Hey friends and family,

After a few weeks of very careful and prayer-filled deliberation, Lindsie and I have made a decision.

Since the beginning, our plan was to walk across the country throughout most of the winter (minus a month-long break in December when we’d return to stay with family in South Dakota). We purchased/gathered extra winter gear as the weather got colder, and we knew we were planning to just grit it out and continue the journey, rain or shine (or snow).

Unfortunately, after getting snowed on last week and trying to walk the next few days as the temperature continued to drop, we realized something really, really important: we had lost the joy of this journey.

Even though we were physically capable of walking through the snowy, increasingly-cold Colorado mountains, we discovered that neither one of us seemed to be enjoying it as much as we were before. There’s something about waking up inside a snow and ice-covered tent and knowing you’ll be walking 15+ miles in 18 degree weather that just isn’t as fun/adventurous/exhilarating.

The point of this walk isn’t to just “get” across the country. It’s to do it in a way that strengthens our relationship with God, connects us with people along the road we can share our (and God’s) story with, and making memories that will last for the rest of our lives.

Beyond that, Linds and I have spent the past few weeks and months really focusing on learning how to discern God’s will. While we’re certainly not experts (and maybe never will be), this was a wonderful experience for us to strengthen and grow in that sense. Although we didn’t realize it initially, we both were beginning to feel like God was encouraging us to make a decision that we hadn’t once felt called to make on this entire journey until very recently.

As a result of all this, we’ve decided to temporarily (note: temporarily) postpone our journey until spring rolls around. We fully intend to pick back up exactly where we left off once the weather’s a little warmer and we can continue walking without the risk of losing our extremities to frostbite or waking up on the side of the road as cross-country popsicles.

We’ll spend the next few months in South Dakota (which, really, only adds about 2 extra months of resting in SD, since we were going back for all of December in the first place), and we look forward to reconnecting with our friends and family in SD once we’re back.

To be clear, we will continue posting on the blog throughout the next few months. Many of the posts will be more of the “spiritual insights” and cool/inspiring things we’ve come across rather than updates on our progress, but we hope you’ll continue following along with the blog and our updates anyway. We’ve really enjoyed connecting with so many people through the blog and Facebook and would hate to see that slip away while we waited to restart our journey.

Thanks to everyone who has been so helpful and encouraging as we’ve walked up to this point. One of the main reasons we’ve made it this far is because we’re so motivated by the conversations and comments we’ve shared with you all on and offline. We can’t wait to fire that back up in the spring and start Storming Jericho again when the time is right.

Our only request is that, during this break, you continue encouraging us as you have encouraged us so much already. We’ll still need your help over these next few months to keep us focused on our goal and, more importantly, focused on the Lord and what He wants for us as we go. That encouragement will help keep us fired up to hit the road again when March rolls around.

Thanks so much, everyone, and we hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving if we don’t get another post up before then!

-Mike and Lindsie (and Jaeda)

P.S. – 1) HUGE thanks to our friend Cheryl (from our stop in Ridgway http://stormingjericho.com/showing-true-grit-to-reach-ridgway-co/) and Kellie from Ridgway Community Church for rescuing us from a random stretch of Highway 50 and bringing us back to civilization so we could figure all of this out. 2) EXTRA HUGE thanks to Lindsie’s uncle, Charlie Page, for driving 8 hours down from Casper, Wyoming, to pick us up in Montrose, Colorado, and bring us back to Casper so we could drive home to South Dakota from Casper using his extra car. All kinds of generosity, to say the least.

P.P.S. – All of these gorgeous pictures were taken by my beautiful wife. She’s awesome.