Misty Hills, Helpful Hands & Infection

Hello from Toulouse in southern France! I had to think about that for a moment, "Where am I?" I'm actually not feeling too well right now. I have a mild dose of "I just walked 240km in 6days without a sufficient break" coupled with problematic feet. Basically I'm really tired & sat here looking at the computer for a very long time trying to muster up the energy to think back over what happened this week. I walked. I prayed. And yes, other things happened as well. My right foot is hurting more & more & I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't a structural problem (bone). I've conducted a few little tests to sort out why each step with the right foot is coupled with a massive fold line down the middle of my forehead & I'm leaning more towards bone damage than anything else. My left foot, on the other hand, is the one that's been bleeding & had problems with the nail & in the last 2days an infection has set in. It isn't good. I'm working on it as fast as I can & following doctor's orders however it appears at this stage to be an up-hill battle. I may need to start looking for a hospital very soon. Not yet though. Not yet. Other than walking on egg shells this week the journey from Montpellier to Toulouse was one of the most satisfying stretches of road I've passed along for a long time. I left the Mediterranean coastline at Beziers & headed up through the foerst-clad foothills of the Pyrenes. I was caught out by one thumping thunder storm that had me ducking for cover under a hawthorn bush for 30mins but thankfully I was eventually able to continue. The storm had passed but by lunch time the rain had set in solidly. I was saturated. It was, even so, beautiful. The wind was whipping mist up along the hillsides & seasonal waterfalls were bursting out over cliff faces along the valley walls as I headed higher & higher. I stopped in a small Catholic Church to extend to the parish the invitation to pray for unity but the priest was a little catious & dismissed the invitation. As I was leaving he asked if I needed anything so I promptly asked if it would be possible to dry my socks (my bag had been soaked & the spare pair were also wet). He obliged & showed me to a room with a small fan-forced heater. He left the room for a moment as I whipped my socks off & draped them in front of the heater but when he returned he happened to glance down & notice my wet, bleeding feet. He was shocked, "You actually walked all the way?" And so, for a second time, I had the opportunity to explain what I was doing & why, but this time, he recieved it with great interest & encouragement. Good old bleeding feet came in handy after all. For the next 30mins while my socks dried he ran to every room in the house fetching me food, medical supplies, a towel & 2pairs of thick walking socks. They were too small for me but more importantly my socks in front of the heater were drying quickly. By the time I eventually headed on my way again he had recieved the invitation to invite the town's people to pray for unity, though he felt he was loosing the battle in that town. It is sad indeed to see how foreign prayer has become to many. I have been pleasantly suprised though at how generous many of the French have been to me in giving their time. On a number of occasions this week I've asked for directions in a town & had the person I've asked actually walk me there. Last week it was elderly Rohan who showed me the way, but this week it was a mother, a young boy, a young couple & teenage girl (pictured). Every little bit of help makes a difference to my day so it has in essence been a more pleasant week than usual! I've also been thankful for some great off-road walking this week. On the day from St Pons to Mazere the old railway line had been graveled over for pedestrians & so I had a seamless, contour following trek through forest & tunnels to each of the village 'stops' along the way. It was a silent retreat from the constant roar of traffic. With summer fast approaching the fruit trees are coming to life with a boom & fairly regular haave an abbundant supply of mulberries & 3 varieties of cherries to choose from along the road's edge. Do I have a favourite yet? Nope, but I'll keep taste-testing them until I've come to a decision. It could take a while. I thought I might lose my tent on the first night of the week as a ferocious wind storm blew in off northern Africa & blasted the French coastline but it's now calm, cool & overcast. I've caught up the 3days I was lagging but the medical problems could put a dent in that sooner rather than later. I dropped an item of clothing on my foot last night & it nearly brought me to tears. If that item of clothing was a knight's chest plate then it would be considered normal to be crippled with pain, but it wasn't. It was my cotton undies. The toe is in bad shape. I hope I'll be writing to you from Lourdes next week, but only God knows that. Perhaps I'll be in Belgium seeking a toe surgeon instead. Please pray for me & as always, for the broken body of Christ, the Church. God bless & peace be with you. Sam.
