First Stop

The first few days have been ones worth reporting about. On Monday I hiked to Springvilla and found an empty churchyard to throw my hammock up in, I was pretty well worn out, but my feet were the real problem. I had to start putting moleskin on a mere three hours into the hike on monday. By the time I set up camp that night I had the start of some very good blisters on the balls of my feet. The next morning I woke with the sun and got another five and a half miles or so behind me. At this point I had given up on the idea of making it to Columbus by Wednesday and was JUST going to try and make it a little town called Crawford that was about 6 more miles down the road. Just as I was about to crawl into the woods to find some shade, a red pickup with an old couple pulled up on the road next to me and asked where I was going. The short version is that they had turned around to check on me and so they drove me to Crawford and bought me some food and a cold water at the comveniance store. I spent the midday at the conveniance store, had some great conversations with the folks there and other people passing through. Richard the husband of the manager told me that the drugs are pretty bad in this area and that I didn't want to be in the wrong spot after dark. He pointed me towards a baptist churchyard that had a well lit payground that I could throw up my hammock in and sleep for the night. As I was getting ready to set up at he church a car drove up and I started talking to the driver who turned out to be the pastor of the church. We talked for a while and discovered that my little brother and his daughter know each other from school. Lasty night he let me stay here in their youth house. A mentor of mine and his wife unexpectedly drove down looking for me and brought me some fresh supplies in the evening. This morning i helped out with vacation bible school and had a blast. The church has been amazingly open and accepting to me, it is a huge blessing to start this trip with such an amazing welcome. I plan on hanging out here a day or maybe two longer depending on how my blisters heal and then I will take off again in the direction of columbus and see where I end up next. God has been providing fo me in some really neat way and showing me some interesting things already, I cannot wait to see what the rest of this adventure holds.