The Great American Journey

GAP WALK JOURNALS - VIII

Saturday - October 11,  2008  Day 220   0.0  miles

Total Maryland miles - 68.4        Walking Days - 104

Washington D.C. miles - 4.6   Cumulative miles 1800.2

Today was moving day, but also the day we drove the Beltway
loop around Baltimore for two hours. What an experience! I’ll
try to give you an inkling of what it was like.

We had to go to Wal-Mart after we got packed up and checked
out, then we had some breakfast, and back to McDonald’s to say
good-bye to Rob. What a delight he has been to us, and we are
grateful that we can pray with him and for him.

Finally we headed for the Beltway. It was a little before 1 pm
when we arrived, so we gave it an extra fifteen minutes. Earlier
as I was having my Bible and prayer time back at the motel, I
kept seeing things in the Scriptures I was reading that got me
quite excited. They just seemed to fit so well the things we were
seeing and hearing about in Baltimore. So I began to write
things down, and one thing led to another until I had three pages
of thoughts and Scriptures written down to pray over Baltimore.

As Bonny drove this big circle around the city we began to pray,
and I would read the Scriptures we had, and others we thought
of, and we would both pray. It was truly awesome. After driving
for over an hour Bonny felt the need to get out and stretch for a
bit, so we turned off to find a spot to get out for awhile.

Pulling into a cemetery we saw a pond with Canada geese all
around. There were cars alongside a drive, and some people out
feeding the geese. We drove down by them to turn around, and a
woman and her daughter saw our magnetic sign on the car. I
heard them talking about it, so we stopped to tell them about the
journey.

Kelly has lived in Baltimore all her life, and when she heard that
we were praying specifically for Baltimore today she shared
how appreciative she was for that. Bonny asked her if she had
any special requests either for herself, or for Baltimore. The
things she shared confirmed so much of what we had heard, and
we were just overwhelmed with the way God was working -
even to bringing us together with Kelly and her daughter,
Rachel. Rachel told us she is 6 ½. Her birthday is in February.
We had a time of prayer with them, then we headed back out to
the Beltway.

I need to put in here some other confirmations of what was
going on as well. Last night (10/10) because I couldn’t get
online, I had Dave read my e-mails for me. He gave me the
names of some who agreed to be praying with us today from
wherever they were, and read some of their comments.

One man had been impressed with the names of three cities to
pray for several months ago, and Baltimore was one of those. He
has been praying every day since then. Another told me that her
husband has brothers living in Baltimore, and another used to
come to Baltimore when she lived in the area, and agreed that it
was in great need of a spiritual awakening.

I had still thought that Dave, and Austin, and I might come back
to Baltimore on Friday to do some walking and praying, but this
morning I had a real sense of peace about only doing the
Beltway driving and praying in Baltimore. And I have sensed
that the real need for Friday is to take the Metro into D.C. and
walk the area around the Supreme Court, the Capitol building,
and other places in that area to pray some more. We won’t be
walking in that part on Saturday when we finish, so that will be
good to do the day before.

When we finished driving the Beltway for the two hours, we
headed down Hwy 1 (Washington Blvd.) to drive the route we’ll
be walking on to the border of Washington D.C. Some of this is
really beautiful. I still have to calculate the mileages that we
wrote down today, but it will be finished on Saturday with no
problem if all goes well. Pray it will. As I often tell Bonny,
“Piece of cake.

Next we found our way to my cousin’s home in Potomac.
Evelyn and her husband, Harri have a comfortable place, and
perfect for us. We had a neat visit tonight - with more to come.
Harri is writing a historical novel that sounds really good. He
gave me some of what he has written  to read. I’m looking
forward to it.

Bonny and I got some laundry started - one load tonight, and
more tomorrow. Finally we got our stuff in and taken care of,
then headed for bed. It’s late as usual. I really didn’t want to
leave the journal for another day, for it is too hard to remember
things then. Hopefully I’ll be able to stay awake in church
tomorrow.

Tomorrow Harri is going to see if we can connect my computer
up to their internet service. Otherwise I’ll take the computer
with me and find a place where we can pick up a Wi-Fi service.