W6: Mercy Shall Follow

Wolf! Fire! Don’t Panic!

Friday, June 17th, 2022 started with an F. As in Failed. As in Forgotten. As in FIRE! WOLF! SOS! DON’T PANIC! WHAT? ME WORRY?

 

SOS

An “Emergency Alert” went out to start the day off right. I have no idea how I activated it Friday morning. Both my phones were on all night and still on all morning, so triggering an SOS by powering one or both of them on at 9:45 AM seems unlikely. What I *DID* power on about that time was my Garmin Inreach MINI 2 (satellite GPS with SOS for hikers), but the alert that went out, had it originated on the Garmin, would have identified the Garmin.com site at the source of the SOS. However, the source was not Garmin but Google maps. I had no idea an emergency alert had been sent. Furthermore, only my niece, Brandi, initially received it. She in turn forwarded it to my daughters and my sister. The alert continued to be sent out every 30 minutes and the second one went out as a group message to the whole family.

Blissfully Unaware

At 9:45 AM when the first alert went out, I had just left the motel. The alert included the location on Google maps. The second one went out 30 minutes later and showed me a mile away from the motel. The third one showed me two miles from the motel.  My sister, daughters, and niece had all tried to reach me by phone. My phones were in the fanny pack I was wearing, but the fanny pack lay hidden underneath the backpack I was also wearing. I was unable to answer the calls. After the third one, my sister called the police in Hardeeville, SC. When the patrolman rolled up to me, he said that “people” had called in about me. I was walking in a quiet neighborhood, so I figured some neighborhood watch person had reported me as a suspicious vagrant or something. By the time the fourth alert went out, I was sitting on a stump, resting. When the phone rang again, I unclipped the fanny pack and removed it, retrieved the phone, and learned for the first time about the panic my family was feeling. By this time, I was nowhere near an internet connection and beyond checking the Garmin (the Garmin had NOT sent any SOS notifications), could not do any troubleshooting. When the conversation ended, I got up and started walking again.

Five Miles Further

Five miles down the road, I encountered road paving going on. The lane being paved was blocked off and traffic in both directions was being allowed through the other lane one direction at a time. This effectively stopped me from walking, as I was not allowed to walk on the fresh, hot, soft pavement, could not keep up with traffic going my direction, and could not block traffic going the other way. It was now just past noon. I was next to a Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I decided to sit on the grass and have lunch. One of the items on the menu was an orange. I reached for my knife to cut the peel. The knife was in my fanny pack. The fanny pack was still on the ground beside the stump five miles back.

Backtracking

Since I was stuck at this spot until the work crews either finished paving or stopped the day, I decided to leave my gear there at the Kingdom Hall and walk burden-free back to the stump to get my fanny-pack. Although walking without my gear was easier, it was not particularly faster. By the time I retrieved the fanny pack, the temperature had risen to 101° and I was sorely regretting having left my water bottles behind.

Lord, send help!

Now I *did* send an SOS. Not to the police or to my family, but to God. “Lord Amighty, you’ve promised to not allow more to happen to me than I am able to bear. I need you to take mercy on me. Please send someone to help me get back to my gear and my water. Amen”

 

No sooner had I prayed then I spotted someone turning into their driveway just ahead of me. I picked up my pace and waved to get their attention. When I was close enough, I pleaded, “Can I get a drink of water, please? And maybe get hosed down with cool water to bring my body temperature down?” I asked the woman. 

 

“Of course!” she replied, then brought a lawn chair over for me. As I sat gratefully, she went inside and came out with two oversized glasses, one with ice and one without. The one without was for pouring over my head and shirt!

God’s Mercy

We chatted as I cooled down. She asked where I was walking to (since I was walking away from town) and why, and I told her about walking on the Greenway up to Maine. Her eyes widened in astonishment. “I’ve heard about people doing that, but I’ve never believed it until now!” She wanted to know all about my journey and asked me if I needed money. (I didn’t.) “My name is Mercy,” she added.

 

“Yes, you are!” I agreed. “You are God’s Mercy and an answer to my prayer. I then told her about leaving the fanny pack, then leaving my gear to come back and get the fanny pack. I also gave her my business card with the blog URL and my phone number and told her about how this walk was a missionary journey for me.

Unending Mercy

Mercy asked me if I had an umbrella. I smiled and said I had planned on bring one along but because I have so much other gear, it just wasn’t practical.

 

Well, I think you should have one. You could mount it to your gear. I have one and want to give it to you.” She then started a search for it and eventually found it. It wasn’t just an umbrella, umbrella. It was a beach/deck umbrella, of the type that stand in a hole in the center of a table. I was astonished that she would want to give it to me because they are kind of expensive.

 

Holding the umbrella, she realized how large it was and much have pictured me carrying it the five miles back to my gear waiting for me at the Kingdom Hall.

 

“Would you like a ride back to your stuff? she asked. 

 

“Yes. Yes, I would. Thank you, so, so much, Mercy.”

Floodgates of Heaven

She called her kids, and we went to the car. As I got into her car with the umbrella, I recalled Malachi 3:10 and the promise of God. “Test me in this. See if I will not open the floodgates of Heaven and pour out a blessing so great you will not have room enough to contain it.”

 

And Mercy, I know you are reading this. This verse is talking about tithing, but tithing is more than just money. It is returning back to God a tenth of what He has blessed you with. You gave me a rich, expensive, portion of your blessings. God will reward you for what you did for me that Friday.

 

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Matt. 5: 7

 

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous [impassioned] God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them who hate me, but showing mercy upon thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” Ex. 20:6

 

Those are the promises of our infinite, almighty God, Mercy. Teach your children these things, for they are the reason He brought you and I together. He could have rescued me a thousand different ways. He chose to rescue me through you.

Walking with God in the Cool of the Evening

The road crew finished up around 4 PM but it was still too hot to try walking. I got out my cook stove and made myself an early dinner. The traffic that had been backed up all day was still flowing more heavily than usual even at 7 PM when I finally started walking again.

Alligators Really Do Look Like Logs

After the sun set but before the light fell too low, I spotted a huge alligator on the shoulder of the road. I wish I had taken a picture of it to show you, but I was too busy easing my way to the other side of the highway. I watched it warily until I was abreast of it, at which time it began to look like a log. A log! It was a 12′ to 15′ log and the end of it had been stripped of bark which had made it look like an alligator with its mouth partially open!

No Traffic Like Heavy Traffic

Before leaving Hardeeville, I had purchased a neon yellow shirt with silver reflective bands on the arms and chest. With the reflective shirt and a headlamp to light my way and warn oncoming traffic of my presence, I proceeded to cautiously navigate the unshouldered highway one slow mile at a time. 

 

Mile after creepy, crawly mile, forward twenty steps, then drop a wheel into the steep sloping ditch, wait for a dozen vehicles, get back on the pavement, rinse and repeat.

St. Matthew’s Baptist Church

I had determined that I would know when I had left the swamp behind when I reached a church marked on the map as the Saint Matthew Baptist Church. Finally, about 11:30 PM, I reached it, but not before getting soaked by a lightning storm. When I got there, it was a fenced and gated prop, the certy. However, as I had no other decent place to stop, I decided I would climb over the gate if I had to. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. Instead of a chain and lock, the gate was secured with a bungee cord. I opened it, parked my stroller on the covered porch steps, and bedded down for the night… under the bright, unblinking eye of a massive Sodium lamp illuminating the front of the church.

 

I expected my mileage for the day to be around 18 miles due to the backtracking, but it turned out to be 13 miles, probably due to the above and beyond help that Mercy and her children gave me.