. I barely believe it myself. But the wonders God works can often be too crazy to believe, even when they happen to us.

We stopped on the side of the road, said a prayer of thanks and gratitude, and tightened our spokes. Needless to say, that fixed our problem almost 100%. After taking our afternoon rest, we were able to continue on down the road and keep making progress toward Eureka.

On an interesting side note, Lindsie’s mom’s cousin Nancy, who had recently met up with us in Cold Springs Station with her daughter Deanna, has another daughter, Autumn, who is currently in Nevada herself. Although she lives in Alaska and is part of the fire crews there, Autumn was down here in Nevada fighting some of the summer fires that pop up in this incredibly dry desert.

Autumn met up with us on the road and walked with us for almost two days, heavy backpack and all. It was fun for Lindsie to catch up with her (they hadn’t seen each other since Lindsie was a 3rd grader) and it was great to meet her myself. She spent one night camping with us, which brings us back around to Rich and his family.

Around 10:00 that night, Rich pulled up and dropped off our bike tubes, the requested bread and peanut butter, and much, much more. He and his incredible family—wife RaeAnn and daughters Anastasia and Chloe—also dropped off two gallons of extra water, two bottles of sunscreen (on our list of things to buy in Eureka), a first aid kit, some bags of M&Ms, chapstick, and then the motherlode – 5 freshly cooked and still warm steaks, a bag of ribs, 3 ears of corn on the cob, and an entire bag full of rolls.

We had a feast on our hands at 10:00 p.m. in the middle of the Nevada desert, and Lindsie didn’t hesitate to dive into the steak right then and there, with only her hands for silverware. Ironically enough, Lindsie had just been telling me and Autumn that she really wanted steak and potatoes when we got to Eureka, and, as if God wanted to add a cherry on top of this perfect ice cream sundae, we were given delicious steaks without even asking for them. Talk about a  true blessing in every sense of the word.

Rich told us to keep in touch as we got into Eureka so we could connect with them there, and we thanked him as much as we could (which, in our opinion, still wasn’t enough).

The next morning, Autumn walked a half day with us and then headed back to Reno to get back to work. We said farewell to her and continued on to Eureka. That night, the Smiths drove BACK out to drop off some ice water. The reason they made the 30 mile journey to drop off ice water? “We were just sitting on the couch watching TV and thought you guys might want something cold to drink.” Talk about an amazing family.

We made it to Eureka soon after, and the Smiths (and their close, close friends the Moons – Arron, Vicky, and their kids Arron Jr., Jocelyn, Julianna, and Jenavieve) have essentially adopted us. We’ve had a number of delicious homemade breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and we’ve been able to do laundry, clean ourselves up, and—far and away the most important thing—had amazing, spirit-driven conversations about our faith and beliefs.

Everything these two families do is driven and inspired by the Lord, and it is a blessing we can’t even begin to describe. Lindsie and I were afraid we’d feel empty and drained crossing the barren desert, and instead we’ve spent several days in Eureka getting as spiritually and emotionally filled as we have in any other place we’ve visited on this journey.

By the time this post goes live, we’ll already be down the road toward Ely, but we just wanted to share with everyone how incredible the Lord can be when you need provision.

Isaiah 58:11 says, “The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.”

Similarly, Paul writes to the Philippians in Philippians 4:6-7, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.” Later, Paul writes in verse 19, “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”

I’m not sure how many more verses could be more applicable to this situation. I’d imagine there are dozens of similar verses (and if you know of any, please add them to the comments on this post or mention them on the Facebook page so we can mark them in our Bibles), but my point is that God tells us CONSTANTLY throughout the Bible that all we need to do is ask for His help and He will provide. We mentioned that in this post about answered prayers back in California, and there have already been several other times on this journey where God has answered our prayers – as soon as we remembered to ask.

That’s what I’d encourage you to do after reading this post. Take a look at the things you do in your everyday life that worry you, wear you out, or take away from your time with the Lord, and just ask God to lift those burdens. Whether He answers your prayer in seconds like He did with us through the Smith family or He answers it weeks later, God WANTS to help those who trust in Him and ask for His help. It says so right there in the Bible. Want proof?

In the book of James (which has been one of my favorite books to read throughout this cross-country journey…take a look for yourself and you’ll see why within the first three verses), James writes in verse 5, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” And, like I said, there are TONS of verses that back this up completely.

Anyway, this post is getting long, but it’s hard to keep things short when God is relentlessly working miracles in your life.

We are so thankful for the Smith family and the Moon family. Like I said, the conversations have been spiritually filling, the food has been physically feeling, and the sense of peace Lindsie and I have felt in Eureka has been as emotionally filling as any place we’ve been so far. We feel so blessed to be here, and so blessed that we could share yet another incredible story from this journey.

Thanks for reading, as usual. Feel free to leave a comment of support here on the blog, over on the Facebook page, or via email. And, as always, please let us know if you have prayer requests. We have plenty of time for prayer on this walk.

We won’t have internet access for a few days on the road to Ely, so we’ll be back with another update as soon as we’re able.

-Mike and Lindsie

As Far As The Eye Can See

Posted
August 3, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
8 Comments

As you may have read, we’re crossing the desert right now. It’s warm out here. Really warm. And beautiful though it may be, the desert doesn’t exactly go out of its way to be friendly toward walkers, but we’re making the best of it. To keep the updates rolling along, once we left Fallon, we continued east toward Utah. Even though it may be hot, we’ve had some great experiences.

For starters, we’ve done plenty of stealth camping along Highway 50. Mostly because there aren’t a lot of people to stay with, places to campsite camp, etc. between towns. In fact, there’s not a whole lot of anything between towns, other than emptiness.

That said, it seems emptiness is good for the soul, because Lindsie and I both feel like our heads are clear out here in the desert. Lindsie’s often said that this portion of our journey reminds her of her favorite part of Hosea, in which God says he will take Israel out into the desert and strip her of all her distractions (it’s in Hosea 2 if you’d like to look it up), and I’m pretty sure Lindsie couldn’t be more accurate. With nothing out here to distract us, it’s much easier to focus on the things that really matter. Sometimes we don’t even have cell phone service, which means we can’t pull up Twitter or Facebook to get distracted with. It’s just us, Jaeda, the sun, and God most of the time, with an occasional car driving by every 10-15 minutes.

