for a rainy day

On Monday night as we walked down Route 1, it began to rain--and then to pour. (Thankfully we put on our rain ponchos right before it got around to the pouring part!) After maybe two minutes of pouring there loomed up, beside the empty road, a large building of some kind with a porch. And port in a storm, really; I thought it might be someone's house but was happy to get under that porch. It turned out to be a vacant inn with a porch that wrapped around back, nice and broad; we praised God and slept there, while it continued to pour.

It poured again the next morning, at intervals, forcing us to take shelter at a disused gas station among other places; we got delayed so much we could only afford a couple hours for our daily "library break." And as we walked on toward Baltimore, all the churches we had planned for were so inadequate in the way of shelter we kept passing them by; rain was promised again for last night. Finally we found a lovely hidden but completely unsheltered spot by a Lutheran church, and used Paul's stick, some string, duct tape and my rain-poncho to set up a bivouac--on the strength of some creativity and my Dad's long-ago description of what a bivouac is. Neither of us had ever done it. Very cramped, but we woke up dry!

We're almost out of Baltimore now. Everything going smoothly. Must go!

among friends

And then the next morning we went into the meetinghouse... my first ever Quaker meeting, or Friends as they call themselves. Paul's already told that story so well... (and I want to go back to my novel!!) I think I'll let you read what he wrote...

It was a Quaker meetinghouse, Deer Creek Meeting. I don't usually mention church denominations or names, but we had such a great experience there, I want to remember that community.

Sunday morning we met Mary, who had accidentally arrived early, and talked with her for an hour before the meeting. She then suggested to the small group that had gathered that Heather and I give a short talk about our walk before their silent prayer time (which makes up most of the worship). So we did talk to the Friends there and answered questions. When someone asked us to lead them in a prayer to close, I offered Charles DeFoucault's prayer, "Father, I abandon myself into your hands..." Then we prayed in silence together.

The rest of the day it rained, but we were incredibly well cared for. Many came up to us after the meeting, offering encouragement, praise, and gifts. Mary took us home for a lunch of fresh rainbow trout (and Heather's vinaigrette), and our first real shower in a week. Then Paul and Sarah, two other Friends, invited us all for dinner. A feast of rotisserie rosemary chicken and fresh sweet corn, wine, raspberry ice cream from a local dairy, and lots of lively conversation and encouragement. We were overwhelmed by the gift. After a very hard and lonely week-and-a-half, we were bathed in friendship and support. Mary even took us to the next library on this rainy morning. Now we're clean and refreshed, with money for food all week. We should be with friends in Washington, DC, before the week is out. Just in time for Heather's birthday.

I'm so grateful. For the lessons of these past days, and for God's mercy in our weakness and generous care through our new friends.

I could add that Mary had the Barbara Kingsolver book I was reading, and that and her lively conversation made it just about the perfect Sunday afternoon. And... and, well, the whole thing was just amazing. Amazing.

I didn't expect the perfect day

I mean, I had high hopes for Sunday, but on Saturday we didn't have any particular chances of meeting anybody, and after almost two weeks of walk, library, walk, sleep outside, I didn't see how I could enjoy another day of the same. And yet...

Saturday morning we set out from our sleeping spot on a church porch in Nottingham, PA (perversely disappointed that the sheriff hadn't stopped by to question us--it would have been such a good story) and set out with only five miles to go to Rising Sun, Maryland. Five miles in cool early-morning weather is a breeze. We stopped to eat breakfast in a gazebo that was up for sale among a whole field of other lawn fixtures, right on the state line--which was also the Mason-Dixon line, as a sign pointed out. Then we went on our way into the South, and before we had a chance to get tired we were at the library in Rising Sun.

I left Paul waiting for the library to open and walked down to the nearby shopping center, hoping to get a payphone call through to my parents; I'd been itching to talk to my mom about our novel, which is in the revision stage. I was stuck. I'd made a change in chapter 6 that I thought was right, but I wasn't sure, and it was going to make all kinds of changes necessary in chapter 7... and we'd been walking, and walking, and sleeping outside and feeling frustrated and stinky and having people look at us funny and feeling like we had no place to lay our heads, and it's just not conducive to writing. I figured that if God didn't send us some new friends soon I'd just have to take a break from the book.

