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.