Anyway, back to filling you in on our recent activities. We left Fallon over a week ago and have continued walking east along Highway 50. After a couple nights of stealth camping, our first stop outside of Fallon was Middlegate Station, which is pretty much a combination of restaurant, bar, motel, and a single gas pump. Just having an opportunity to shower after three days was wonderful, and being able to eat real food and sleep in a real bed made it extra enjoyable. Due to Lindsie having a bit of heat exhaustion, we actually stuck around an extra day in Middlegate, which was nice. Thankfully the motel was cheap enough (only $35 a night) that our bank account wasn’t hit too hard by the extra stay.

From there we moseyed on down to Cold Springs Station, which was a short, 14-mile jaunt down Highway 50. In a wonderfully-blessed bit of God’s handiwork, Lindsie’s mom’s cousin, Nancy, and her daughter Deanna happened to be in our general vicinity. You may remember Nancy and Deanna from this post where they met us in Davis, California, paid for a hotel room that they let us share with them, and bought us dinner. Thankfully, they were equally as wonderful in Cold Springs Station, paying for our campground for the night, buying us a delicious meal, and, most importantly, driving on ahead of us and doing water drops for us on our next stretch of road.

You may be wondering, what’s a water drop?, so here’s the explanation. A gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. It’s been recommended to us that we drink a minimum of 2 gallons per day out here in the desert. Some of these between-town stretches can be anywhere from 50 miles long to 80 miles long. That means anywhere between 2-6 days of walking in the desert with no water fountains, gas stations, or rest areas to fill up with water before the next stop. If you might have 6 days of walking, that’s 12 gallons of water EACH. When you do the math, that ends up being about 96 POUNDS of water each. Our carts max out at a 115-pound weight limit, and they have about 60-70 pounds of stuff in them without the water.

Essentially, we aren’t able to carry enough water with us every time without running the risk of breaking our carts. So, as you can see, water drops are incredibly helpful out here in the desert. Beyond that, having the water dropped off ahead of us means our carts don’t have to weigh a ton when we’re pushing them up the 7,000-foot summits we come across here in the desert.

So with a heart full of gratitude, we said goodbye once again to Nancy and Deanna and prepared to leave Cold Springs Station on a 50-mile stretch to Austin, Nevada. We were excited to head out on a really-rely-on-God-because-this-is-a-longer-than-usual stretch, even if it did mean early morning wake-ups and late night walking.

Although Lindsie and I enjoyed great conversation (and enjoyed listening to audiobooks) during this part of the journey, there’s not exactly a ton to report about it. We were sort of out in the middle of nowhere, we were stealth camping every night, and we didn’t really see anything earth-shattering. We did, however, come across some great road angels during our Cold Springs Station-to-Austin stretch.

For starters, we came across a gentleman named Jeff Martin, who worked at a military facility along that stretch of road. He and his wife had seen us walking for a few days, so he kindly dropped off a cooler full of ice, Gatorade, iced water, PayDay bars, and gum. It was such a blessing because most of our water had heated up from the sun and the difference between ice cold water and lukewarm water when you’re out here in the desert is very noticeable. Plus, we were able to use the cooler for another week, filling it up with ice whenever we could and having cold water more regularly.

Later on during that part of the journey, Mike Green, one of the guys we’d met at Parkside Bible Fellowship in Fallon, saw us on the way out to a weekend trip and dropped off several cold bottles of water for us. Then, coincidentally, we ended up seeing him again after his weekend trip and he gave us the rest of his leftover bottles and ice, which made for a double whammy of cold waters during hot stretches of travel.

We also met a gentleman named Rich DeBraga while we were taking one of our midday breaks and he dropped off some deliciously cold iced waters, some Arizona tea, and a friendly word of encouragement. We ended up seeing him a few days later and he dropped off even more water for us, which was fantastic.

It’s crazy how, even in the middle of nowhere, God puts people in your life to help give you that boost of cold water, love, and support just when you need it. It seems like so many people were willing to help us for no other reason other than “you look like you could use some cold water,” which is such a blessing when you’re out there sweating in 95-degree heat with lukewarm—or just completely warm—water in your cart.

Anyway, after a few days of travel, we reached Austin, NV. Unfortunately, right before we got to Austin, we got caught in a very uncharacteristic downpour. The night before arriving was rough, but thanks to some help from a few more road angels, we got our tent up in the whipping wind and rain. The next day was sort of clear, and we thought we’d get to Austin before it rained again.

Unfortunately, about 4 miles outside of Austin, we got destroyed by rain. We didn’t have time or a place to put up our tent, so we got out tarps, covered the carts, and then tried to cover ourselves. It wasn’t fun. It cooled things off, but it rained for so long (again, uncharacteristic of the rain out here) that we started to get cold. And we were already wet. As soon as the sky cleared up, we powered up the hill into Austin and found some food. We were trying to stay with some people in Austin but weren’t able to connect with anyone, so we made our way down to a motel in town.

Unfortunately, we got yelled at pretty aggressively by the guy who runs the Pony Canyon Motel for “doing video” and “using up 1000 megabytes in an hour” on his internet (to be clear, we hadn’t “done video” for even a second, but that’s ok), so we decided to call it a day and get on out of Austin. We stayed at the Bob Scott Campground a few miles outside of town for a couple of nights to rest and enjoy some time to just hang out with each other in a beautiful, quiet, open area.

The next stretch of road was our biggest without any water or rest stops along the way. From Austin to Eureka is 70 miles, and Lindsie and I were both excited and slightly intimidated by the distance, but we knew if there was a time we’d need to rely on God, it would be now. On the plus side, it’s always gorgeous in the mornings and evenings (as you can see from the photo).

Once again, this post is getting long, but I can say that we DID end up having to rely on God during the Austin-to-Eureka part of the walk, and I’m excited to share exactly what happened in the next post. Not only did we have to rely on God, but he provided more abundantly than we ever could have dreamed.

We’ll be trying to use up the internet here in Eureka as much as we can before setting out, so we’ll try to have another post ready to go before we take off. We also have plenty of other stuff to share/reveal in the next few days, so we’re pumped to finally have internet access again.

