3 More Months

Ok, it's now December. That means I have three more months to go! I am once again both excited and scared. I want the three months to be over so I can start on my way. I know God has amazing things instore for me but I am also nervous. There is still so much that needs to be done. I am trusting in the Lord to make it all happen for His glory though. I just keep thinking on how this is so far from what I am able to do on my own. May God keep using those thoughts to keep my eyes on Him and to keep showing me just how able He is.

I will update more soon! Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Perfect day

Saturday was the perfect combination, I had no where I needed to be and the weather was great. I went to the river to walk and got 21 miles in! Woo hoo. I had my IPOD so I was able to listen to some great music the whole way and just loose myself in the walk. It felt wonderful, even though I was sore that night. Training must be making a difference though, because before when I did 20 miles I would be stiff the whole next day too, but I wasn't this time.

I have had many people question how I can leave the security of a state job and steady paycheck to do this. My one answer is that my security does not come from a job or a paycheck, it comes from relying on God! Which is kind of a new revelation for me. I have always known this before, but now I think I finally know that I know it. (if that makes sense)

I have such a combination of excitement and fear over this walk. I think it is moving more towards excitement (at least for this week, next week might bring a whole different story).

My Hopes

I was sitting back yesterday and really thinking about what I hope for in doing this walk. First off, I hope to get great support for Northtown Pregnancy Center and Olmsted Center for Sight, and I hope to make people aware that these services are available for them. Not only here in WNY but all over the country.

Personally, I think one word describes all I hope for...discovery. I want to really discover myself. I want to find out how much I can push myself. I want to find out the person I really truly am deep down, past the walls I have built, past masks I put on, past my roles of mother, daughter, employee, the person who goes to church each week. I want to really dig deep and not be afraid to face what I find.

I want to discover my Lord, my God. I want a one to one personal relationship with Him. I want to know His voice, I want to walk where He has me walk. I don't want religion, I want relationship. I want to be able to see myself as He sees me. That means facing the lies that say I am not good enough, along with facing the lies that say I have it all together, because I am neither of these things. I want to totally open my heart to the Lord. I want my heart to ache, to long, to bleed for Him.

I want to discover God's creation. I want to see sights and colors, hear sounds and smell scents, experience things like I never have before. I want to dance on the beach, in fields of wildflowers, in the tall grasses, on the mountain tops.

Most of all, I want others to discover these things through my writing and the many pictures I am sure I will be posting along the way. I want my prayers and footsteps to be purposeful. I want to inspire others to do something amazing, no matter what it happens to be for them. In short, I guess, I want my footsteps to count!

Busy few days

Sorry for not updating everyone sooner, but it has been a busy few days with going to my woman's retreat and all.

My meeting with Linda and Renee from Olmsted was wonderful! I really enjoyed meeting the two of them and they had some great ideas. I left the meeting really excited.

I have been going full tilt trying again to get more sponsorships. Ryka was not able to help out, so I have been contacting other sneaker stores and distributors. I still haven't gotten a printer yet either, so I am sending out proposals for that also. I plan to try a few restaurant chains also to see if maybe they could give me gift cards to use as I travel. Keep sponsorship in prayer for me please.

My woman's retreat was so amazing. It was put together by two of our ladies in their 20's. So amazing to see such giftings in such young woman. It was just what I needed to do for myself before such a big undertaking as this walk. I was refreshed and renewed. I realize that I carry The Temple of the Lord inside me and I will be bringing it with me everywhere I go. I also faced the spot where I broke my ankle. If you don't know the story...I was at the retreat I think three years ago, and we decided to walk around the lake. I steped on an uneven area in the grass and twisted and broke my ankle. This Saturday, I stopped and looked at it for a second and then walked right on by and walked about half way around the lake. It started to sleet and I needed to get back for the next session or I would have gone further. I really felt like I was supposed to fact that this weekend and it really felt great!

Meeting with Olmsted Center for Sight

I am so excited, I am meeting with Olmsted Center for Sight tonight. I am really looking forward to this meeting. I thought we were going to have to postpone it again, but it looks like everything will work out. God is just so good! I will try real hard to update everyone, but I have my woman's retreat this weekend and don't know if I will get a chance to. Hopefully I will and hopefully I will lots of exciting news!

Thank you once again. I am so lucky to have such powerful prayer wariors on my side. You make all the difference!

