10 days, 10 towns, 10 alburgues (hostels/churches), 130 + miles, 20+ loaves of bread, 30+ feet feet massaged, 124,786,273 blisters, countless prayers and praises.
“El Camino de Santiago de Compostela (in English: The Way of St. James) is a network of routes across Spain and Europe which all lead to Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest of Spain. In the Middle Ages, these routes were walked as a pilgrimage to the tomb of the apostle St. James.
Nowadays, tens of thousands walk or cycle the Camino de Santiago every year in an epic journey of 500 miles. People from all over the world with all kinds of motivations: sport, culture, religion, nature, adventure etc., travel El Camino de Santiago, or parts of it, in a lifetime experience. El Camino de Santiago has been declared World Heritage by UNESCO and the First European Cultural Itinerary (http://www.caminosantiagodecompostela.com/).”
During our last month of the World Race, M Squad spent 10 of those days hiking the world renowned Camino de Santiago de Compostela! This blog will account to some of the true tales that happened along the way of St. James (in Canterbury Tales form).
Bea’s Tale
A sweet sweet local girl was waiting in line behind me to a donation (pay what you can) alburgue Day 2 of our Camino travels. After about a 15 mile hike, most people want to relax, take it easy, shower and eat. So the emotions or actions following suit may not always be as inviting or kind. I was excited to be apart of a journey where most people come travel to the camino open to hearing other’s people’s stories in yearning to find purpose in their life. I am confident of mine and was eager to share that. So I commented on Bea’s earrings even though she seemed like she was all peopled out and after a couple minutes of small talk…she ended up pouring out her life story to me. On how she struggles with depression and wanting to kill herself. I left it at that and prayed that I would run into her again to let her know that God has a plan for her life. Later that night she was in the same restaurant that a couple of my friends and I were in and I approached her and offered to pray with her, but she refused. I was saddened by her response, but trusted that God will continue to pursue her. I still kept praying for another interaction with her and actually ran into her and her parents quite a few days later and got to meet them as well. I told them that they had a precious, beautiful daughter, inside and out. They were astonished but grateful to hear such words come from a stranger. God be with you Bea.
Jenine’s Tale
A spunky, fit, energetic, raw, authentic, intelligent, mom, wife, educator and child of God impacted all of M squad in only 10 days. This beautiful soul and fellow American was vulnerable about her life in this incredible journey and allowed a lot of us to pour into her life just as much as she poured into ours. As inspirational as she was, she also was quite the jokester. There were a couple days that she traveled specifically with the group that I was hiking with. All 32 of us did not travel together, at the same pace all 10 days, so we broke up into smaller groups and mixed up day-to-day. However, we would run into each other a lot.
So the couple of days that Jenine traveled with me she got to know me pretty well. Everyone that knows me knows that I go to the bathroom quite frequently and am a fast walker. Well there are not many port-a-potties along this trail, but there are plenty of trees and open fields. There was 5 of us walking together and in order to walk so many miles a day, one must keep hydrated. So hydrated I was…We left relatively “late” that morning from a church albergue that we stayed in the night previously. Sun was up and it was prime time for all the pereguinos (pilgrims), which is what the locals call everyone that hikes this trail, to be hiking the trail. Jenine graciously treated us to breakfast that morning and let’s just say I had more than enough liquid in me. I have no problem going behind something when I am by myself. This time I wasn’t by myself, I was surrounded by more than a handful of people. So as we were walking, I dropped my backpack and sprinted to the nearest tree and did my thing. Funny how 5 minutes later, our group stopped for a group pee stop along the side of the road…lol. Anyway, I didn’t see Jenine again for another couple of days, but I heard from my teammates that she was impersonating me pretty well on what its like to walk with me. What a blessing this woman is. She loved on us well and we even emailed our leadership about how she gives glory to God for putting us on her path to remind her of God’s love for her.
Melody’s Tale
Day 4 on the Camino. It’s surprisingly freezing this day. It’s about 7am and a few members of my squad and I stayed in this lovely donation based Albergue (hostel) called La Casa De Sonrisa. They provided a free breakfast in the morning. I got up a bit earlier than the rest of my squad just because it takes me awhile to get started in the morning =) and I sat next to this young woman named Melody from France. We had an interesting conversation based off some prayer beads she was carrying (it wasn’t a rosary). I asked her some questions about it and about her spiritual life in general which she was open to anything. So I bluntly with kindness offered to pray to Jesus with her for safe travels and for her to know the true God and find her true purpose in life. We both left that “house with smiles”. GLORY BE TO GOD!
Joanna’s Tale
Since your love got a hold of me, since your love got a hold of me, I’m a new creation, I’m forever changed are some lyrics to a song that I taught a few peregrinos, Day 6 on the Camino. People from all over the world come make this pilgrimage. So many languages in addition to Spanish are spoken. Every pueblo that we passed by had a church. In most churches they did a special blessing over the pilgrims either during or after mass. I decided to attend one of these blessings. No one from my team wanted to go, since they have already been to one. So I went by myself. This blessing was given in 5 languages, French, Italian, German, Spanish and English. The priest had pre-printed pages of the same prayer and hymns in all those languages and had everyone that spoke those languages recite them together. This is where I met Joanna. She’s from the UK and also spoke English! Then the priest, Father Emmanuel asked each of us to sing a song in our native tongue and we sang amazing grace. Right before we were about to leave I felt lead to share another song so I asked to sing and share United Pursuit’s, Since your Love. And encouraged everyone that attended the blessing that once you put your trust and faith in Jesus that you are a new creation and forever changed which is something that a lot of pilgrims search for every year. What or who their true identity is. Joanna affirmed her faith in Jesus and had plenty of personal testimonies to share about how God literally kept her alive throughout the years. What a gem!
Rodrigo’s Tale
Pamplona was the name of this beautiful small city that we stayed in Day 3 of the Camino. 3 days in and the majority of our squad was hurrrrting really bad. Bad knees, tendinitis, sore muscles, blisters on blisters. So my squad mate Nano and I decided to give out free foot massages. This is where we meet Rodrigo. This day we stayed in a donation based alburgie and it was filled by most of our squad and only a couple of non world racers, one of them being this down-to-earth, young lad from Brasil named Rodrigo. We were loving on our squad by massaging out all the aches and pains sharing laughs and spanish wine. So we extended our service to the albergue volunteers and other peregrinos including Rodrigo. Rodrigo didn’t leave our group since then. Similar to Jenine, he met quite a few of us and stayed with a group that pretty much stayed together the rest of our journey on the camino. He voiced feeling apart of our family and enjoyed traveling alongside of us. I know that many lifelong friendships were made with Rodrigo and it all started with a simple invitation. Bless you Rodrigo!
“Now there are also many other things that M Squad did in the name of Jesus on the Camino. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (read John 21:25)”…lol. JK =)
This concludes the Camino Tales. True tales of individuals who came together to have an adventure with God mile by mile, one step at a time.