Thanks for reading these posts and for leaving encouraging comments here on the blog and on Facebook. We can’t tell you how much we appreciate the love and support we’ve been shown on this journey. It has made every step even more worthwhile than we could’ve ever imagined.

Back with more soon, as usual.

-Mike and Linds

Finding Life In The Desert

Posted
August 2, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
0 Comments

Good news – we FINALLY have internet! Anyway, there are a few update posts coming to make up for the long hiatus from the blog. This is the first one, and we’re hoping to have more soon!

After leaving Carson City, saying sad goodbyes to Jenny and Rob, and setting off into the great unknown (which is actually just the Nevada desert traveling east along Highway 50), we realized that we had a much larger task in front of us than we’d even sort of imagined.

You see, there’s really not much out here in the desert. Shocking, we know.

Our first destination past Carson City was Dayton, NV. It was only a few miles, but we quickly realized that, unfortunately, the weather was hotter than anticipated. I know you’re probably thinking, “Duh, it’s the desert,” but the area we were traveling through was actually suffering from a heat wave so it was even hotter than “normal,” (if you can call desert temperatures normal, that is).

We pushed through the heat and got to the edge of Dayton that morning. There we found a lovely city park right along the side of the road, about 100 feet from a gas station with a Quizno’s. Since we were already struggling due to the extreme temperature, we decided to set up at that park, grab some lunch, and wait out the afternoon in the shade of the trees.

Let me backtrack for a second so I can fill you in on our general plan. The goal was/is to get up as early as we’re able in the mornings—for Mike that’s about 4:30, for Lindsie it’s about 5:30—and start walking until the sun is fully flared up and raging. Then we pull off for a few hours, get ourselves in the shade, and wait for the sun to start going back down again. You would think that a 6-8 hour midday break with nothing to do but read/rest/relax would be AMAZING, but, as much as I hate to complain, it’s not as amazing as imagined. Mostly because there’s a sweltering heat all around you and, sadly, you can only sit and read or listen to music for so long before your body starts saying “Get up! Move around! Do something!” But sitting in the shade is still better (and safer) than trying to walk through the heat, so sit we do.

Anyway, while we waited in the shade in Dayton, I (Mike) quickly realized that the two books I’d bought from Walmart would only last me another few days at best. I told Lindsie, “It’d be great to find a used book store along the way where I could buy some classic books a little bit cheaper than trying to buy books from Walmart.” Once the sun cooled down, we started off again and the very first store we saw, sitting just a little ways up and across the street, was a used book store. Semi-prayer answered.

After loading up with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Life On The Mississippi by Mark Twain, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck, we were on our way again. We ended up stealth camping just outside of Dayton, which was somewhat nerve-wracking but mostly adventurous.

The next day, we spent most of our afternoon camped under the shade of an abandoned gas station between Dayton and Lahontan. It was hot—very hot—and we decided the giant roofed area above the old gas pumps was a better place for shade than trying to set up our tiny rain fly to cool off under. While we waited, an incredibly nice kid named Alex, who lived just a few hundred feet away from the gas station, came over and brought us water. We were thankful, and then we were even more thankful when his mom and siblings came out to give us bread, peanut butter, ham, tuna, and more. It was an unexpected blessing on a hot, tiring afternoon. Later on, a biker named Christian came rolling up. Christian had ridden from Virginia to California and was now on his way BACK to Virginia. We sort of thought he was crazy for doing that, but we’re not ones to talk, seeing as we’re walking across the country ourselves. Regardless, it was great to enjoy some lunch with a fellow human being, and we enjoyed the opportunity to connect with Christian.

After stealth camping again that night a little further down the road, we got up and made our way toward Lahontan State Recreation Area. Around 9:30 in the morning it was already hot enough to pull off, so we set up under some trees near the water, and waited out the heat. Along with three different swims in the lake area (it was so hot outside even Jaeda swam…and she enjoys water about as much as cats do), we hung out under the shade and tried to rest.

After waking up to get moving again, we were feeling a little defeated. It was so, so hot outside and we still had miles and miles and days and days of desert walking to do. There really wasn’t much of an option for us besides prayer, so we said a prayer that God would give us strength and energy, and we were on our way. We had about 16 miles to go to reach Fallon, NV, and thankfully, one of the pastors at Parkside Bible Fellowship, who we’d contacted that morning, told us we would be able to spend the night with his family and, equally as important to us, attend church with them the next morning. We were thankful we at least had something to look forward to down the road.

After another night of somewhat sleepless stealth camping between Lahontan and Fallon, we made our final push toward the city of Fallon itself. Unfortunately, about 2 miles outside of Fallon, Lindsie got a flat tire. We pumped it up, hoping our Green Slime would fill the puncture and allow us to keep moving, but, unfortunately, the slime wasn’t strong enough to keep it full. As we contemplated how we would fix the tire, three bikers pulled up and started chatting with us. They had met Christian, the gentleman we’d met at the abandoned gas station. He’d told them about us, and they’d been keeping an eye out for us as they rode along.

Thankfully, in a coincidence that only God could orchestrate, the trio had an extra tire repair kit they weren’t using, so they offered it up to us so we could use it to fix our flat. We were thankful, obviously, and after fixing the flat, we made our final push on to Fallon.

After all of that mess, we arrived at Fallon’s Super WalMart around noon on Saturday, July 14th. We connected with Brennen Behimer, the aforementioned pastor, and were able to get to his house soon after that. Brennen, his wife Stephanie, and their kids Brianna, Megan, Sophia and Gabriel are all just incredibly fun, outgoing, good-natured people, so it was a huge blessing to arrive to such a welcoming presence once we got to Fallon.

In order to let Brennen prepare for the sermon he was giving the next day, we actually went to the home of some Parkside Bible Fellowship congregation members. Brett and Tree (short for Teresa…or Theresa) Jones, and their lovely 14-month-old Avery, invited us over to have some lunch, take a shower—which was a welcome blessing after 3 days—and just spend time relaxing and chatting. Needless to say, we were incredibly thankful for our entire visit to the Jones household.

Later in the evening, we went back to the Behimer abode, ate some delicious burgers, and spent time hearing their incredible story (living as missionaries in Russia, traveling all over the place, and more) and learning about the many talents of their kids, which was a blast. To be clear, the Behimers weren’t bragging about their kids’ talents or anything; I just kept asking about them over and over because it was fun talking to them.