"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" Psalm 24:1

Timing, Snakes & 'Cosmic Energy'

Hello from Montpellier in the central south of France! Another week of walking & praying has come & gone & I'm feeling every kilometre of it right now on this Saturday evening. I began from Brignoles 3days behind schedule but will enter into tomorrow only 1day behind. The price for that catch up was 157km in 3days across the hot & muggy, snake infested flood-plains of the River Rhine. My foot bled, my water ran out & I went without a shower twice. I encountered more snakes this week than South & Central America combined, & that's saying something. I was jumping every few hours as they flew off from under my next step & everytime my heart, quiet literally, skipped a beat. One particular snake, just outside Arles, stayed where he was long enough for me to take its photo but it soon darted back into the swamp as well. The scenery was superb apart from the snakes. Rice paddies, fully grown barley crops, hay cutting in progress & flourishing vineyards made a patchwork amidst the natural swamps & rivers. On my first day out of Brignoles I firstly had to dispatch an aggresive charging Rottweiler with a clip under its chin from my walking pole (worked a treat) before arriving in a small town to find no offer of accomodation or hotels/campsites. I'd been toying with the idea of catching up some lost time during the week so the oppurtunity to walk on wasn't with too much angst. That being said, I began to wonder what was going on after passing a series of hotels with no vacancies. After 2 campsites & 7 hotels (and 58km) I was told that a university congress was being held & the entire city of Aix-en-Provence & surrounding districts were booked out. Even the manger was occupied. A friendly receptionist at the final hotel pointed me towards the dimly lit river-side city park & at 11pm I pitched my tent (at no cost) alongside a hedge & tried my best to sleep. A homeless man, with his own sleeping gear, joined me in the park an hour later though there was about 50m between us. There was no one else to be seen. Well, it was so dark it would have been difficult to see anyone else in any case. I could hear drunken cheers coming from a group further up into the park but they didn't make an appearance thankfully. I admit, I didn't feel safe & woke nearly every hour but morning finally came & I packed up & was ready to move on. I walked past the homeless fellow & said good morning. He lifted up a bottle of wine to me & asked in perfect english if I drank. I said no & extended some of my breakfast to him & asked (again in perfect english) "Do you eat?" He smiled a broken tooth smile & said yes as he accepted the food. I should have asked him if he prayed as well, but I didn't & missed the oppurtunity. I often miss oppurtunities like that. I really should have stayed & at least chatted for a while. Should'a, would'a, could'a, didn't. In the next town after another long day of walking & praying the priest slipped me €30 for a hotel but everything had closed down! I asked many locals but everytime they either said there wasn't anything or pointed towards a hotel that closed down years ago. As all moments of dicision warrant, I grabbed a souvlaki & pondered my options. I decided that I wouldn't take the train to a neighbouring town & return in the morning but would just walk on until I found something. I struck up a conversation with my souvlaki maker before a young kid piped up in the background in broken english, "I know hotel." Meet Zaheer. A 10yr old of Iraqi heritage who'd been listening in to our conversation. I quickly bundled my pack up & Zaheer led me off across the railway tracks, chatting as we went. And would you believe it, for a brief moment, their we were, a christian missionary & a young muslim, talking about our faiths. He was a humble little kid. The hotel he led me to was indeed open & for €31 a bed was mine. Apart from the girl behind the bar I was the only non-French & non-muslim person there. I had a great time. Upon hearing of what I was trying to do (or doing) a fellow named Mohammed shouted me my drinks. He was openly disappointed though (with humour) that I chose a tall glass of Coke as my freebie. He paid for it none-the-less. Another man though, took one of the little prayer cards I carry with the internet address on it, so hello to everyone in Miramas if you're reading this! The following day was day 3 of the 157km & with the oppurtunity to take back a lost day within sight I pushed harder than I would normally like, to arrive in St Gilles right on sunset at 9pm. Now, get this for a series of 'perfect timing'; As I entered St Gilles I