Hey everyone this post will be covering the most states (6) of any the previous blogs that I have posted! We spent the weekend in Carlisle, PA, helping at an event called Rethink Retirement at Bongiorno Christian Retreat Center. The weekend was filled with different teachings from various people and backgrounds. I spent a good amount of time working the welcome table and watching kids which allowed the parents to be distraction free while sitting in the teachings. I was able to sit in for a little bit of the teaching and heard some wisdom about investing early along with financial advice on spending. It was a great time helping run the event and getting the chance to camp there as well.
From there the squad made our way to our teammate Alleigh’s house in Fairfax, Virginia where we had the opportunity to attend a service at her church in DC. I also had a shot at climbing with her and had a great time. The squad also went into DC one of the days to tour the White House and explore parts of DC including some people going to Museum of the Bible. Another day the team went to Great Falls which is in between Maryland and Virginia. All of us had a relaxing hike along with pretty views such as the waterfalls. We also had an encounter with a guy while hiking who lived 10 minutes away and came there a lot with his wife to hike. Unfortunately he told us how this was the first time he had come back, since his wife had passed a couple months prior. We were able to encourage and pray for him before continuing the hike. Alleigh’s parents were really nice and a great host, not to forget that her dogs were super sweet as well!
After Virginia my team made our way to Maryland where we stayed at my house for the weekend. I got to show the team different hot spots in Southern Maryland including the Leonardtown Wharf, Calvert Cliffs, Solomons Island, and the Patuxent Navy Base. On Sunday, we visited my home church, Fatih Bible Church, and I was given the opportunity to speak in front of the church. I shared a quick recap of different highlights from what we had been doing the past couple months, since I joined back in July. The time at my house was short but definitely was still enjoyable and fun showing the team my area and regular life with family.
The next stop was Memphis, TN, where we stayed with one of the race mentors, Ryan. It was really cool seeing Memphis for the first time and going out and evangelizing. Sadly our vans transmission decided to give us some problems so we had to leave it in Memphis in fear it wouldn’t make the trip to the next stop in Mississippi. Luckily we were able to take the other teams van down to the next host while the other team stayed up in Memphis continuing to work with Ryan.
This brings us to the next state, Corinth, MS. This is where my teammate, Zach Trest lives and while we were down in Mississippi we attended his local church, Pinecrest Baptist Church. The people there sure lived up to the Southern hospitality stigma, being friendlier than certain parts of the North. This was a rare thing to experience growing up outside Philadelphia. Once again we encountered a little bit of a hiccup while staying at his house as a big storm came through Saturday afternoon with 80mph winds. The storm was bad enough that it blew some roofs off houses, destroyed shop signs and worst of all up rooted some big trees which fell on houses, roadways, and power lines. After the storm we didn’t have power the next two days at Zach’s house, which made life a little more difficult but on the bright side (pun intended) we spent more time together than we would have if we had power and wifi.
The last official host of the race, which is where I currently am, is in Leesburg, AL. While both teams have been in Alabama we’ve had a great opportunity to volunteer at our host, Beth’s work. She works at Little River Canyon, so it has been really cool working at a National Park. One of the days we cleared out an extra parking lot which was starting to get overgrown. We cleared it out anticipating a large amount of people coming the next day for the Canyon Festival, that would be hosted there. The Canyon Fest was a really great time and I was in charge of helping direct parking. Also during the festival, I sat in on a bird show, seeing a bunch of different birds from owls to eagles and even a vulture.
That’s what I have been up to over the past month. Also I will be posting a video of 1 second a day from the past month as the race finishes up in a few weeks. I will be posting it on my instagram: justin_shaner and also on my blog here (if I can figure it out). So stay tuned for that to be posted in a few weeks. Lastly, there is still a couple people on our squad that are still fundraising so if you feel lead to give, please check out their pages and donate to them since I’m fully funded. As always thanks for taking a couple minutes to read my blog!