The next morning, we got to enjoy a great sermon from Brennen about husbands loving their wives—Lindsie obviously enjoyed it quite a bit—and met some people from the church. We also were invited to lunch by Gabby Stone, who works with the church youth group. Gabby was a delight, talking with us about our journey as well as sharing her life with us (and some other exciting details we aren’t allowed to discuss yet), and we enjoyed grabbing lunch at a somewhat-historic Fallon establishment.

After putting on new tires (our old ones had worn away at that point) and putting new inner tubes in, we debated heading out of Fallon. However, it had gotten late, and we decided to take up the Jones family on a previously-made offer of letting us stay at their place on Sunday night if we weren’t ready to leave Fallon. That got us 4 miles further down the road, which was nice, and we had a safe, comfortable place to stay one last time before heading east through the vast desert emptiness.

Rather than making this post a hundred pages long, I’ll go ahead and stop for now. We have much more to update you with sooner than later, but essentially right now we’re just cruising down Highway 50 toward Utah, enjoying the landscapes as much as possible and avoiding the sun as best as we can. We’ll have another update soon, hopefully.

On a side note, if you have prayer requests or anything like that, please don’t be afraid to let us know, either by leaving a comment on the blog, commenting on Facebook, or emailing us directly at StormingJericho (at) gmail.com. We have LOTS of time to be praying and would love to pray for all of the wonderful people who have certainly been praying for us over the past few weeks.

Thanks again, everyone.

-Mike and Linds (and Jaeda)

Finding Life In The Desert

Posted
July 31, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
4 Comments

Good news – we FINALLY have internet! Anyway, there are a few update posts coming to make up for the long hiatus from the blog. This is the first one, and we’re hoping to have more soon!

After leaving Carson City, saying sad goodbyes to Jenny and Rob, and setting off into the great unknown (which is actually just the Nevada desert traveling east along Highway 50), we realized that we had a much larger task in front of us than we’d even sort of imagined.

You see, there’s really not much out here in the desert. Shocking, we know.

Our first destination past Carson City was Dayton, NV. It was only a few miles, but we quickly realized that, unfortunately, the weather was hotter than anticipated. I know you’re probably thinking, “Duh, it’s the desert,” but the area we were traveling through was actually suffering from a heat wave so it was even hotter than “normal,” (if you can call desert temperatures normal, that is).

We pushed through the heat and got to the edge of Dayton that morning. There we found a lovely city park right along the side of the road, about 100 feet from a gas station with a Quizno’s. Since we were already struggling due to the extreme temperature, we decided to set up at that park, grab some lunch, and wait out the afternoon in the shade of the trees.

Let me backtrack for a second so I can fill you in on our general plan. The goal was/is to get up as early as we’re able in the mornings—for Mike that’s about 4:30, for Lindsie it’s about 5:30—and start walking until the sun is fully flared up and raging. Then we pull off for a few hours, get ourselves in the shade, and wait for the sun to start going back down again. You would think that a 6-8 hour midday break with nothing to do but read/rest/relax would be AMAZING, but, as much as I hate to complain, it’s not as amazing as imagined. Mostly because there’s a sweltering heat all around you and, sadly, you can only sit and read or listen to music for so long before your body starts saying “Get up! Move around! Do something!” But sitting in the shade is still better (and safer) than trying to walk through the heat, so sit we do.

Anyway, while we waited in the shade in Dayton, I (Mike) quickly realized that the two books I’d bought from Walmart would only last me another few days at best. I told Lindsie, “It’d be great to find a used book store along the way where I could buy some classic books a little bit cheaper than trying to buy books from Walmart.” Once the sun cooled down, we started off again and the very first store we saw, sitting just a little ways up and across the street, was a used book store. Semi-prayer answered.

After loading up with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Life On The Mississippi by Mark Twain, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck, we were on our way again. We ended up stealth camping just outside of Dayton, which was somewhat nerve-wracking but mostly adventurous.

The next day, we spent most of our afternoon camped under the shade of an abandoned gas station between Dayton and Lahontan. It was hot—very hot—and we decided the giant roofed area above the old gas pumps was a better place for shade than trying to set up our tiny rain fly to cool off under. While we waited, an incredibly nice kid named Alex, who lived just a few hundred feet away from the gas station, came over and brought us water. We were thankful, and then we were even more thankful when his mom and siblings came out to give us bread, peanut butter, ham, tuna, and more. It was an unexpected blessing on a hot, tiring afternoon. Later on, a biker named Christian came rolling up. Christian had ridden from Virginia to California and was now on his way BACK to Virginia. We sort of thought he was crazy for doing that, but we’re not ones to talk, seeing as we’re walking across the country ourselves. Regardless, it was great to enjoy some lunch with a fellow human being, and we enjoyed the opportunity to connect with Christian.

After stealth camping again that night a little further down the road, we got up and made our way toward Lahontan State Recreation Area. Around 9:30 in the morning it was already hot enough to pull off, so we set up under some trees near the water, and waited out the heat. Along with three different swims in the lake area (it was so hot outside even Jaeda swam…and she enjoys water about as much as cats do), we hung out under the shade and tried to rest.

After waking up to get moving again, we were feeling a little defeated. It was so, so hot outside and we still had miles and miles and days and days of desert walking to do. There really wasn’t much of an option for us besides prayer, so we said a prayer that God would give us strength and energy, and we were on our way. We had about 16 miles to go to reach Fallon, NV, and thankfully, one of the pastors at Parkside Bible Fellowship, who we’d contacted that morning, told us we would be able to spend the night with his family and, equally as important to us, attend church with them the next morning. We were thankful we at least had something to look forward to down the road.

After another night of somewhat sleepless stealth camping between Lahontan and Fallon, we made our final push toward the city of Fallon itself. Unfortunately, about 2 miles outside of Fallon, Lindsie got a flat tire. We pumped it up, hoping our Green Slime would fill the puncture and allow us to keep moving, but, unfortunately, the slime wasn’t strong enough to keep it full. As we contemplated how we would fix the tire, three bikers pulled up and started chatting with us. They had met Christian, the gentleman we’d met at the abandoned gas station. He’d told them about us, and they’d been keeping an eye out for us as they rode along.