Heard from a sponsor

I heard back from Ryka, the company that I am hoping to get my sneakers from. So excited. I really love their shoes, they fit my foot so well. Besides food and lodging, my shoes are probably going to be one of my biggest expenses, since I will probably go through many pairs. So keep this in prayer please. This would be big!

I will meet with Olmstead Center for Sight on Thursday!! I am really excited to talk to them and exchange ideas. It is amazing how God works, I was just thinking about being able to help them out, but they have contacts that could help me too! They are also a lot more experienced in fund raising then I am (this being really my first time trying something like this). I look forward to any ideas they may have.

Thank you again everyone. Your prayers and support mean so much to me!!!

Insecurities creeping in

I haven't written in a while. Things are kind of at a stand still for a little bit. I have sent out requests for sponsorship and now just need to play the waiting game. I meet next Thursday with Olmstead Center for Sight. I am hoping that meeting goes well.

Today was not one of my best days. My insecurities came creeping in, more like charging in. I sent a panicked text to a good friend. "I don't know what makes me think I can do this. What makes me think I can mak a difference...I am so much not capable to do all it takes to achieve this" Being at a point of just waiting for things to happen helped contribute to my melt down I am sure. He did text me back an amazing and totally encouraging text. It is so great to have friends who let you panic and then know what to say to bring you back to having confidence on the One who will walk through this all with me. I am right, I dont have what it takes to achieve this on my own, but the great thing is I don't have to! God will bring me through this. He will strengthen me. He will make it all happen. I know there are things I need to do, and I have been doing them (contacting sponsors, getting the word out, getting my body in shape).

Please keep me in prayer. I am sure there are going to be many, many more melt downs before I start and while I am walking, but God has this as imperfect as I am. God likes to use imperfect people and even the great people of the bible had doubt and imperfections. (thank you Alex for the remimder). Hopefully I will continue to remember how unable I am to do this on my own and recognise where my strength truly comes from. Because if I stop relying on God and try to do this in my own strenght it will never happen.

I can do all this through Him that gives me strenght Philipians 4:13

Live with Abandon

I want this song by The Newsboys to be my new unofficial theme song.

http://youtu.be/-SJR2vdJFXw

I went to Letchworth State park Monday. They had a craft fair. It was really nice. The leaves were just past peak, so not as beautiful as they could be, but still amazing! I brought my cart that I want to use on the walk with me and pulled it around the craft fair. I was really happy with how it handled. (I had stuff in it so there would be extra weight) It went well over the grass which was wet and a little muddy and over the paved sections. I did find out that I am more comfortable pulling it than pushing it. We walked about 8 miles around the park.

Prayer requests

Since prayer is what I need most, I decided to repost my prayer requests. I am sure what I need will change as I get closer to the date, but here are my needs for now.

Prayer for favor on the sponsorship requests submitted with Verizon, Ryka, Hilton, Buffalo Printing and the requests I will be submitting. Please pray that God will show me any other areas that I should ask for further sponsorship and open those doors for me also.
2. People to walk with me and/or drive along with me even if they can only commit for one state or one city. My particular areas of worry are Wyoming and Nebraska where I could go 40-50miles without approaching a town. Having someone with a vehicle who would be able to pick me up and take me to a motel at night and then drop me off in the morning where I had left off on my walk the night before. I have the same concerns in areas with mountains, I don’t want to be stuck on the mountain at night.
3. Continued health and protection for my family especially my mother and daughter
4. Protection and healing for my body especially my feet. I have ruptured my right Achilles tendon and broke my left ankle so I have issues with pain when it is rainy or damp or I overdo it (I will definitely be overdoing it :))
5. Pray that I remain humble and always place God first in all that I do. Pray that I am always listening to His voice and walking where He has me walk, and speaking the words that He has me speak.

Thank you everyone! I have needed to hear your words of encouragement, you don't know how much they mean to me. Thank you for all of your prayers and support as I continue to prepare. This is not something I do alone, I have all of you behind me lifting me up, and I really charish that!

UPDATE:
I had submitted a proposal to National Geographic to follow me and photograph and write about what I see along my journey. I heard back from them, it was not a yes, but it was not a no either! (long shot I know) I had also submitted to some other travel magazines. If I could get that to happen, I would have a vehicle following me. That would really be an answer to prayer!

The charities I chose and why

I just wanted to give everyone a little idea on why I had chosen the charities that I chose.