couldn't see any churches so I asked on elderly man sitting by the road for directions. He tried to explain but in the end offered to walk me. He was so incredibly slow that for a moment I felt like telling him I was in a hurry & thanks for bringing me this far but I'll walk on alone, but I then recalled that God's timing is perfect & everythig happens for a reason. The poor old bloke, whose name is Rohan, began to breathe heavily with a persistant wheeze as we negotiated some steep alley-ways. He had to stop a few times to catch his breath but with a genuine smile that read something like, "It wasn't always this tough" we continued to eventually arrive at the Basilica of St Gilles. After a solid hand shake he waved me off & I headed down the last narrow alley-way to an empty church square. At that moment a gentleman walked out of his house & threw something into his car. He looked up at me & asked if I needed accomodation. Jean-Claude then showed me around the corner & up a flight of stairs to an old stone building where he rang the door bell. After a small wait another man, Regis, was greeting me into his home & Jean-Claude was waving goodbye. Regis' home was decked out for passing pilgrims & he even cooked too much pasta for his dinner so there was a huge bowl of spaghetti sitting on the table waiting for me. Regis showed me my bed & then said goodnight, "I'm leaving at 5:30am so I won't see you in the morning. Just make sure you pull the door closed behind you when you leave." And he was gone. It was all very surreal. Perfect timing indeed. From there the journey has been relatively uneventful other than a fantastic bag full of food from the Evangelical Baptist Church in Lunel plus, of course, a few more snake dodges. I've even dodged dead snakes as well - it's difficult to tell the difference sometimes! Oh, that reminds me, I saw a snake road kill happen right in front of me. The snake decided to cross in front of me a car mowed it down followed by a huge semi-trailer. I actually felt sorry for it. I was also keeping a close eye on it in case it was flicked up by the impact. I was on edge! What's worse than a snake in the grass at your feet? A snake flying towards your head! It didn't move much though. The semi flicked it up a foot or so but not at me. I still don't like snakes but I did feel sorry for it. Not a good way to go. Today while walking into Montpellier I somehow landed in a roadside conversation with two... hippies. I don't know if that's the correct word to describe their way of life but it was one alternative conversation indeed. A middle aged man & a young woman with beautifully coloured clothes, no shoes & a plethora of dangling ornaments. He was all for unity but we weren't really on the same, shall we say, wavelength. When I shared about praying for christian unity he agreed that we needed to pray to the sky for the cosmic energies of all religions to unite as one so we could all come together. I'm still contemplating what that actually means. I was half laughing at our conversation but I was also looking for an oppurtunity to make a stand against what was a mish-mosh of 'the good of all religions' with very little understanding of what each religion was. As he spoke further about his favourite religion, a tribal belief system of South America, I began praying for an oppurtunity to say something that wouldn't offend him but still be able to introduce Christ into the conversation. Finally I remembered, "Share, don't preach" from my time with Youth Mission Team Australia & then I noticed that one of his many 'dangly things' was a Franciscan cross (the tau) exactly the same as the one I wear. He knew of St Francis as a man who talked to the animals & the plants & so he carried the tau with him. I pointed out that Francis wasn't exactly Dr Doolittle (he did scold a wolf, which obeyed him, & had a particular love & appreciation for God's creation) but he was most passionate about the Church & following the Lord. I then shared for a quick moment about how it was Francis' way of following Christ that was most attractive for me. I shared a little more about my own journey but the end result was... water of a duck's back. I don't think I had much of an impact. As I was continuing on the young woman presented me with a bouquette of coulrful flowers to carry with me. I wasn't really keen to cary the bouquette through Montpellier but with 2 walking poles, one in each hand, I was able to decline politely, "Sorry, I can't carry them." That didn't phase her one bit. She simply saddled up alongdside me & jammed the flower stems in between my backpack & neck such that the flowers were poking up over the back of my head like a floral