Thankfully, in a coincidence that only God could orchestrate, the trio had an extra tire repair kit they weren’t using, so they offered it up to us so we could use it to fix our flat. We were thankful, obviously, and after fixing the flat, we made our final push on to Fallon.

After all of that mess, we arrived at Fallon’s Super WalMart around noon on Saturday, July 14th. We connected with Brennen Behimer, the aforementioned pastor, and were able to get to his house soon after that. Brennen, his wife Stephanie, and their kids Brianna, Megan, Sophia and Gabriel are all just incredibly fun, outgoing, good-natured people, so it was a huge blessing to arrive to such a welcoming presence once we got to Fallon.

In order to let Brennen prepare for the sermon he was giving the next day, we actually went to the home of some Parkside Bible Fellowship congregation members. Brett and Tree (short for Teresa…or Theresa) Jones, and their lovely 14-month-old Avery, invited us over to have some lunch, take a shower—which was a welcome blessing after 3 days—and just spend time relaxing and chatting. Needless to say, we were incredibly thankful for our entire visit to the Jones household.

Later in the evening, we went back to the Behimer abode, ate some delicious burgers, and spent time hearing their incredible story (living as missionaries in Russia, traveling all over the place, and more) and learning about the many talents of their kids, which was a blast. To be clear, the Behimers weren’t bragging about their kids’ talents or anything; I just kept asking about them over and over because it was fun talking to them.

The next morning, we got to enjoy a great sermon from Brennen about husbands loving their wives—Lindsie obviously enjoyed it quite a bit—and met some people from the church. We also were invited to lunch by Gabby Stone, who works with the church youth group. Gabby was a delight, talking with us about our journey as well as sharing her life with us (and some other exciting details we aren’t allowed to discuss yet), and we enjoyed grabbing lunch at a somewhat-historic Fallon establishment.

After putting on new tires (our old ones had worn away at that point) and putting new inner tubes in, we debated heading out of Fallon. However, it had gotten late, and we decided to take up the Jones family on a previously-made offer of letting us stay at their place on Sunday night if we weren’t ready to leave Fallon. That got us 4 miles further down the road, which was nice, and we had a safe, comfortable place to stay one last time before heading east through the vast desert emptiness.

Rather than making this post a hundred pages long, I’ll go ahead and stop for now. We have much more to update you with sooner than later, but essentially right now we’re just cruising down Highway 50 toward Utah, enjoying the landscapes as much as possible and avoiding the sun as best as we can. We’ll have another update soon, hopefully.

On a side note, if you have prayer requests or anything like that, please don’t be afraid to let us know, either by leaving a comment on the blog, commenting on Facebook, or emailing us directly at StormingJericho (at) gmail.com. We have LOTS of time to be praying and would love to pray for all of the wonderful people who have certainly been praying for us over the past few weeks.

Thanks again, everyone.

-Mike and Linds (and Jaeda)

Into Nevada: The Desert Awaits

Posted
July 11, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
6 Comments

A few days ago, Lindsie and I officially walked across California and have now reached Nevada.

If it’s ok with you, I’d like to write that one more time. Lindsie and I have officially walked across California and have now reached Nevada. After just a little over 3 weeks, we’ve crossed our first state, and we are so thankful that God has helped us make it across completely safe and sound.

Anyway, here’s an update on what has gone on since our last post.

We left the Prestons in South Lake Tahoe, CA, on Saturday morning, and Cynthea was kind enough to drive our carts up to the top of Spooner Summit so we wouldn’t have to push them up the not-that-enjoyable incline. We dropped the carts off at a state park with the hope that we would pick them up upon arrival and camp in the park.

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to camp in that specific area of the park. We were told that the camping area is 2.5 miles from where we entered, and you have to go through rougher “backcountry” and hiking trails to get to the campsites. That meant no carts, and no place to sleep.

We decided to roll with it anyway, knowing we’d maybe have to try and push to Carson City that same day, which would make for a 30-mile day total. We weren’t thrilled about that idea, but if it had to happen, we’d make it happen. At worst, we’d camp on the side of the highway. After a 15-mile uphill climb (without the carts, thankfully), we arrived back to where we’d dropped the carts off that morning. It was 4:30 pm and the park rangers were supposed to be gone for the day. We also still had 15 miles to go, and we were pretty much dead already.

Then we decided to pray.

If you’ve read some of our other posts, you’ve probably recognized that answered prayers are becoming a blessedly common thing for us on this journey, and you won’t be surprised to learn that, once again, our prayer was answered.

After praying that God would provide us with some safe place to sleep that night, we sat for about a minute. Then, a park official walked out of the seemingly-closed down ranger station and told us we could go ahead and camp in a restricted area reserved for a research group. It was just a few hundred feet away from us AND it had a bear box so we could keep our food (and ourselves) safe from bears.

Like I said, it was an answered prayer, and we were incredibly appreciative.

From there, we pushed our way (downhill, thankfully) to Carson City. We met with Ted Oxborrow, who is the Nevada State Coordinator for the American Discovery Trail, on the way down (he was riding uphill on his bike). Ted has been an amazing, incredible resources to us as we prepare for this desert crossing. But we’ll get to that later. For now, Ted mentioned that he’d dropped a line to Jenny Scanland, the State Trails Coordinator for Nevada.

Jenny and her husband, Rob, were AMAZING. Besides offering us their guest room/apartment for a few nights, they let us use their Xterra, they made us dinner, they took us swimming in the river behind their house, and they took us to their respective Tuesday morning Bible studies. Add that to the fact that Jenny knows a TON about the various parks, trails, and general environment here in Nevada, and you can see why we were so blessed to have met her (and Rob) in the first place.

We basically felt like family immediately after meeting them, and couldn’t be more thankful for everything they did to help us prepare for the desert. With some truly knowledgeable and experienced insight from the Scanlands as well as Ted Oxborrow, his wife, Jill, and his son, Trevor, we feel more prepared than we ever would’ve dreamed we could be as we get ready to set out across the deserts of Nevada and Utah.

Obviously the desert is going to have plenty of challenges. The main challenge will be staying hydrated and trying our best to fight off the heat. All we ask of you is prayer. Lots and lots of prayer. Prayers that we will always have enough water (even if it means road angels stop and drop water off for us), prayers that we’ll stay safe on a pretty lonely stretch of road, and prayers that we won’t have to walk through any out of-the-ordinary heat waves.