I got through to my parents but they couldn't call me back, the payphone wouldn't let them; I was so desperate for a chat about the book to get me going I went ahead and talked to my mom on my dime... yes, we decided, the change was worth it, I should go for it. I went back knowing what I needed to do; the library gave me two hours on the computer; everything fell into place! The change I made fit so well I just had to change a sentence here and there... it actually just provided more motivation for my character's actions as I'd already written them... amazing! (And then the computer kicked me off and I read Barbara Kingsolver for an hour and relaxed.)

It's hard to explain how a writer feels about this stuff, but as we walked on I kept chattering to Paul about how well it had gone, how it had fit; the problematic first six chapters of the book were practically solved... We walked, and the weather was cool and pleasant with just enough sun and just enough shade... We came upon Octoraro Creek, which we'd met a few days ago; it was bigger now on its way the the Susqehanna River and Chesapeake Bay, and lovely and clean; we scrambled down under the bridge and washed our hair, and ate our supper sitting on a rock. I got out my pennywhistle and played, "O Worship the King", and sang it for Paul who didn't know all the words. I think I was especially feeling the next-to-last verse:

His bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It flows from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

God can work through people to give us His blessings... but He doesn't have to.

And then a fast red car pulled over and these two crazy enthusiastic young guys drove us across the Susqehanna where we wouldn't have been allowed to cross on foot, and insisted on giving us a historical tour of the area and taking us home to their mom's place, where we watched eels in the creek and had to skip through the flower-jungly garden quickly to escape their watch-duck and they showed us Indian artifacts they'd found... and then took us straight to the Quaker meeting-house where we planned to spend the night. And there, in the graveyard, a grove of boxwood trees formed a sort of hollow globe around a flat and leafy spot where we slept in privacy and peace.

Yeah.

invisible brethren

Yes, I know the title sounds like something spiritual and exciting, and hopefully sometime I'll have occasion to write about that meaning of the words. All it means today is that last night we stopped at a Church of the Brethren (a peace church, related to the Mennonites) and went to knock on the rectory door, feeling somewhat at home. Our church at Plow Creek is Mennonite, and I have a Church of the Brethren friend I met in Nigeria. But the "rectory" seemed a little odd somehow; though there were signs of life (fishing poles on the porch, a station wagon) no lights were lit, no-one answered, though a dog barked loudly from inside. A light was lit in the back of the church as well; we knocked; no answer. These things weren't that odd, I grant you, but the odd thing is that we went and sat under the picnic shelter (our chosen resting place; rain was predicted, though it didn't come) and waited for something to change, as it was bound to--and it didn't. Who goes away and leaves a dog in the house, the porch lights on, the car there and a light on in the church and doesn't come back for hours? I started to worry that someone had died inside, and no-one had found them.

Night fell, and we started to notice a faint light in the house. So faint that Paul thought it was the porch-light shining in through the window. No, it was a light; why was it so faint? Because the blind was all the way down. In fact, as we began to notice, all the blinds were all the way down. The light went out (at least they were alive in there!) and another, just as faint, flicked on. We speculated on whether the doorbell was broken or they somehow hadn't heard us; we shouldered our packs and went to the door again, knocked once and again and again, thought we heard a sound from inside... as we walked away from the door a second time, "Hey!" I pointed out. "Their car's got a Support Our Troops bumper sticker." A little odd for a peace church. We bedded down, finally, convinced we'd stumbled upon a Church of the Brethren that rented its rectory to a recluse with a dog who likes to fish and supports the troops.

And I guess we had. I guess we'll never know.

weary

A more practical update... we're in West Grove, PA, which (at least in this part of town) seems to have a semi-permanent smell of fertilizer. It's been a week or more since we've slept in a house, but yesterday we found a river and then last night a pastor let us use the bathroom of his church overnight, so we're clean. (For the interaction with the pastor, see Paul's blog.) It's also been that long since we had a truly fruitful interaction with anybody, whether encouraging them or being encouraged by them. We're a little weary. So if y'all want to pray, please pray that God will send someone... either someone we can show His love to, or who will show it to us--or best of all both.

the spirit

A few days ago, as we walked across a little culvert bridge over a creek, Paul stopped suddenly and made a little speech. We have to stop at every bridge, he said, to look at the water and meditate and re-connect with the spirit of the land that is always there under the rush and noise of the highway. I think he was half-kidding, the flowery way he spoke; and yet underneath he meant it, and I laughed and underneath I loved it. There has always been something deep for me in flowing water.

So we've stopped at the streams. Some of them can amaze me, deep pools so clear you can see the bottom as though through a lens, some without a single ripple, shot through with sunlight, fish hanging motionless in the clear water.