Northtown Pregnancy Center:
I was pregnant at 17 years old and facing all the choices, do I keep the baby, give it up for adoption, or have an abortion? I was scared and confused, but I did know that I did not want an abortion. I was lucky in that my family was very supportive and stood behind my decision to keep my baby (Noelle). I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't and I was out on my own. Maybe my decisions would have been different, being scared and having no where to turn. That is why I chose to support Northtown Pregnancy Center, it will be a place to offer help and support to woman who are scared and feeling like they have nowhere else to turn. For so long we have been telling woman not to have abortions, but not offering answers or alternatives. Northtown Pregnancy Center is doing that for woman and that is why my heart lept when I first heard these woman talk of their dream. It is why I knew I needed to give them my support.

Olmstead Center for Sight:
Two years ago my daughter had a horrible migrain and went to the emergency room, where they did an MRI and found that she had a brain tumor. A Craniopharyngioma, this type of tumor is located near the optic nerve and the pituitary gland. They removed all of the tumor (so thankful that she did not have to deal with , but she was left blind in her right eye and with many more problems because her pituitary gland was no longer functioning. Dr. Castiglia, her neurosurgen is an amazing man who really did all he could for my daughter. After spending much time in the hospital and many, many, many doctors appointments, we had found out about Olmstead Center. We were in a very low place. Noelle was feeling like she had lost so much and we went to Olmstead center and they could not do enough to help her. Dr. Simons explained everything so well, there was no way we couldn't understand what was happening with her vision. The people at Olmstead were amazing, a total God send when we needed them most! So I chose Olmstead Center for Sight so that they could continue to give people hope when they needed it most.

I hope this gives you all a little insight into why I believe so strongly in these two amazing organizations. Please support them so that they can continue to be there to offer support to those in desperate need.

I have links to both charities!!

I now have the links to both the charities I hope to support on here. Just click on the "Charities" tab at the top of the page and both Olmstead Center for Sight and Northtown Pregnancy Center are there with the links to their websites. Please check out both websites and help support these wonderful centers so they are able to help everyone they can. Thank you so much!!

There is a seperate tab if you would like to donate to my expenses I will have before and during the walk. Please make sure to click on the tab or tabs you would like to donate and donate directly that way!

I am excited! We are moving forward!!

Spoke to Olmstead Center for Sight

I spoke with Linda from Olmstead Center for Sight today. They are the other charity I would like to raise funds for. They have done so much for my daughter. They gave us answers and help at such a desperate time. I knew I wanted to do something to help them in return. I wanted to be able to help them give someone else the hope they had given us.

I am so excited! We are working on scheduling a face to face meeting to brainstorm. Just the short time I spoke with Linda gave me such hope that this was meant to be, that God had His hand in all of this. I was feeling for a little while like things weren't moving. I had submitted proposals for sponsors and was just at a point of waiting for things to happen, but now it looks like at least some parts of this are moving forward. Some of the contacts the Center for Sight have are some of the companies that I have been looking for sponsorship from. This looks like we will be a good fit for each other.

Once again everyone, thank you so much for your support and prayers. I could not do this without having all of you behind me!

What's new.

I have submitted two more requests for sponsorship. One to a printer for business cards and a banner and one to Hilton Properties to get my lodging paid for or discounted along the way. Keep these in prayer for me please. I also had a bunch of flyers with my blog address printed up. I plan on passing those out all over and have given some to others to pass out also.

I have gone to the gym two time and I have been doing two hours on the treadmill. I do one hour keeping the treadmill level and concentrating on speed and distance and then do the next hour keeping the speed even and adjusting the incline. I think I will add 1/2 hour on the eliptical soon. I was walking for 2 1/2 hours when I walked outdoors, so this should hopefully be doable. I just need to get instructions on the eliptical, it looks like it takes way more coordination than I have to work it :).

This is perfect

When I saw this I had to print it up. I have one hanging at my desk at work and one on my fridge at home.

I joined Fitness 19 last night. Since I am running out of daylight hours to walk, I can go there and use the treadmills. It was really pretty cheap to join and there was no long term committment or contract. Each treadmill has a TV attached, so maybe I can find the nature channel or something and pretend I am walking outside.

While walking Wednesday night this is the scene I got to enjoy. God has shown me such beautiful sunsets while I have been walking and each one of them has been a little different, but always stunning! I am quickly running out of daylight hours to walk in. Getting out of work at 4:30 and I don't get to the park until 5:00 and I need about 2 1/2 hours to get in 10-12 miles. Towards the end of my walk last night it was really getting dark. I think I may move my walk to the academic spine here at UB. It is a few buildings that are connected. I could walk indoors, climb stairs and there are places where the spine is connected with tunnels to other buildings. I also am looking into maybe Fitness 19 and using the treadmills there (boring!). Maybe if I change it up between the treadmills and the elipticals it will be a little less boring, but I sure won't be getting to see sunsets like these doing the treadmill.