We are very, very confident that we will be perfectly safe. We’ve got complete faith that God will continue to walk with us every step of the way. But that doesn’t mean we’re not open to plenty of prayers and words of encouragement.

Thanks to everyone for following along with the journey. The udpates might be fewer and further between once we hit the desert, but we’ll do our best to keep you as up-to-date as possible.

On a final note, don’t forget to check out the wonderful story Jill Callison from the Argus Leader wrote about our trip. It was fun doing the interview and we’re overjoyed with the story she wrote about us. It’s such a blessing to be able to share with people the what and why of our journey, especially through a paper as wide-reaching as the Argus Leader.

Thanks again, everyone, and we’ll be back with another update as soon as we can be.

-Mike and Lindsie

Trying To Catch Up In California (Part 2 of 2)

Posted
July 8, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
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0 Comments

When our last “catching up” post left off, we were on the cusp of reaching Lake Tahoe. Unfortunately, we ran into a slight problem, which we talked about in THIS post about quickly answered prayers, so be sure you take a minute to read that one if you haven’t already.

Anyway, after the generosity of the O’Briens, we made our way down into the KOA, which is only a few miles south of South Lake Tahoe. South Lake Tahoe was our first “major” destination on this journey—sort of a mini-milestone that we’d been excited to reach since starting in San Francisco. Even though the KOA wasn’t particularly eventful, it was nice to have some time to slow down and catch up on life a little bit.

We went down into South Lake Tahoe the next day, and it was beautiful. The lake is huge (our friends the Prestons, who you’ll learn about later, informed us that all of the water in Lake Tahoe could cover the ENTIRE state of California with 14 inches of water. That makes my brain want to explode.

Anyway, we didn’t have a place to stay our first night in South Lake Tahoe, so Lindsie’s uncle Charlie kindly paid for our room at the Super 8. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the Super 8 was less than stellar, and after a night of almost no sleep at all, we got a refund and booked it out of the hotel.

Thankfully, Charlie had also connected us with Cynthea Preston through his Rotary Club connections, and Cynthea invited us to come set up a tent in her and her husband’s yard. She wanted to offer us a bed, but her son and his family were visiting from Southern California and there just wasn’t room.

To give you some perspective on how generous this offer was, Cynthea offered their lawn to us ON the 4th of July, even though she had family in town and had every reason to blow us off if she’d wanted to. And if she had told us no, we would’ve ended up paying anywhere between $140 and $200 for a hotel room on the night of July 4th. Scary, right?

On top of this kindness, the Prestons offered to let us stay for several days (which Lindsie and I were really hoping we’d be able to do), and then they got even crazier—they offered to let us join them for the world-famous South Lake Tahoe 4th of July fireworks extravaganza. On their boat. IN South Lake Tahoe.

Obviously we said yes, and, as you can see from the video below of the finale, we got to enjoy an amazing fireworks display.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPFYWpWBk50]

The Prestons were just amazing people. Cynthea and Steve were so kind and gracious, and their son Ryan, his wife Åsa and their two kids Hannah and Dean are all just fun-loving, adventurous people, so we sort of felt like we fit right in with them. They’re also incredibly smart, so it was fun listening to all of their explanations about the environment around South Lake Tahoe and some of the history of the area.

All in all, our stay with the Prestons was a huge blessing. Besides giving us a few days to relax and catch up on things (like our blog posts), it was fun to meet a family that just enjoys life so much. From all of their hiking and adventuring to their beautiful home and delicious meals, the Prestons are the kind of family that just seems to enjoy waking up every morning and doing what they love to do.

The most important thing for me and Lindsie was once again seeing how God provides when you ask. We knew paying for a hotel would be bad news bears for us as far as our budget goes, and as we were getting ready to walk to a hotel and bite the bullet on the cost, Cynthea called and invited us to stay at their place. The timing couldn’t have possibly been better.

As far as what’s up next, we’re getting ready for the desert. We’ll be crossing Nevada and Utah over the next several weeks, and, contrary to what you’d think, we’re very, very excited. The land will be flat (finally!) and we’ll have plenty of time to talk, pray, and enjoy some quiet time out on the open landscape. Thankfully, we already have a few connections in Carson City (who we’ll talk about later) that can help us prepare more than we’d expected, so we should be ready to have an amazing (and safe) desert adventure when we start walking.

That said, we’re still very open to receiving your prayers and words of encouragement, no matter how prepared for the desert we might be. It will obviously be hot, we’ll need to carry plenty of water, and there are a few stretches where we’ll be miles (and miles…and miles) between towns.

That said, we know God will be taking care of us and walking along with us every step of the way. We can’t wait to see how He continues to change us throughout this journey. It has been amazing so far, for sure.

Thanks for the continued encouragement and support. We’re so thankful for everyone who reads these posts, comments on Facebook, and tells us in person that they support us.

-Mike  (and Lindsie)

A Quickly Answered Prayer

Posted
July 7, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Spiritual Insights
Comments
11 Comments

For those of you who don’t know, Lindsie and I have been walking up a lot of hills the past couple of days.

See, we were going through the Sierras, and since we had to go UP the Sierras in order to get OVER the Sierras, we’ve done lots of climbing lately. And when you’re pushing a 90+ pound cart in front of you, going up mountains isn’t exactly the fun part of the journey.

Anyway, as we were getting ready to push our carts up and over the steepest part of this area, Echo Summit, we ran into our friend and cross-country walk mentor Nate Damm along Highway 50. We thought Nate had gone up and over the mountains (and Echo Summit) just like we were about to do. Our mistake was not actually asking him if he’d done that, but simply assuming that he did.

Nate quickly let us know that he had been fortunate enough to have car support for this specific leg of his journey. He had friends who would drive his cart up over major hills (like Echo Summit) and then he’d just walk up by himself, catch up to his stuff, and push it along again until the next major hill, when his car support would drive it over again. Nate also mentioned that he wouldn’t have been comfortable trying to push his cart up/along Echo Summit even if he hadn’t had car support.

Lindsie and I, unfortunately, didn’t have car support, or even any similar options, really. We hadn’t even considered car support and we were only about a half day’s walk from Echo Summit. So we were stressing a little bit.

