As you may remember from our last post, Lindsie, Jaeda, and I were on the verge of making our way into St. Louis—one of the larger cities on this journey across America. We were struggling to make any contacts in the St. Louis area at first, but thanks to our friend Josh (who is walking across the country east-to-west and who we met back in this post), we were able to connect with Jeremy, a guy in St. Louis that Josh had stayed with. And thanks to a friend of Jeremy’s named Brandon, we found out at the last minute that we’d have a place to stay in St. Louis. Needless to say, we were thankful. We weren’t exactly desperate to wander into St. Louis without a place to stay for the night, so it was a blessing that the Lord had better plans for us.
Our goalwas to leave Valley Park bright and early that morning and make our way all the way to the Eads Bridge, which is the bridge that spans the Mississippi River and would take us into Illinois. We started walking along Interstate 44 toward St. Louis and things were going pretty well, until we ran into a slight problem—the bridge into St. Louis going across the Meramec River was about a quarter-mile long…and it had no shoulder whatsoever. As Lindsie and I stared at four lanes full of cars coming at us 70+ miles per hour, we decided we would have to re-route. As a result, we added about five extra miles to our day and had to take a very different road into St. Louis.
As bummed as we were, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. The weather wasn’t bad and the new road would have sidewalks after a little while, which would be nice. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of our walking woes. A few miles after our detour, the front wheel of my cart broke. Frustratingly, it broke in exactly the same way the other front wheel of my cart had broken back on the way to Dixon, Missouri. That one, you might remember, was somewhat miraculously fixed thanks to some crafty welding work from a friend in Dixon. And while the previously-welded wheel was still perfectly intact on Lindsie’s cart, it was now the non-welded wheel that had a breakdown. So that was a bummer.
We pulled off the road and began to take the wheel apart, hoping we could come up with a temporary fix that would at least get us to the Eads Bridge. We weren’t exactly in an area full of mechanic shops and it didn’t seem like we’d be able to do much besides hope our temporary fix would hold out. But, about two minutes after pulling off the road, a large white van pulled up next to us. A gentleman got out and said, “Hey Mike and Lindsie, I’m Jim from the other night in Pacific. Do you guys need help?” If you remember Pastor David and his family from our time in Pacific, Missouri, Jim was Pastor David’s next-door neighbor. We couldn’t believe it.
We explained the situation to Jim and mentioned that it seemed the only way to fix our wheel was to weld it like it had been welded in Dixon. That’s when Jim (and God, really) surprised us with a miracle—Jim said, “Hold on just one second” and made a phone call. He said something along the lines of, “Hey Glen, remember those people David talked about at church? The ones walking across America? They need some welding help. Do you think we could take care of that?” Lindsie and I just looked at each other in disbelief.
A few seconds later, Jim hung up and told us to grab the wheel. His office was around the corner and they had a welding machine there. He wouldn’t be able to weld it himself, but another guy at his office could take care of it for us. It turns out Glen is Jim’s boss, and Glen is a very active member of Pastor David’s church in Pacific. Our minds were just about ready to explode.
Jim drove me over to the shop, informed a gentleman who could weld about our situation, and headed off to work himself. The welder grabbed our wheel, made a few adjustments, and then got to welding. Less than ten minutes later, we had a fully-functional front wheel. Once again, God had done things only God could do, and for that we were thankful.
Looking back on the situation, it’s crazy. After our wheel broke, a guy we met FORTY miles back in Pacific, Missouri, came across us a block away from his office, where he just so happened to work in an office that had welding tools (even though almost every other building in the area was an accounting office or law office of some sort), and happened to have a boss who was willing to sacrifice company time to get us taken care of and back on the road. On top of that, we weren’t even SUPPOSED to be on that road—our (clearly imperfect) plan was to be on I-44 at that point. Just unbelievable.
Once the wheel was repaired, Lindsie and I said a very loud prayer of thanks and began walking again. It was getting warm at that point, and we still had about 17 miles to go thanks to our detour. Thankfully, our friend Brandon had offered to come pick up our carts early so we could walk most of the way through St. Louis and to the Eads Bridge without our carts. As he made his way toward us, we continued down the road.
Unfortunately, due to some rugged terrain and some generally not-quite-top-of-the-line parts/materials, my wheel hit a rut and cracked the welding job that had just been performed. As a result, my wheel was back to broken and it was now almost noon and very warm. We were getting a little stressed.
We decided to just call it a day, and we waited for Brandon to show up. He arrived soon after we stopped, and we loaded up the carts into his newspaper van. As we explained everything that had happened, we mentioned that if he knew any mechanics/welders in town, we’d probably need to take the wheel in and pay for it to be done somewhere to ensure its stability. Brandon replied, “Sure, we can do that.” I then asked, “OK, so do you have a specific shop in town you’d recommend? And would you be willing to take us by there at some point?” His reply: “No, I mean literally, we can do that. My dad’s an electrician and Charlie, whose house you’re staying at tonight, is a mechanic. We have all the tools and skills we need to fix your wheels.”
It was like God had sent us a backup miracle, just for the fun of it.