So exciting

I met with Lou Anne and Colleen from Northtowns Pregnancy Center last night. It was an amazing meeting. It really renewed my excitement about doing this walk. They had asked me to think about some of my specific prayer needs and let them know so they could include them in their e-mails. I have thought of what I need prayer for most right now (I am sure it will change as things move forward) but here are what I would appreciate prayer for right now:
1. Prayer for favor on the sponsorship requests submitted with Verizon, Ryka, Hilton and the requests I will be submitting to a printer and a sporting goods store. Please pray that God will show me any other areas that I should ask for further sponsorship and open those doors for me also.
2. People to walk with me or drive along with me even if they can only commit for one state or one city. My particular areas of worry are Wyoming and Nebraska where I could go 40-50miles without approaching a town. Having someone with a vehicle who would be able to pick me up and take me to a motel at night and then drop me off in the morning where I had left off on my walk the night before. I have the same concerns in areas with mountains, I don’t want to be stuck on the mountain at night.
3. Continued health and protection for my family especially my mother and daughter
4. Protection and healing for my body especially my feet. I have ruptured my right Achilles tendon and broke my left ankle so I have issues with pain when it is rainy or damp or I overdo it (I will definitely be overdoing it :))
5. Pray that I remain humble and always place God first in all that I do. Pray that I am always listening to His voice and walking where He has me walk, and speaking the words that He has me speak.
Thank you so much. Prayer is what I need most in all of this!

I should have the link to their website in a week. I will place it here so that you can all go and donate.

God is so Good!

Yesterday morning I was doubting everything. I was asking God to let me know that this walk was of Him. I know I can't do this without him by my side, it is just too much for me alone. While I was walking last night this the picture above is what I saw. It was so awesomely beautiful. The water ahead of me had this beautiful pink tinge, like a watercolor painting, that caused me to turn around and check out how beautiful the sunset was. There were this little silver fish (minows?) jumping out of the water that had me giggling. It was a good thing there wasn't anyone around me at the time, they would have thought I was nuts. As I watched a bunch of ducks in the water with the silver fish jumping all around them, I realized that those ducks had everything they needed right there. God provided for them and He will provide for me. All and all, it was a great night.

Not waiting to live my life

I watched just a short part of the interview with Valerie Harper last night. I was way too tired to watch the whole thing. One thing she said really stuck out for me. She said that after her diagnosis she decided to live life to it's fullest. That is what I want, to live life to it's fullest, but I have no intention of waiting to find out I only have a short time to live before doing it. I guess that kind of sums up why I have decided to walk. I don't want to wait to live life. I want to experience all that I can of life now while I can still enjoy so much of it. There is so much out there that I haven't seen or done. I almost wish March was here now, but I am glad it isn't. I still have soooo much to do!

I walked 21.58 miles on Saturday. I can do this!! It was a nice easy pace. There were butterflies everywhere. That really made me smile. I got in 13 miles by 2pm and then ate some lunch at a nice little restaurant and relaxed for a while. I had a great phone conversation with a good friend while I was eating my lunch. Then I walked some more, checked out the wine and chocolate festival while walking and also checked out a garage sale.

This is what it will be like, getting in about 20 miles a day and taking time to enjoy the little things along the way. I do relize that there will be times when it wont be this great. Times when I will have to get 30 or more miles in to find the next town. Times when it will be rainy and cold and I will be miserable and just want to go home. But I am hoping that most of my time will be enjoying the little surprizes along the way like a nice little cafe with great food, the colors that God has used to paint the grasses, flowers, skies, water. Meeting and talking to new people, and most of all time spent alone in prayer and conversation with my Lord.

Started to request sponsorship

Hurray, it is Friday at last. I sent a proposal for sponsorship to Verizon and sent an e-mail requesting sponsorship to RYKA. I love RYKA sneakers, they are all I wear, so having them supply my sneakers would be great. I am trying to get Verizon to cover my wireless bill, Noelle's internet (she will be my main contact and will be the one sending out press releases for me)a notebook so I can continue to blog on my walk and an Ipod to have music on the road and the newer ones track your fitness (miles walked). We will see what comes of it. Keep me in prayer for these everyone please. That would be two major expenses taken care of for me. I'm gonna also speak to at least one major hotel/motel chain to see what they will do for me. It would be nice to have the sleeping situation somewhat taken care of before hand. I have also been contacting the visitor centers for all the states I am traveling through. The more information I can get the better.

