100 Miles to Next Services!

Second week of the walk! Walked by a sign last week that said, "100 Miles to Next Services" Crazy!

This is the first time that I have gotten a chance to write my blog since I have started the walk. I am currently in the middle of nowhere! Well really I'm just outside of a small town called 29 Palms in the middle of the Mojave Desert. We have walked about 160 miles so far as a team, I myself have walked 62 miles. We Started at Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles and are almost to Arizona. We should hit Arizona during the day shift tomorrow if we walk enough miles tonight and tomorrow.

Yes that's right we walk about 20 hours a day. But really we are split into two shifts; the day shift which I was on last week and am on again this week, and the night shift. We are expected to get 30 miles a shift, so 60 miles a day. Our pace is supposed to get up to 15 minute miles.

There are 10 people on the Southern Walk counting myself. Sean is the walk leader and he is from Connecticut. Becca is from Texas, Amber is from New Hampshire, Rebecca is from Wisconsin [yay another mid-westerner] Erica is from California, Will is from Indiana and actually was on the central walk originally but we needed more guys on our walk and more people over the age of 21, Thomas is from Utah but he will only by with us for another week or so, Father Hilary is from Australia, and Tim is from Ireland! Yeah that's right we have two foreigners on our trip and yes they both have awesome accents! We will be having people join us on our walk for a week or so all through out the summer.

Last weekend I was in Las Vegas, Nevada speaking at churches and protesting in front of an abortion clinic. Sean, Amber, and Thomas were there with me. The rest of the group was in San Bernadino, California doing the same thing. While in Vegas I stayed at Living Grace Home for Girls. Living Grace is a place where pregnant girls ages 13-22 can come to have their babies and have the support that they would not have at home. While I was there they only had one girl living there. She was so courageous and very beautiful. I do not think that it would be appropriate to say her name so I will call her Joan of Ark because when she told me her story, I thought of how much she showed courage just as Joan of Ark did. So please keep Joan of Ark in your prayers, and her soon to be born son.

I am one of three people on the southern walk that can speak Spanish so I have to give talks at Spanish masses. At my last Spanish mass yesterday I said "Buenos Dias" which means "Good morning". This would have been fine except for the fact that the mass was at 7:00 pm. I should have said, "Buenos Tarde" which means "Good evening". So when I made this innocent mistake [and the only reason that I made this mistake was because it said "Buenos Dias" on the paper that I read the talk from] the people of the congregation gave a little chuckle and responded back with "Buenos Tarde". Some commented on it after the mass but most people said that I pronounced the Spanish very well for it being my second language. I have five Spanish masses last weekend and it was amazing! There were also four English masses at this parish so I did understand all of the readings during those.

Sadly I'm getting a bit of a cold. I think it's because it's so dry here and I'm so used to the humidity. Because of the dryness my throat has dried out. But I'm still walking and getting through.

I was the only one who trained before the walk so I was the only one that didn't get really sore last week. I also have the fastest pace. This week I am on day shift specifically because I can take the heat and the miles at a good pace. We are walking literally right through the desert and it hit 100 today. So it's definitely going ot be a hot summer, but I can't wait for the rest of it to come! We will be in Arizona next week. We are hoping to walk there by next weekend but if we don't get that far we will just drive ahead for the weekend and then after the weekend we will drive back to where ever we left off to continue!

More updates are coming! If you want to follow me more closely and frequently I will be updating my twitter from my phone daily if not more [hopefully! if I remember]

I love you all and please pray for all of us this summer, and all of those that never got a chance to walk, EVER.

God Bless.

Here it Comes

Only 7 days until I leave for California! Yeah that means that in one week I will be snuggled up in the nice warmness of California and not in this bleak weather of Iowa! I cannot wait! I'm getting a little nervous that I'm going ot forget something because it's not the normal trip that I go on. But other than that I'm not really nervous about the trip at all! I actually just want finals to be over because, well because I'm ready to be done with studying and writing papers and all that, but also because then I'm just that much closer to the walk. I've been training, walking a lot and doing leg workouts, and lifting weights and stuff but I know that I'll be sore those first few weeks. There's really no way to prepare for this kind of thing. Physically maybe if you have the time to do it, but I don't! But mentally and spiritually I don't think that there is any way that I can prepare myself for what I am about to do. I have been in some pretty challenging situations in the past but I don't think any of them will come close to what I will have to face this summer. The best part of it is that I'm ready! I am so ready for something new in my life. But really that's how it will always be with me! I will always be looking for something new and crazy to do. Whether it's living in another state for a summer when all of your friends from school are spending their days at the Dyersville pool, or walking across the country, while everyone else is working for the summer to pay for college. Or moving to somewhere crazy like Honduras after graduation while all of your other fellow graduates look for normal jobs at desks or schools. ok that one hasn't happened yet but you never know what I'll do! I have three years still!

Well here's post number two and I think that there's only like three people that know about this blog yet. And it wouldn't surprise me if none of them have even looked at it yet! Hopefully someone will follow me this summer!

Please all keep me in your prayers! And if you have any questions or prayer requests I'm pretty sure that there is a way to reply to these blogs or something like that!

P.S. I won't be going on FACEBOOK at all this summer. I'll only be on this blog and twitter so you can kind of follow me on that as well!