After Nate left, we contemplated what we would do. We were pretty worn out, and we’d just found out that our strategy was shot to holes. It was getting to be early afternoon, and we both felt like the wind had been taken out of our sales.

So we prayed. We asked God to help us find a solution, and we asked him to open people’s hearts to offer us help. Lindsie went so far as to actually pray for God to send us a vehicle directly that would provide us with car support.

And, somewhat surprisingly (and at the same time not surprisingly at all), a red truck pulled up less than 5 minutes after we’d finished praying.

It belonged to Mike and Patti O’Brien, and they were wondering if we were ok. We’d been waiting in a turnoff by the side of the road for nearly an hour and a half (thanks to Lindsie’s constant desire to nap and our meeting with Nate), and they were afraid we’d broken a wheel or popped a tire.

Lindsie explained our situation. We were just hoping for someone who could drive our stuff over Echo Summit and to the KOA Campground on the other side so we wouldn’t have to push it over ourselves.

Our jaws dropped when Mike and Patti said they’d be happy to help us out. And help us they did. We loaded up the carts, drove them to the KOA, and then they dropped us back off where we’d started from so we wouldn’t have to skip even a single step on our walk.

We could write pages about how thankful we are for Mike and Patti’s generosity and eagerness to help. They certainly deserve it. But at the same time, we want to make sure God gets as much credit as possible. One minute we’re sitting on the side of the road, feeling like we’ll never find a safe and clear cut way to make it over Echo Summit, and the next minute, after a heartfelt prayer, we find ourselves with road angels pulling up to help us.

It’s amazing what happens when you ask God for help. No matter the size and scope of the help you need, God will provide it one way or another if you just ask. We’ve seen it happen multiple times on this trip, and we’re only 3 weeks in. We can’t wait to see the other ways God jumps in and takes charge for us when we need Him most. It seems like he’s just up there in heaven waiting for us to ask.

In fact, Matthew 7:7 essentially says the same thing:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 21:22 says,

You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.

And finally, John 14:13-14 says,

You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!

If that’s not reassuring, we don’t know what is.

So what is it that you need help with in your own life? Have you prayed about it yet? If not, we encourage you to give it a try. If you have prayed about it, we encourage you to keep praying. God works wonders when you just let him. Also, let us know if we can be praying for you, either through a comment on the blog or through an email if it’s something more personal. We have hours (and hours and hours) of walking with not much else to do, so we’re happy to pray if you have any prayer requests.

It’s the least we can do after all of the encouragement and support we’ve received.

Thanks so much, everyone, and we look forward to sharing more news with you soon.

-Mike and Linds

Trying To Catch Up In California (Part 1 of 2)

Posted
July 6, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
5 Comments

We’ve gotta admit, sometimes writing these blog posts can be a daunting task. It’s not that we’re not excited about writing them—it’s that so much happens between each post that it’s hard to put it all down into words. But we will continue to do our best nonetheless.

After leaving the awesome gymnasium of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Camino, CA, we journeyed over to Pollock Pines, CA. Thanks to our friend Barbara from Foothills United Methodist Church in Rescue, CA, we made a connection with John Blank from Pollock Pines Community Church  who offered to let us stay the night there in Pollock Pines.

We got there on Friday afternoon and were excited to find out that the church puts on a meal every Friday—which they’ve been doing for over 21 years—for anyone and everyone in the area who might need and want a tasty meal. While we waited for dinner, Linds and I were able to catch up on our blog and Facebook posts (and—more importantly for Lindsie—catch up on sleep).
Once dinner had ended, John came by to pick us up. He and his wife, Pam, actually wanted us to come stay at their house so we could take a much-needed shower, sleep in a comfortable bed, and grab breakfast in the morning.Then, at dinner time, Lindsie and I had our first sort of presentation/interview in front of a larger group of people. Pollock Pines Community Church Pastor Dave Morrison (who was actually retiring the following Sunday, interestingly enough) typically shares some scripture before dinner is served, and he was kind enough to call us up to share our story, ask us some questions, and tell the dinner guests about our adventure. Then, when we were finished, he gave us a very unique New Testament Bible that he had been given over 30 years ago which we were incredibly thankful for.

Basically, the stay was incredible, and we were blessed to have had the Blanks extend so much kindness to us.We arrived at their house and were blown away. For starters, we were blown away because the house was gorgeous, and we found out that John had actually designed the house himself. Keep in mind, he’s not an architect. But, professional architect or not, the house was, as mentioned, GORGEOUS. Then, we were treated to seeing some of Pam’s amazing paintings. Similar to how John isn’t a professional architect but designed a ridiculously cool house, Pam isn’t a professional painter but paints ridiculously beautiful paintings. After the tour and some conversation, we slept like rocks and they gave us breakfast and prayed with us in the morning.

From Pollock Pines, we headed along Highway 50 toward Kyburz, CA, which is so small that the sign hanging on the main building says “Welcome to Pollock Pines. Now leaving Pollock Pines.” About 2 miles before we got there (and after 17.5 miles of walking for that day), we decided to set up at Sand Flat Campground. It was by the river, which was nice, and I got in the river, which was less nice because it was very cold water. Lindsie did enjoy videoing it though, so we’ll embed that video as well just in case anybody else enjoys watching it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNfyUGFJhnQ]

Before we get too far along, we do have one thing to mention. Before arriving at the campground, we met an awesome guy named Kevin Lindholm. Kevin was taking his son and his son’s friend fishing in the American River, which pretty much follows all along the road we’re traveling on. He saw us and struck up a conversation (we’re hard to miss with our bright yellow safety vests, big blue push carts, and adorably cute dog).

When we explained to Kevin why we were walking, he was just astounded and inspired, and his excitement was contagious. Lindsie and I found ourselves feeling even more passionate about this journey when we saw Kevin’s reaction to what we were doing and why. Kevin mentioned that he’d offer us a ride but his car wouldn’t have room, and we had to explain that our goal is to walk the entire journey step-by-step. Then Kevin went above and beyond and asked if there was anything at the store he could drive down and grab for us. Keep in mind that Kevin had just arrived to this spot in the river to take two kids fishing and was willing to pack them and their gear back up, turn around, and drive 20-ish miles (each way) to get us something from the store if we’d needed it.

