“You’re a good good father, it’s who you are, it’s who you are… you are perfect in all of your ways” was playing from Charles’ bomb playlist as they played 99 games of spicy uno on the bus ride from Burgos to Mijas, a 10 hour bus ride! Poor Brenna never won one game. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but take yet another picture of the perfect view God allowed me to enjoy while starting out of the window and saying good buy to “El Camino. So as the song played in the background, I thought about all the times this trip He has been a GOOD GOOD FATHER!
I could go on and on about all the blessings we received but we would both be here for days.
We arrived to Pamplona, Spain on the 9th (finally after two days of travel, delayed flights, bus rides and carrying our heavy packs) with a short stop to NYC to break it up in between (that was nice). First praise report, Niki teammate, realized her purse was stolen overnight as we slept at the airport in Spain and we later found it in one of the bathroom stalls untouched and everything was in praise God!!
So we hit the floor running (pun definitely intended). All this preparation of training camp and launch culminated to what would be the next 10 days. With a half pack full of things, (we sent half our stuff ahead to meet us at Burgos where we would end and only took the essentials) I quickly realized I still was caring way too much in my pack. Thank God for my “no blister guaranteed socks” from REI and shoes Melissa gave me, they were perfect!! Second praise report, I didn’t get not even one blister the entire time!! Yay! I digress, so the 10th was the first day of El Camino. It was one of the longest, hardest yet the best day of El Camino for sure. Let me explain why; and you can basically say all the days where a slight variation of this one.
So the days started at 5am before the sun came up so we wouldn’t die of heat exhaustion when it came up. The Turing was marvelous to say the least. As a matter of fact any words are used to describe fall short of God‘s creation and how magnificent He truly is. So needless to say there was a lot of peaks and valleys dirt and rocks then grass and nothing which I was prepared for other than my socks shoes my still have a pack and my walking sticks which made a world of a difference. I quickly realized my stride is not as long as my other teammates so I was peacefully left to enjoy a lot of quiet time and interaction with a lot of the other pilgrims on El Camino! It was AMAZING! I met so many new faces and sparked great conversation with so many people. Praise report number three, a lot of them had to do with divorce, separation or rekindling a relationship with the Father they had once before. I was able to share my story time and time again with freshly cut wheat fields, grape vineyards, sunflowers fields and steep cliffs and mountains as our backdrop. All while keeping my footing on the rocky ground. I also had some real sweet one on one time with God as my creator and poppa! Man, all I heard over and over was “I LOVE YOU and maid all of this for you” and that only charged me up to love others just as much because I knew I was loved and he walked on the same hard rocks and threw hard peajes and valleys just for you and me! Man, how awesome that He I trusts us to do this with Him! So yeah, I met and prayed for people on The Camino, at hostels while kneeling by my bed, crossing over a bridge as they limped across, over a family style dinner at night you name it. Although my pack was cutting into my shoulders after the 6th hours and my feet where super sore, I absolutely loved it. The funniest part was towards the end when I met up with my squad mates Alison and amber! We kept stopping to rest our feet. Meanwhile an older woman who I prayed for earlier passed us bye and recommended we get a Coke to give us some sugar to finish the leg o meanwhile an older woman I prayed for earlier passed us bye and recommended we get a Coke to give us some sugar to finish the last leg of the day! Oh by then the tired and giggles kick in as well as a kid I really do this for 10 more days questions pop in our mind? As we kept on walking, laughing and secretly simultaneously crying, like an oasis on young girl was selling lemonade on the side of the street. It was now about 5pm and we each bought a couple of lemonade to refresh are very tired bodies. And asking what she was saving up for she said University and I began to ask her about her relationship with God to which she responded “she didn’t believe in God”and much like the same refreshing drink she gave us, the Holy Spirit kindly fresh my spirit as to why we were doing this in the first place. For people like her. We gave her some nuggets of love and asked if we could pray for her. We thanked her, she stamped our pilgrims passport we think her and went on our way to finish the last 40 minutes of a very long day. She represented a lot of what I would run into the next 10 days but we planted a lot of real good seed! I also had the pleasure of speaking life into a lot of stayed away sheep and reminded them that they where loved. Prayer move mountains for sure. The last 10 days where full so much emotion. I laughed so much with my squad mates, weeped in the presence of my God and his overwhelming love, was frustrated at the bedbugs and the itching it caused, felt peace because God always provided a delicious meal, and I always smiled when I thought about how much He loves us so much that He did this all first for us. God is for sure faithful always and forever!
