"I am a voice shouting in the wilderness, Clear the way for the LORD's coming!'"



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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

So few days yet so many moments have come and gone and are now a memory. The Lord is strengthening us in ways we probably don't even realize yet. We are finally in West Virginia and we had our first day of climbing up some steep hills. We are glad to be off the towpath though. We have had a very interesting time since we last blogged. So after we left the McDonnald's in Williamsport, we happened upon a civil war reenactment at a park nearby. They had brought out the big guns for this one, literally. Both, the north and south, had camps set up with period clothes and tents and carriages and etc... We got to meet General Lee who was the nicest man, with the most kind sky-blue eyes. He had the kindest spirit and said that he would be praying for us on our journey! They were also showing the 1st edit cut of a new documentary film about one of the battles there. We got to meet a bunch of the re enactors who were in the movie, including General Lee and the Director. It was fun! They were showing the film in the largest barn in Maryland, and had a period band playing and serving hotdogs, popcorn, and the like. It was during this time that we had let it slip about where we were when texting Maria. Well, Maria found us and practically kidnapped us and said that she and Rose had a huge surprise for us, but we had to make it by 9:00pm. We finally found our way out of williamsport on a road that Maria knew, and as soon as she realized that we might not make it, she stood up on the gas pedal! We arrived at this dimly lit side road, and turns out they had taken us to eat ice cream at Nutter's in Sharpsburg . It is quite possibly the best ice cream we have ever had! Then she held us hostage and made us sleep in her air conditioned house for the entire weekend! This was a good thing for many reasons. One of course was that we got to spend some time with our new best friend Maria! The other was because we wanted a chance to talk with the christianites again and ask them all the questions that had been going through our minds over the last 5 days. So we woke up on Saturday and got some coffee at Mellow Moods and ran into Jerry who was as exited to see us as we to see him. Even though their fellowship did not allow the women and men to touch at all I wanted to hug him, but I refrained and told him I was hugging him in my spirit! : ) We asked him how the rest of the clan was doing and told him we really wanted to speak with David because he had been on our hearts all week and he said he believed the feeling to be mutual. So he had David call us. We arranged to meet him in town on Sunday afternoon.
Saturday afternoon came quickly and so did the feeling of taking a nap inside an air conditioned apartment. Since Maria was working a double that day she was not too available to hang out until 8 p.m. So I took a 2 1/2 hour nap which was delightful and I woke up to someone doot- dooting the mexican hat song. I had just enough energy to open one eye, and I saw a giant taco standing in front of me and I followed the lettuce and tomato up to a head sticking out of it and much to my surprise it was my husband!! He had dressed up like a taco wearing a comically large sombrero, for Maria's Taqueria, and ran all over town telling people to eat at her shop. I managed to drag myself out of bed and went downstairs to see what happening in Sheperdstown. We ran into Jerry again and sat with him at the wall and sang songs and talked about our awesome God! Since that is what us Christians love to do so much! D.D. came by and sat with us for a while too. Maria even came by and talked with us for a while until the hot sauce salesmen wooed her away to make a hot sauce deal! We found out one of Maria's favorite local musicians, Bob Keel, was playing that night for his cd release party at Mecklenburg Inn, a cute little German Inn that had been turned into a restaurant and bar, so we decided we would check it out. On the way there we stopped at Tony's Pizza and ordered a pie. We ventured to the backyard and there was a arm wrestling contest going on. I tried to get Jeff to enter but he didn't want to embarrass all the other men!! Hahaha!!! We watched a couple sets of Bob's show and we got sleepy so Maria escorted us back to the apartment and we passed out for the night.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the local diner. We decided to go to the Baptist church to have some fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. It is really fun for us to get to go to different churches and meet like-minded people. We always leave with our spirits lifted. We just happened to walk into the Sunday morning bible study and we joined right in. The congregation was small but they were all so warm and welcoming. God Bless St. John Baptist Church congregation. After church we headed down German Street to meet with David and just a block away from the church we ran into Jerry again.