Even though we didn’t need anything, we were absolutely, 100% blown away by Kevin’s willingness to offer help. It’s people like him who make us so thankful that we’re doing this walk. Even though he wouldn’t have gotten anything out of it (at least, from our perspective), he was ready to go WAY out of his way to help us out. He also spread the word by telling his church about us and our mission. I wish there were other ways for me to talk about how thankful we were for running into Kevin. His excitement was encouraging and motivating, and generally just a reminder of why we’re glad we’re making this journey.

In the interest of keeping this post at least a little bit short, I’m going to cut it off here for now. We’re still not really caught up to our current location, blog-wise, but we should be covered by the next post or two down the line (I hope). Future posts will include answered prayers, beautiful views, and fireworks.Anyway, we left the aforementioned campground in the morning and continued heading toward South Lake Tahoe, which was just around the corner.

Thanks for reading and thanks for encouraging us with prayers and words of support in blog comments and on the Facebook page. Hooray adventure!

So Much Going On (In So Little Time)

Posted
June 29, 2012
Categories
On The Trail
Comments
4 Comments

After finally getting a wi-fi connection (and time to get some stuff posted), we have another update for you, dear readers. Rather than make small talk for a paragraph or two, we’ll just jump right into it.

Once we left Davis a few days ago, we continued toward Sacramento. We had a fun, peaceful night camping at the West Sacramento KOA where we met some incredibly kind people (and enjoyed a few s’mores out by a fire) before heading to bed early.

The next day we pushed on into Sacramento. After stopping by the beautiful state capitol building, we kept on walkin’ along. We were hoping to find a place to stay (either with a personal connection or camping in a church yard), but we couldn’t connect with anyone and ended up spending the night in a Travelodge. Even though hotels are nice (showers, beds and air conditioning are never a bad thing) we need to start saving money, so we’re hoping to stay as hotel-free as we can from here on out. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, we left the Travelodge for Folsom, CA, where we met some of the kindest, most enjoyable people we’ve met so far on this trip. Thanks to a Rotary Club connection through Lindsie’s Uncle Charlie, we met Terry and Jackie McNeil in Folsom, CA. We got to their home, and even though we’d never met them before, they welcomed us in like we were prodigal children returning home.

We simply thought we were getting a place to set up our tent, but Jackie immediately offered us their guest room, as well as showers, a delicious dinner, and s’mores out by a backyard campfire. Two of Terry and Jackie’s three daughters, Jen and Amanda (and Amanda’s two great kids) were also there, so we enjoyed getting to know them.

After the McNeils provided us with some extra emergency gear, a few extra survival tips, and some route-strategizing, we went to sleep following a wonderful night of kindness and generosity from the McNeil’s.

The next morning we were off bright and early to head toward Rescue, CA (though not before Jackie was able to cook us up a tasty breakfast). Thankfully, the folks at Foothills United Methodist told us we could camp out in one of their youth rooms, so we just had to put in a good 13 miles of walking to reach their church.

During our walk, Jackie swung back by to bring us emergency safety vests (to be sure people would see us on the road). We really don’t understand why Jackie and Terry have been so great to us, but we just keep rolling with it.

Once we reached Foothills United Methodist in Rescue, CA–which has an unbelievably fun, unique, and beautiful set of buildings–we were blessed to spend time talking with Barbara Gillespy (who works at the church and went out of her way to ensure we’d have a safe place to stay) and Pastor Dave Bunje, who took time to talk with us, discuss our route, and just bless us with his company even though he most likely had plenty of other stuff he could do.

Then, as a bonus visit, Jackie and Terry drove up from Folsom to pick us up again (how they weren’t tired of us at this point, we really don’t know). They ran us to a few sporting goods stores to be sure we had everything we needed supply-wise, then were kind enough to grab us some In-N-Out Burger, which is delicious. And, as we learned during dinner, In-N-Out Burger is owned by a Christian family that writes Bible verses on the wrappers of the burgers/fries/etc., which we thought was pretty cool. After dinner, the McNeils dropped us back off at Foothills United Methodist; we said a second sad goodbye and went to get some sleep.

After enjoying another comfortable night of sleep (Barbara and Dave were kind enough to let us sleep inside the youth room), we headed on toward Placerville. Or so we thought. But, thanks to Barbara’s relentless willingness to help us connect with people and places to stay along our route, we ended up staying with a lovely woman named Ida Mae in Diamond Springs, CA. Even though she’d never met us, Ida Mae offered to let us stay in her guest room, and she made us a wonderful meal of spaghetti and meatballs. We enjoyed chatting with her about her kids, her grandkids, and her great-grandkids, and then we called it a night before Wheel of Fortune had even started (yes, we went to bed THAT early).

The next morning, we grabbed some breakfast, said thanks and goodbye to Ida Mae, then began the trek to Camino, CA. It wasn’t easy. Like…really wasn’t easy. We started at 1,400-foot elevation and ended the day just around 3,000 feet of elevation. There were LOTS of hills and pushing 80+ pound carts up those hills didn’t exactly make it easy, but we finally made it to Camino. Thanks to Barbara’s aforementioned relentless willingness to help us, we were able to spend the night at the 7th Day Adventist Church in Camino. The maintenance man on the property, Dan Smith, gave us plenty of info and some really helpful tips on dealing with the animals we could end up running into during the next portion of our walk. He also had a great life story that he shared with us, and we really enjoyed the conversation.

Then we set up shop in the church’s enormous gymnasium and enjoyed a night sleeping in a very unique location (as you can see from the photo).

Which brings us to today. We’ve reached our next location for the night (which we’ll share about later), but it has definitely been a fun, occasionally-grueling adventure these past few days. It’s amazing how much happens when you’re just walking around. We’ve met such wonderful people, and it’s only the beginning of our journey. We couldn’t be more thankful for everyone’s help and support. We’re not sure if there are words that can do it justice.

We’ve definitely got an “adventure” ahead of us, as we head into animal country. Bears, mountain lions, and probably snakes all await us as we head toward the Lake Tahoe area. We’ve got bear spray with us, but we’re open to any and all prayers as our journey continues, just in case.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us so far, as well as everyone that continues to help us even though we’re out of their areas now. We have some exciting things coming up and we can’t wait to share the next steps of our journey with you.

We’ll be back with more, hopefully sooner than later!

-Mike & Linds

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