Wouldn't it be fun to be sent out like the disciples Luke 10 style? Sent by Jesus two by two, taking nothing with you for the journey.
No backpack, no cash, no debit card, no tent, no sleeping bag. Just taking the clothes on your back and being led by the Spirit.
It may sound a little extreme, but I was itching to expand my faith. Life at the office was getting too normal. I wanted to live a good story, have an adventure, and take a risk.
I felt led to try this experiment over a weekend since I don't have time to take days off. I asked Seth, my roommate, if he was up for it. And he was.
Last Friday night Seth and I started our journey at exit 16 on I-985. We felt vulnerable with just the clothes on our back. I had a wad of toilet paper in my back pocket and my cell phone –both only to be used in an emergency situation. The cell phone was to remain turned off.
That morning my friend Kristin, who was leading a mission trip in Appalachia, called me for some advice. In the conversation, I told her to pray for Seth and me because we would be hitchhiking that weekend – Luke 10 style.
Kristin said jokingly we should hitchhike to her parent’s house in East Tennessee to drive her and her car back to Gainesville. Turns out she had injured her foot playing ultimate frisbee that week and wouldn't be able to drive for weeks.
After Seth and I prayed about it, we felt like that was our destination and part of the ministry God wanted us to do. We were excited to have a tangible purpose for our hitchhiking.
You could call it hitchhiking for Jesus, but we were just trying to model the disciples. We stuck out our thumbs around 7:00 PM at the onramp. Expectancy and hope soared as we waited for the first car to pull over.
A long twenty minutes passed, as we waited and were rejected by car after car, until a red pickup pulled over. Our Hispanic friend took us one exit down. Not much progress, but we had moved. The thought of traveling through four states and hundreds of miles to get to Kristin by Sunday started to loom.
We crawled twenty miles in the next two hours. The blue-collar worker, who drove with an open beer between his legs, dropped us off in a less than ideal area. Our spirits started to sink as the sun set.
Lesson 1: Leave plenty of daylight to hitchhike. Darkness is your enemy.
Our goal was to make it to at least Charlotte, North Carolina that night, but reality soon set in that we were stuck. Were we over ambitious? Bad hitchhikers? An off day? Thoughts poured in like exhaust fumes. Seth and I debated about what to do next and where we would sleep.
I want to thank all you good tax paying Americans for providing shelter for us that first night. Seth and I found a road construction truck parked in between the on and off ramp. It was unlocked and had a nice cushion bench seat. It wasn't a hotel or a nice strangers house, but it was something.
We didn't get much sleep cramped in that truck with cars and mosquitoes whizzing by all night long. My body was cold and ached to stretch out. I longed for the sun to rise to wake me up from this bad dream.
My stomach was nauseous in the morning and my mouth dry as a desert. Thankfully we only had to wait about five minutes to get a ride a few more exits up that had a McDonalds. In the bathroom, I wiped the dust off my face and quenched my barren waterhole.
Lesson 2: McDonalds are a hitchhiker’s refuge.
In our next ride Seth and I were glad to exchange stories with a young couple that took us all the way to South Carolina border. Picking up hitchhikers seemed to be normal for them. They pulled off at Waffle House for breakfast while Seth and I waited in the parking lot for them to finish. My stomach dreamed of them walking out with food for us. Unfortunately, the dream never converted to reality.
Wind blew through our hair riding in the back of a pickup next. The gentleman dropped us off at Exit 2 next to a big, maybe abandoned fireworks store. Exit 2 could have been back in the 1700s for all we were concerned. There were no cars. After twenty minutes of staring at the vacant pavement, we confidently marched onto the interstate.
Lesson 3: Get dropped off at an exit with at least one gas station.
About halfway to the exit, a siren caught our attention, and we turned around to a state police officer pulling us over. Turns out, it is illegal to walk on "controlled access highways." That is what the warning slip stated that the officer handed to us.
To our humor, the officer gave us waking safety brochures and a really cool reflective slap bracelet for the night hikes. It was my first ride in a real police cruiser. I didn't show it, but I was ecstatic as he reported to dispatch “suspects” picked up.
Lesson 4: It is illegal to walk on interstates.
We applied Lesson 3 in our next ride. The exit was good as gold with four onramps, gas stations, hotels and a steady flow of traffic. But were we wrong.
After an hour of posing with our thumbs out in the hot sun we decided for a break at the nearby Hardee's fast food restaurant. My sweat evaporated in the air-conditioning. Dozens of cars had passed but no one acknowledged our looming presence. I wondered if we had fallen victim to the bystander effect. Maybe we should hike to the next exit and hope for less cars or another ride by a police officer?
We went back out again but to no avail. This whole trip was starting to feel like a terrible idea. Where was God? Were we anymore than some washed up hitchhikers with no rides? We kept asking God for direction, but we didn't get anything besides being patient.
Another half-hour had passed. I was hot, exhausted, hungry, discouraged and grumpy. How long would it take? Would we ever make it to Kristin's house? Or would I need to use a lifeline and phone a friend to get us out of this mess?
Lesson 5: Patience
At last a flicker of hope shone. A dark green Jeep Liberty pulled over. The driver said he was going in the opposite direction but would be back in forty-five minutes and would check to see if we were still here.
To our amazement, we weren't invisible. I prayed that man was honest and would stay true to his word. I also prayed that I wouldn't have to find out by waiting for forty-five minutes.
We waited … and then everything changed.