halo. I could see my refelction in a warehouse window. I looked like a peacock with a backpack. I offered for them to be placed alternativly on the side of my backpack where they'd be better protected & so that was where they stayed until I arrived here this afternoon & dropped them in a church I stopped at. At the entrance to the church there was a loud gathering of university students playing theatre sports but it really hit me that the church itself was empty. I walked down the aisle & stood in the middle of the church, surrounded by the echoes of the festive gathering outside. It was then that a cat rubbed up against my leg before trotting down to the front row of seats. It jumped up & reached out with its front paws to the front rail. It just 'stood' there facing the altar. Now St Francis would have been moved by that! So I'm now in Montpellier & I'm re-mapping the forth-coming week to try & walk into Toulouse back on schedule. It looks possible at this point so I'll head southwest towards Beziers & then leave the coastline, following the Pyrenees Mountains westwards. I'll hopefully see you next week from Toulouse. God bless, Sam.
"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." 1Peter 3:15
ps: And thanks for the comment Micah! The gentleman's comment was a reflection of him alone. Certainly not episcopals & definately not Texans :-)

Movies, Mountains & Monks

Hello from La Castille, 50km south of where I should've been passing by three days earlier. So, I'm behind schedule & of course but it has been a brilliant week. I began by walking from Nice into Cannes on the eve of the Canne Film Festival & the city was a buzz with internationals everywhere. I found a campsite on the far side of town & very soon was meeting Koreans, English, Dutch & even some Australians! I met 2 young English directors, one presenting his short film, the other securing funds for his first feature film (look out for Chris McManaus in 2010) as well as 2 young men from South Korea who were in town to actually watch the films. The 2 Korean guys invited me to eat with them that night. The meal was fantastic but it's the conversation I'll remember. As soon as I'd shared about what I was doing one of them started talking about North & South Korea & the need to be united with those suffering across the border. He reflected "They are our family. Some argue that we should cut all aid to force the government to change, but the people need help now. There is a lot of suffering on both sides because we cannot unite fully." You could raise a point that the unity he was talking about is not the unity I'm walking & praying for, but it is, well, a fair smack of it anyway; To be united in Truth & in Love. Some of us start with love & work towards truth, others begin with truth & are compelled towards love. It was a timely dinner & nourishing in many ways. I also met an Episcopal preacher at the campsite but his comments left me a little shocked. He was all for christian unity but was even more intent on using humour to highlight his freedom as opposed to my 'guilt' as a Catholic (ie: He is saved & I, as a Catholic am apparently lamenting on my sin). His way of highlighting this can't be written here on this blog & I have no intentions of repeating his words verbatim. Basically though, after a short conversation I said, "Oh, by the way, I'm Sam." He responded by laughing & saying that he'll call me 'something that I can't write here' because he's episcopal & free to do what he wants. My dad sometimes uses colourful language bellowing at disobedient sheepdogs that have just split a flock of sheep in half but even they aren't degraded as much as this guy's alternative name for me. I left him alone. Our paths didn't cross again but I met many others & I appreciated them referring to me as Sam. He got his point across anyway, he's free to what he likes apparently. And I am... Sam. Walk on. From Cannes I headed across the mountains to Le Muy & for the first time on this entire trip felt a longing for home. I didn't feel that longing while at knife point, or gun point or while being beaten up by 2 drunk Russian men, but sitting on the side of the road on a near-deserted mountain side while I ate my lunch I longed for familiarity. I pushed on, praying as I did & many hours later arrived at Le Muy. It was nearly 30degC that day & with nearly 50km covered by foot I was wrecked. There were a couple of campsites on the edge of town but a few weeks ago I'd felt the Lord say, "If you want to organise your own accommodation, you'll sleep well, but if you finish each day in its entirety, I can do better for you." So with that ringing clearly I slothed on past the campsites to the