I am supposed to meet with Northtowns Pregnancy Center sometime next week and Noelle is trying to get me a contact name at the Blind Association. Things are starting to move!!

Thank you everyone for your support so far and for all of the prayers!

How to post a comment

Some people have told me they had problems commenting. I played a little and this is what I figured out (I am certainly not an IT genius, so someone might have better ideas here) Where it says Comment As, pick Name/URL, type your name and your e-mail address with a dot where the @ usually goes. Ex. thedish09@hotmail.com = thedish09.hotmail.com.

This is all new to me, so I will keep figuring it out as I go and if anyone knows more than I do about blogging (that is just about everyone) I welcome your suggestions!!

The states I will travel through

Like I wrote before in other posts, I bought an atlas and have been mapping out my route. Here are the states I will travel through. If anyone has been to any of these before or has any helpful knowledge on these, I would welcome it. Are there places I should not miss seeing, are there places I should avoid?

The states are: Massachusetts, New York (after about a month of travel, I will be near my home and get to sleep in my own bed. Hopefully I will still want to continue after that LOL), Pennsylvania (just the very northern tip, will probably only be two days in PA), Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming (scary to me, still debating about going through Yellowstone. I posted some of my worries about that in an earlier post), Montana, Idaho, Oregon (My final destination!The mountains in Oregon scare me too, but it helps that I know people there and can rely on their knowledge).

Sometimes I am just overwhelmed

Sometimes when I think about what I am about to do, I am just totally overwhelmed. How can I do this? I am not good at asking people for money or for help. I am not good at following through. Can I actually do this physically? It is a lot, a long commitment. Am I crazy to think that I can do it?

Then my answer is I just need to rely on God. Actually on my own, I probably can't do this, but with God all things are possible. I really believe this is of Him, so He will make a way. I will have to make an effort too, but He will handle the things that I can't. This is surrender, this is trust. There are so many factors that I just don't and won't have control over, so I will just have to sit back and let my Lord take care of those. I will do my part, asking for sponsors, getting the word out about the charities so they can reap the benefits of this, train my body, lose some more weight (this will be so much easier if I am not carrying all this extra weight), read all I can from others who have done this, and just basically try my best to be prepared. Then I just need to give the Lord control and let Him work and lead me. If all that comes of this is that I learn to totally put my trust in the Lord, then it will be all worth it!

UPDATE: I should be meeting with Northtowns Pregnancy Center next week, then I can hopefully get a link on here for you so you can see more of what there about and so you will be able to support them if you feel led.

God's amazing beauty part 2

Here is the picture. I did it!!

God's amazing beauty

I was walking on Friday night and was just finishing up and turned around to head to my car and this is what I saw. So amazing. I turned at just the right time, by the time I got to my car just a few minutes later, almost all the color was gone. I felt like God was saying to me...I will show you this beauty and so much more on your walk.

I will try to get the picture in the next post, can't seem to get it here. Either that or it will show about 10 times. Not having a good electronics day today. I can't seem to make anything work right.

It's a go!

I spoke to my pastor and I have his support so I am going to do this! Nervous and excited all at once. I have contacted the Northtowns Pregnancy Center since they are who I would like to raise funds for. I haven't heard back yet, but I just contacted them and I know they are at a conference, so I expect it to be a little while. I will hopefully be adding a link to their site here so that anyone can go right to them and donate. I will also set up a link to my paypal account for anyone who would like to support me and the expenses I will have preparing for the walk and while walking. Time to really start seriously planning and training! March or April will come really fast, I am sure!

If anyone knows how to do spell check on this, please let me know. I haven't figured it out yet and I am a terrible speller.

Meeting with my pastor

I am meeting with my pastor after work today to discuss doing this walk. I am not sure if I am more afraid that he will encourage me to do the walk or that he will talk me out of it. I should know by Friday whether this is a go. Then I can really buckle down and start serious planning. I can get a hold of the people I want to raise money for, really make this blog public. I have only told a few people so far. I want to wait to make it public until I am certain it is a go. At least as certain as I can be. A lot can happen before March or April gets here.

I went and bought an atlas and started marking out my route. I was just going to order one on Amazon, but I realized I really wanted to flip through the pages and compare different ones side by side to be sure it was something that would work for me.

