the time of rides

The next stretch of our journey (yes, I'm still playing catch-up) could be characterized by on word: rides. It started in Uwharrie Forest, actually; we (perhaps ill-advisedly) decided to try, for the first time, deliberately walking at night. An hour past sundown would, according to Paul's map search of the day, take us to another church, and we dearly did want to go farther that night because the next day promised to be a scorcher and we'd have to walk thirteen miles before we hit a library. (Numbers of miles have become as eloquent for us as numbered hours of sleep for college students: thirteen means you'll have to walk past noon, until maybe two o'clock. We aim for eight, which will get you there by eleven.) We started walking, and it grew full dark, cars passing by us in bright flashes. (Don't worry, Dad, we were on the far side of a wide shoulder & I was behind Paul who had his reflector-vest on!) We walked and we walked, and just as we were beginning to wonder, a red pick-up truck slowed down beside us. A country-lookin' guy was at the wheel, and kids in the back of the extended cab. He offered us a ride in the bed. We jumped in.

I asked Paul, who hair was flying in the wind, if he wanted a hair-tie. He thought I was just being nice. When we got to the next town (you know, the place thirteen miles away?) he spent half an hour combing his hair!

That was the first ride. The second was the next day, a guy who was "a little short on good deeds for the day" and going all the way to Charlotte. He knocked out at least three days' walk for us. That night, a Wednesday night, we went to a Baptist church service and a lady invited us home to use her basement guest-apartment for the night, and bought us Wendy's burgers on the way. A day or two later (it's all running together!) we stopped at another church for the night and met a bunch of mothers coming out of a baby-shower. They called the pastor and his wife said no, we couldn't sleep there (our first outright refusal; but of course she wasn't looking at us) and the women got to work on an alternate plan. This was one bunch of mothers who weren't interested in saying "no, go away, you're not our problem"! Also they claimed to find it interesting and exciting, when I'd been worried we were just another thing to deal with; I think they were telling the truth, because when they did find us a place the whole bunch followed us there to settle us in! They found us the pastor of a Pentecostal church one of the women attended, someone who was more interested in folks with needs. They drove us to his church, (where there was a recovery group going on just then,) and led out to the cabin out back in the woods, where we would sleep. (Later the pastor showed up, and at his proposal we opted for a church van instead, because of the mosquitoes.)

And from this pastor we got the last ride in this dizzying array. It was his day off tomorrow, he said, why not drive us all the way to Gaffney? He offered, and drove, with an ease that suggested that yet again we weren't just another thing to deal with. He told us about the two young sons he and his wife adopted a few years back, young enough to be their grandchildren; taken by DCFS from a niece or nephew, I believe, who is on drugs and unwilling to quit. We discussed adoption, and the new policy, which seems to be (we met others this has happened to on this trip) to try to place a child for fostering and adoption within that child's extended family. (I approve.) We discussed the difficulties involved with drug addicts, and agreed about the right thing to do: to offer relentlessly the kind of help (and in abundance) that they truly need, refusing them the help they think they need--the covering-up, the bailing-out, all the support that makes the drug lifestyle sustainable. It's not sustainable. They need to know that. We told him about our ministry, and he was glad.

Then he dropped us off at the library, and within two hours our friend Sarah, with whom we were planning a visit, had picked us up.