centre of town & as I approached the central church a woman crossed the road holding walking poles (as I use). She spoke in French so I quickly interrupted with an apology for not understanding & she said, "Great! You speak English! I'm actually from England but live here." Margaret & her now deceased husband had lived in Le Muy for 30 years & it was now well & truly home for her. Incredibly, Margaret had been out walking with her walking club that morning up in the same mountains I'd traversed & they'd spotted me walking along the side of the road as they drove home. She couldn't believe I'd walked all that way & promptly offered me her spare apartment in the town centre. It was perfect. We ate dinner together in her apartment & despite being an atheist, she knew the bible very well & so we had quite an in-depth discussion. Margaret is a retired university English lecturer & so was more than apt in constructing well thought out questions around unity & its place on the world stage as an important issue. The evening was a pleasure & my little apartment for the night was so much more spacious than my one-man tent. The next day a similar course of events took place. This time though I was walking through the pouring rain & was absolutely saturated. I had a tiny area on my shirt around my stomach that had managed to stay dry but a passing truck found a puddle & quickly took care of that. Thanks buddy. Again as I walked into town I passed a few camp sites & some really cheap hotels but I thought I'd best push on to the fist church. I found a Catholic Church in the town centre & rang the door bell. As I stood there in the pouring rain I pondered the awkwardness of having to possibly put my tent up that evening & how I could possibly dry my clothes. Thankfully a 27 year old Argentinian missionary priest called Santiago opened the door & ushered me inside without hesitation. A room, a shower, a washing machine & a lot of Spanish! Fr Jose from Chile also lived there so the Spanglish was in full flight. Earlier that day I'd met a Polish missionary priest, Fr Andrew, & we had resorted to a combination of Polish/English in our conversation so my French has been a little slow to get off the ground. The following day was a cracker. I woke at 8am & didn't get back to bed until 9:30am the following day. Never ask a monk for accommodation... I'd said farewell to the South American missionaries in Le Luc & prayed my way to Brignoles where I knocked on the door of a French order of monks. The priest at the door called for another priest who bounced down the stairs & began speaking in english. Fr Tarcisius gave me 2 options; I could sleep, or, I could join him & a small group as they traversed the mountains southwards all night long to attend a special concecration mass for the diocese. I was actually kind of hoping for a good night's sleep after a day of walking, but remembering Fr Fox from Casper, Wyoming, who fed me & found me somewhere to sleep while his dinner grew cold & his team played off in the final of the world series baseball final (He simply believed that he was only ever asked something at an inoppurtune moment by God & so dropped his plans for me) I swallowed my desire to be a normal human being & sleep & agreed to walk with them. I asked for a toilet first & I was shown the way via a small room with 'Agape' written on the wall. Agape is a Greek word meaning sacrificial love so it meant a great deal at that moment to have that word in front of me reminding why I was there. I did thankfully have enough time to eat & then get a 90min power nap in before the 9 of us headed off into the night. My big toe was bleeding badly (I took a photo of it but it's a tad too graffic to upload onto the blog. You can email me directly if you want to see it) so the night walk along a rocky mountain trail was pushing me to the limits. There was just enough light to see without torches so we trekked through the enitre night pretty much unaided. At around 12:30am it began to rain & it didn't really stop until we eventually reached the final pass down into the town we were walking to some 5hours later. We arrived at the seminary where the mass was to be held at 7:30am & after breakfast & a few formalities I was thankfully ushered off to a quiet room where I roled out my camping mattres & finally fell asleep. For 3hours. What happened next was a gift from God. And strangly, I have no photos or video footage of my 2days at the Frejus/Toulon Seminary. Due to water damage my camera stopped working as I entered the place & it remained dead until I finally left & returned to Brignoles. Oh, by the way, I'm no longer in La Castille where I began writing this blog entry. My