We couldn’t believe it. As we drove to where we were staying that night, we had a great conversation with Brandon. After many phone calls and his heroic rescue of our stranded selves, it was nice to finally meet Brandon in person. Since Charlie, whose house we were staying at, and his wife, Debbie, were out for the afternoon, we just dropped off our stuff there and went to hang out with Brandon’s family. It was fun to meet his mom, Stacy, his sisters Miranda and Marissa, and his dad Mike. Plus, Charlie and Debbie’s new baby, Kayleigh, was at Brandon’s family’s house too. It was busy, but very fun.
Later that night, we went back over to Charlie’s to settle in for the evening. While we were over there, Brandon, Charlie, and Brandon’s dad, Mike, began looking at our carts. Using their mechanically-inclined brains, they came up with about seven different ways to drastically improve our carts’ functionality, and they set to work making those upgrades and improvements. My brain almost exploded with the provision God has given us on this walk. An entire team of people committed to improving our faulty gear? You’ve got to be kidding.
Anyway, our first night in St. Louis was wonderful. We at a delicious meal with Charlie and Debbie, got a great night of sleep, and woke up refreshed and ready to walk. Our plan was to walk the last 11 miles we hadn’t finished the day before, so we got dropped off bright and early and hoofed it to the Eads Bridge. After that, Brandon’s sisters Amber and Marissa picked us up by the bridge and drove us around the St. Louis area for a little while. We got to go take awesome pictures of the Arch and see some other stuff along the way. Then we went back to shower, have lunch (St. Louis-style pizza and toasted ravioli), and the plan was to visit the St. Louis Zoo. Unfortunately, the zoo was closing at 5:00 p.m. and it was currently 3:45. So we drove around instead and visited a park with giant turtle sculptures. So that was neat.
That evening, the girls in our group of new friends wanted to take Lindsie out for a “girls’ night,” something she hadn’t been able to enjoy in quite a while. Mostly because I’m not a girl, and she spends 99.7% of her time with me. So while Lindsie and a large group of girls went out for a night of fun, Brandon, Charlie, and a few other guys grilled and ate way too much delicious food…which is essentially a “guys’ night.” Then, the girls wanted to do something special as a late birthday surprise for Lindsie, so they secretly commanded the guys to go buy some cakes and surprise Lindsie with them when they got back. She was surprised indeed, and we finished off the night with delicious cake and happiness.
The next day was a day that had been stressing me out for a few weeks. We were going to be crossing the Mississippi River and heading to O’Fallon, Illinois. And in order to get to O’Fallon, Illinois, we would have to pass through East St. Louis. For those of you who don’t know, East St. Louis isn’t exactly the friendliest/safest place to take a cross-country stroll. I had faith that God would take care of us, but as the protector of a family, I was still more nervous than I would have liked to be.
Thankfully, God always knows when to send the right words of reassurance. The night before we were ready to head into East St. Louis, I was doing my Bible study and came across this passage in 2 Samuel 22:2-4…
“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety. He is my refuge, my savior, the one who saves me from violence. I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.”
Talk about perfect timing. The next morning we were up bright and early, and Charlie dropped us off at the Eads Bridge where we’d left off. We walked over and made our way into Illinois. We didn’t exactly walk through East St. Louis, as there was actually a road that goes a little ways around the city that ends up turning into Highway 50, which is the highway we intended to connect with. Regardless, God kept us safe and sound as we traveled, and the only people who talked to us at all were two women who thought Jaeda was adorable. That tends to happen a lot, it seems.
From there, we made it to O’Fallon, where we met up with one of Lindsie’s friends from her graduate school days at Evangel. Kaila drove over from Belleville, Illinois to chat with us for a few hours and say hello. We were excited to see a friendly face, and enjoyed our afternoon hanging out with her. Then Brandon came to pick us up and steal us back to St. Louis for another night. Our plan was to go to church with his sisters the next morning, and then we were going to stay again at Charlie’s.
Or so we thought. But we realized on Saturday evening that the best option for everyone involved would be to meet up with Brandon’s friend Chris—also from Belleville—on Sunday night and then pick back up again in nearby O’Fallon the next morning. Thankfully, Chris and his wife Jihannah were ok with that plan, which was awesome. We went to church with Charlie, Debbie, and Brandon’s sisters (Brandon had church at a different church in St. Louis) and enjoyed a great morning there. After an afternoon of good conversation and final adjustments to our carts, we made our way to Chris and Jihannah’s. We said a sad goodbye to our St. Louis friends and said a joyful hello to our new friends in Illinois. And after a delicious meal with Chris and Jihannah, we went to bed and got ready to rock and roll across Illinois.
Unfortunately, due to chaotic (in a good way) events, we’re still not quite caught up on the blog, but I promise we should be all caught up by the next post. For now, I’m going to end here to avoid letting things get too much longer. In truth, we’re just about to hit Indiana, so I should have the next update up soon.
For now, please continue to share with us if you have prayer requests or anything like that. We’re happy to be praying for people out here on the road. And if you happen to know anyone who lives along Highway 50 between Indiana and Maryland, please let us know if they’d be interested in hosting us for an evening. We love meeting new people and would certainly enjoy the opportunity.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll be back with the next post soon!
-Mike and Lindsie (and Jaeda)