Oh well, bye for now. Keep me in your prayers please.

I meet with my pastor on Thursday to let him know that I would like to do this walk and who I would like to raise the funds for, so I'm kind of in limbo unitl I talk to him. Hopefully on Friday I will have gotten a go ahead from my pastor and really be ready to move ahead with everything. I have some fold out maps and have been marking my route. I plan to follow route 20 most of the way. I am debating as to whether I will take route 26 in Wyoming for a while. It looks like it would shorten my route a little and it would take me around Yellowstone National Park. I am torn about this. Do I really want to get that close to Yellowstone and not see it? But then again, Yellowstone kind of scares me with all of the wild animals and all. Even though it is not like the animals recognise borders and won't be outside of Yellowstone if I take the route that leads me around it. I still have lots of time to make a final decision. I plan to read a lot more about that area first. I hope to balance being safe with seeing as much of God's wonders as possible. I am also thinking of taking the Erie Canal trail in New York instead of sticking to route 20. It just sounds kind of interesting. I will also be checking more into that before I make a final decision. If anyone has any thoughts/helpful information, I would love to hear it.

The why's - sort of

At church every year we do a carnival type thing (Celebration Fest)for the people in the Sheridan Parkside Community. It is all free, food, backpacks with school supplies, haircuts, games, basket raffles. I felt a need to walk the nieghborhood and pray once a week for 4 weeks leading up to the Celebration Fest. While doing this, I really got a sense of the importance of actually walking while praying and symbolically taking back the land.


So sitting here one day, the thought came to me...I should walk coast to coast. I prayed about it and read up everything I could find online about doing this. Two weeks ago at church, I was sitting at the alter during worship wondering what this was all about. I felt like God was just lining up everything for me step by step. I saw building blocks being set before me one by one, all in a line. When this idea came to me at first, I had thought about what charity I would support by doing this (felt like I had to be doing this for somebody other than myself). I had come up with several good charities, but nothing felt like the perfect match in my spirit. Well worship ended, I went back to my seat and Pastor Dan called two women up to speak. They were starting a clinic to "Empower people to make informed decisions about their pregnancy" called Northtown Pregnancy Center. This felt like the perfect fit for me, this is who I wanted to donate to (maybe also the blind center too). It was like one more building block being placed in line. I will let you know more about the Northtown Pregnancy Center once we have a chance to really sit down and talk.

I meet with my pastor next Thursday to discuss all of this, including who I will be supporting. Like I said before, I really do feel I need his guidance in this and the support of both him and my church. So maybe next week on Friday, I can start comming up with solid plans and you can all join me here on my jouney...

Read on FB today and want this to become my anthem. (there was no author cited, so not sure who it is by)... Life is a journey with problems to solve, lessons to learn, but most of all experiences to enjoy!

PS... I just figured out paragraphs!! I still don't know how to do spell check on here though, so sorry for any errors. If anyone knows how, please let me know.

To start with...My beliefs

My beliefs are a good place to start, since what I believe in is what started me wanting to take this journey. I believe that the universe was created by one supreme being, our God. I believe that the world was created in literal 6 days with our Lord resting on the 7th day. By literal, I mean 7 - 24 hour periods. I believe in Adam and Eve and the fall. This is not how creation was meant to be, but because of Adam and Eve's sin there is now darkness in the world. I believe that God sent his one and only Son to bring us life. I believe that Jesus died and rose again in 3 days to bring us healing and forgiveness of our sins. As I walk, I am going fully expecting to be awed and amazed by God's creation surrounding me. I am going out in fear, but also excitedly expectant. I would be foolish to not realize the dangers in doing this, but I will trust that if this is God's will, then He will protect me. Speaking of God's will, this is still not a definate thing. I am waiting to meet with my Pastors and get their discernment on this. I do believe that in order to have God's protection, I do need to be sent. I will update more soon. Let you all know more of my vision, of my planning, of the people I hope to raise money for by doing this and of course how you can support them. All will come in time. Today is just the start. I will let you know that I am busy getting set for this physically. I have lost 22 lbs so far. I have been doing P90X and have been walking. I have recently walked 7 miles, 9 miles, 11.24 miles and on Saturday I did 19 miles. I am hoping to average 20 miles a day on this journey, so I am well on my way!! As I preview, I have noticed that the paragraphs I typed are not showing. Hopefully as I go along, I will figure this one out and make this easier to read.