So we walked to the wall that the christianites sit on to play music and witness to people at and David was there waiting for us. We sat and just had small talk for a while and talked to a local guy who came by. Finally David and I were getting impatient to begin talking about what we had come together to talk about so we just scooted back a few feet and started talking. David told us a story about how him and a woman in the fellowship had fallen in love and it turned sour and it left a sore spot in his heart. We discussed what happened the previous week and asked many questions. There were not any agreements on the scripture however, we did agree to just allow God to show us and bring us into one mind, the mind of Christ. After we moved on from that discussion I was flipping through Philippians and found the verse that spoke of exactly what we had agreed to do. Philippians3:15Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16Only let us hold true to what we have attained. I love it when you read something in God's word right after it happens. It really shows you how his word is TRUTH!!! So we left our meeting with the christianites in peace and went back to Maria's.
Jeff went to play at Open Mic that night and I talked to my mom on Skype till midnight! We woke up the next morning and had breakfast with the Christianites. It was pleasant, and we noticed some other things in their behavior that we did not notice the previous time we were with them. The more we find out about them, the more we see a spirit of religion and oppression among them. They definitely have a relationship with Christ but there seems to be a battle going on in their minds. Ruhama came with Maria and Jeff and I to drop us off on the trail. Ruhama got to share her testimony with Maria and we all ate Macaroni and cheese crackers. Yumm!! It began to rain and Maria and Ruhama headed back to Sheperdstown and we walked an eighth of a mile to the closest campsite.
The next day we walked 7 or 8 miles and camped. It poured on us all night long. It sounded like popcorn popping on top of the tent. The next morning we slept in because it was a pretty restless night. We walked another 10 or so miles and when we arrived at the next campsite I saw a man lying in a hammock reading and he was dressed like the men who we call the christianites. I said, "Are you a brother?" He rose up and said yes and my heart leaped with joy. There were two of them, Timothy and Michael. We spoke with them for a while and decided to share dinner with them that evening. They cooked chile and we provided the rice. Soon after we arrived a boy scout troop in canoes showed up. They asked if they could camp with us and I said the more the merrier! They were well behaved and did not stay up to late, thank goodness. After dinner we talked with the brothers, sang songs with them, and shared our testimony. We thoroughly enjoyed their company. We got to sleep early so we could rise with the sun before the morning chorus was over. For the readers who don't know what the morning chorus is, it's the beautiful chorus the birds sing as the sun is coming over the horizon. It's absolutely splendid!
We met so many other wonderful people on the C&O canal, too many to talk about all of them. We would like to give a shout out to them though! Hello Crash, Egbert a.k.a Roy, Bejamin, Phil, and so many others who I cannot even remember names of. We finally finished the canal the day before yesterday. We hitched our first ride from Paw Paw to Oldtown. We camped out behind the old schoolhouse that has been turned into the local business mall for a day before starting West Virginia, which was such a blessing. We walked our first day in the foot hills of the Appalachian Mountains yesterday and are now in a cute little cafe called "Perky Bean", in Fort Ashbey, West Virginia. Yesterday I got the worst heat rash I have had so far and I did not wear my hat so my face looks lobsterish! We have decided to send this lap top home because I am sick of carrying it. We will probably get an iphone soon so we can just blog from it.
The Lord has been teaching us so much lately. He is really using us to encourage and build other people's faith. It is a blessing when we get reports of how our journey is touching so many people's lives. Our main purpose for this journey is to further the kingdom of God and to edify the church and I pray the Lord is pleased with what we have done so far. There are so many other thoughts I would love to share and maybe when we get an iphone we can blog more often and I can share more. However I don't want to be a burden to the business of this cafe so I am afraid I need to wrap it up. We send our love as always and thank you for all of the prayers that are being sent up for us. We appreciate them so much and they are truly being felt!

God Bless! Shalom,
Truth Walkers

1 comment:

  1. I almost forgot to mention Frank and Tamara. They were two beautiful souls who took us to their church last wednesday night in Needmore, PA and let us sleep on their couch. Oh and they had kitties! Yay!! Thanks Frank for being such a gracious brother!

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