The other day we stopped at a stream and looked up along its length, out of the loud rubbish-strewn world of the road into the green shadows of the woods. "Deer!" I said. And there they were, almost beyond sight they were so far and small; blurred phantoms of deer, moving as though in a dream. The deer at Plow Creek eat the garden, and seem so fearless of mankind it makes you angry, you despise them, they're like stupid cows with antlers that eat your crops by night; but I could have sworn these were a different species entirely. The deer from old stories, the deer the Indians hunted and thanked for their meat, the deer that lived their own wild, unseen life in these woods for years before we came. A doe moved slowly out into the water, drinking, her fawn following; two half-grown bucks lowered their heads to each other and began to spar, slowly, meandering back and forth, their movements seeming gentle in the distance and the dimness. How can I explain it? They were beautiful. They were more beautiful than any deer I've seen up close; probably more beautiful than any deer could be, seen up close. I think they were beautiful because they didn't know we were there.

Ringoes

Just checking in from Ringoes, New Jersey... last night we slept on the couches in a church's youth room, for which I was thankful because the storm kept me awake a long time the night before! I slept great. The pastor who let us into the youth room took a long time arguing with himself out loud whether he could take the risk (and making comments like "I'm taking a big risk" and "I'm trusting you guys," which wouldn't have helped that much really if we'd been crooks!) But he finally did let us in, and told us to drink all the soda or whatever we liked from the fridge. I had Arizona lemonade with supper--good!

We ran into him again as we left the church, and he seemed happier then. (After all, we weren't carrying the VCR out with us!) When he got to his office I imagine he found what I left in his mail slot--a note saying thank you and a "hostess gift." The little key-chain version of the Evange-cube, a sort of, uh, witnessing tool, a cube where you flip back the sides to reveal a picture, then again to reveal a new picture, etc. It takes you through pictures of man cut off from heaven and Jesus on the cross all the way to someone walking across the cross to Heaven. My favorite is when you show the sealed tomb flanked by Roman soldiers and then flip it open to show Jesus standing in the doorway dressed in white! But we didn't think we would use it, and thought we'd give it to someone who would. It was a Bible church, so it seemed like the right place for it.

ready for the storm

Blessings in disguise come in odd packages. Yesterday, after a great visit with Paul's friend Tom in New Jersey, we were walking around eveningtime through a town where Paul had map-spotted two churches and a park as potential sleeping places. It was almost dark already when we came to the first church; by the time we had walked around its "campus" looking for good overhang shelter, finding none, and debating whether to go on or trust the cloudless sky, it was dark. We rang the rectory doorbell. A light came on in the hall. A crack opened in the mini-blind showing a pair of frowning eyes: "Whaddya want?" No sign of the door opening. Paul and I looked at each other and back at the eyes, wondering if we were really expected to shout our story through the door. Another moment, and the door-muffled voice added (I think): "We don't have any!" and a hand waved good-bye. I waved good-bye back. The debate was settled.

We walked on, down nice safe sidewalk under streetlights, not a bad way to walk at night. Paul didn't even need to put on his reflector vest and walk on the outside. Within twenty minutes we were at another church, with a lovely covered side porch; the "rectory" was unlit and apparently uninhabited, so we just settled in.

A car pulls up. "Looks like we'll talk to some people after all," says Paul, and wanders over to the back door where the car is parking. I follow. "Are either of you the pastor?" The couple laughs. "No, we're the cleaning crew!" We explain, ask if we can sleep there. They don't see why it should be a problem; they offer bathroom facilities, water, a rug they were about to throw out for an impromptu mattress pad--then a recommendation on a nice place for breakfast and ten dollars. Wow.

And then, as I tried to sleep, the wildest thunderstorm I have ever seen blew in.

Lightning, over beyond the trees; not five times, not ten times, not twenty or thirty. Constant, an every-other-second flicker I could have read by if I'd wanted to. Huge cracks of thunder that, two or three times--even though I was flat on the ground and felt perfectly safe--made that duck-for-cover spasm run through my body. And then, after an hour of this (and I honestly think that's a very conservative estimate)--the rain. It poured hard, so hard that tiny spatters reached us, and the river we crossed this morning was risen high, deep brown, carrying broken branches and a tall dead tree down its roiling current.

So thank God for the eyes behind the mini-blind.

Let me sum up

And so here I am... me with a real live blog.

The tales of my adventures so far... well I really should have started posting earlier! "Let me esplain... no, ees too long. Let me sum up."

