Hello to our Friends, Family and Fellow Hikers,
It has been a while since we have been able to blog
and to inform you all of what we have been doing and seeing
on our amazing mission journey across our nation.
I will do my best to catch you up to today.
On March 23,2014 we walk a short day with plans of taking a day off to rest and resupply. We walked through the Paw Paw Tunnel which is on the C & O Canal. This tunnel is amazing and one of the grand things to see on this trip. It was built in 1836- 1850 , some interesting information we learned about this tunnel is that on the inside it is layered in brick. It took around 6 million red bricks to construct the tunnel. What a engineering task that must have been back then. We walked through the tunnel using headlights to show our way. It was truly walking to the scripture, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. When we were pushing our cart, we could not see where to place our feet at all, you had to walk by faith, not by sight.
This was truly a great test of faith for KatyDid.
We made it through to the other side and she was happy to be in the fresh air again. We walk on into the town of Paw Paw, W.V. to a little
convience store where we had some hot lunch. Here we met a man from PA.
Mr. Leo Eby, came over to talk to us and invited us and Pilgrim home to his place in PA. Here is where we took some nice rested time off and enjoyed their family hospitality very much. They are a Mennonite family and fed us well and KatyDid enjoyed playing with all of their daughters. You can see many photos on our face book of this family and our time there. We rode the horse drawn wagon up to the garden spot that evening while Leo plowed fresh ground with his team. This was truly a blessing to our family to meet others wanting to live for God and to give HIM all the Glory.
Thank you Leo and Judith and Family, you will forever be in our prayers. Your family truly blessed ours beyond our expectations. We left the Eby farm and got back on the trail. Mr. Leo sent one of his kind workers Gene to drive us back to the trail and he too, blessed us with his love and kindness, as well. Thank you Gene. Our family went on search for Pilgrim, he left the Eby farm the day before us and we wanted to catch up with him to make sure he was doing ok. We eventually caught up with Pilgrim on the side of a very steep incline. We were worried about his heart and the steep strenuous climbs before us. We found each other and it began to rain down buckets from heaven. We decided to work as a team to get up these mountains in West Virginia. GentleFir and Pilgrim took his cart together and pushed up and then rested and went some more and continued this way until we made it up and KatyDid and her Dad did the same.
We were soaking wet and getting kind of hypothermic when a trail angel drove up to rescue us from the steep, now muddy climbs and rain. Kevin Howser, invited us all back to his place for the night. Thank you Kevin and family for your hospitality and for breakfast. Here is where our journey splits from Pilgrim.
Pilgrim decided that W.V. may due him in and left the trail for the time being and hopefully will return to hike with us through Indiana. Pilgrim will be missed but not forgotten. Pilgrim left us his push cart for extra support for us to use and it has been a blessing. Thank you Pilgrim.
We have many more stories to come later and will continue to write more to catch you all up to where we are now. I hope you enjoyed this post of our journey.
May the Lord Bless you ALL and keep you. Thank you again to ALL of our trail angels. You are touching lives and making a difference.
Many Blessings,
Backpacking Believers
Gentle Fir
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| Fort Ashby |