Paul says that that first night, when we slept under playground equipment, was actually a harder than average night by his standards, and indeed we've gotten into a pretty easy routine with the sleeping out... Nobody's bothered us once. Mostly at churches, somewhere back behind or in a corner of the grounds under a tree, or in the entrance under an overhang if it's threatening to rain. Once, early on, we were sitting on the side porch of this big Catholic church with our packs, relaxing after the day's long walk--I was actually combing my hair--and a police car pulled through the parking lot. And I waved. And they waved back and kept going! We slept behind the church that night, because the porch was so brightly lit I couldn't have gone to sleep, and in the middle of the night it started raining and we ran for the porch... where the lights had gone out around maybe midnight or so. We're learning a lot of little things many people don't know: that lights on public buildings almost never stay on all night, how many half-full bottles of various drinks people throw out of car windows, how weird it sounds when someone tries to shout something at you from the window of a car going sixty. Also how many pennies there are by the side of the road (very few quarters though!) I'm collecting them, much to Paul's headshaking; when we have enough I'll buy us a soft drink, and then what will he say?

Not that we couldn't buy a soft drink anyway, but luxuries seem out of place on this trip unless you've been given them (or picked them up by the side of the road!) We have been amazingly well provided for. And met so many people... maybe I should go back to the "let me sum up" bit.

The first Sunday we went to a big Assemblies of God church where we had to fill out a card with our address and inform a helpful woman that we were already saved, and afterwards everyone kept asking us how we enjoyed the service (How's My Preaching?) Then we went to one of the two little Sunday school classes they had and heard about how the Tribulation is going to start in maybe two years. I know it sounds crazy and I was settling down to work on my book a little (which would look just like taking notes) but the guy was talking about Pakistan and kept throwing in facts about Shia Islam that I knew to be true, and then said he thought America would be part of the ten kingdoms represented by the horns of the Beast, and that we'd have to choose our true allegiance then, and I sat up and listened at that point because in a church like that normally they won't hear a word against America. So I had to take the guy seriously as a person anyway, and I guess I'll know in a couple years whether he was right! Then he took us out to lunch and we had an interesting afternoon talking about God and suffering and how it's not true that God always heals if you have enough faith (he disagrees with his church on this.) Really a good talk.

But by evening we were a bit discouraged; our money was running out. We'd hoped that God would move someone at the church we went to to give us something; not only that, but my right Achilles tendon had been hurting for several days, and still was even though we'd rested it for a day, and we had to get to the other side of Hartford by nightfall. (Never get stuck in a city.) Paul laid hands on my tendon and prayed for it very seriously, and then we went into a store and spent our last five dollars on a half gallon of milk and a loaf of pumpernickel bread, which we ate for breakfast. We had our lunch packed, but supper would have to be the rest of the pumpernickel... We walked and rested and walked and rested, because it was a day for that awful on-and-off rain--a blessing from God, actually, because I think that was the best thing we could have done for my tendon. The tendon felt much better than I expected. I thought about what God might do, what God has done for me in other circumstances--and for Paul in the very same circumstances--in the past. Also about fasting (which God's certainly not against!) and how I'd done it before for a day. We ate our lunch on a pallet under some kind of canvas shelter by a store, then went on walking, the tendon still feeling a little better and a little better, and by evening we came to this UCC church, in a suburb, slightly more urban-looking than we would have liked but seemingly safe. There were two men talking outside the church; we walked up and Paul introduced us; one of them was the pastor. We asked if we could sleep outside the church. He stalled for time (as he later told us) by asking us if we had any references since he didn't know us; we gave him the phone number of an elder in our church and he actually called, and seemed pleased. Then invited us home.

Chicken and rice and three bean salad, and then blueberry pie... Amazing. Much better than fasting. And then a room to ourselves.

And the pastor and his wife, who had sat and talked with us while we ate and heard our story and about my tendon--but not the money, we don't tell people we've run out of money, so as not to put pressure on them but leave room for God to inspire them--well, in the morning they gave us fifty dollars. For shoes, for my tendon, because I was wearing only sandals. I hesitated to accept at first, not sure what I should do; but then she said, "Or do whatever you want with it." (We did buy inserts for my sandals a bit later, actually, as the pain continued to diminish steadily; a website told us that elevating the heels is good for the tendons.)

Saved. At exactly the right moment. It's a little hard to explain how that feels.

And then... well, then a sort of whirlwind. Still hard to believe it. But that'll be the next installment I think.