lift turned up to bring me back here to begin walking again tomorrow. So... hello from Brignoles! Welcome to my life. So, yes, the camera finally started working again as I arrived here in Brignoles so my time down south was just for me. It was inspiring. In particular, I met a fellow called Michael of Jesus. He's a monk. A 6ft 5in, basketball playing Chicago come Texas monk studying in the south of France. Mum, can Michael come 'round for lunch please? The guy inspired me so much by his life. His passion for Christ & the church jerked me out of the "I want to be at home" mind-set so hard that I nearly suffered whip-lash. We spent a huge amount of time together & rarely shut up. Some of the time we were speaking to each other & some of the time we were praying with each other. Other than 30mins at the end of the day where we were in silent prayer we basically exercised our jaws. The mass itself was attened by a few thousand people & was a suprisingly engrosing & emotional mass for one that stretched over 3hrs! I also met Fr's Jose, Santiago & Andrew once again, which was a blast. Michael introduced me to the Bishop & we had a very animated chat for a few minutes. He asked me if I was staying at the seminary that night. I said that I wasn't sure. The bishop smiled & threw his pointed finger at me, "Yes, in fact you should stay 2 nights!" I ended up staying for just the one night but the 2days there was the perfect God-given antidote to lethargy. Michael also arranged for a young doctor to come & tend to my feet (the other one is problematic as well). He patched up the bleeding toe & gave me what I needed in order to have one in future years & he then tended to the corn under my right foot. The first thing he noted on closer inspection was that it wasn't a corn & was actually nothing he'd seen before. He started hacking at it with a scalpel, which made my eyes open up as I wasn't seeing anesthetic anywhere. There was a little pain but it wasn't too bad considering he had to patch up blood once he'd finished. He handed the scalpel over to me with instructions to do everyday what he did but without the bleeding part. Great. I'm now back in Brignoles with the Community of St John & they've offered me a small room to sleep in tonight. It's small & next to a toilet. And on the wall is 5 letter Greek word... God bless & peace be with you! Sam
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear..." 1 John 4:18

Sun, Sea & Self-Service Surgery

Hello from Nice in south eastern France! I was in Italy yesterday, Monaco this afternoon & France this evening. That's a lot of prayer territory! And a lot of walking. I was joined from Genova to Nice by Irish Ann, a mother of two working boys & a lover of pilgrimages (walking + prayer). We were an odd couple treking around the Genova Gulf coastline together. Ann is half my height & I'm half her age but neither of us shied away from telling a few stories early on. Once the first day was out of the way though her Irish story telling skills kicked into gear & I was but a listener! The distances scheduled for this week were at times a lot more than Ann was prepared for & with some foot problems she was forced to only walk half days here & there but we always managed to find each other at the other end & progress further on along the coastline. I had a very blessed & uplifting week meeting priest after priest who opened the door with a smile & accepted me & the mission with open arms. After a difficult week last week it was the perfect remedy to have a series of priests ask me if they could pray with me before I continued on. One priest even handed me a tiny brick, which he signed the back of & dated. As he handed it to me he simply gestured that we each had to play our part in building the house of God; to build unity. A few towns further on I met a young priest who straight away jumped on the internet site to check out what's been happening & he immediately started laughing - Fr Stefano, pictured in last weeks entries, is one of his close friends. It was a great conversation starter. However, the highlight was, time after time, having priests ask me if they could pray for me before I continued. A young Carmalite priest shared with me that this part of the world is a real mission field with a low level of faith, "98% of the population say they are Catholic, the problem is that no one is christian." In all honesty though, I was left with a sense of hope from the prayerfullness of the chritians I did meet. As the week drew towards a close I was lamanting on having only found Catholic Churches for the entire week & wondering if I'd missed people along the way. That was on the road into San Remo, late at night, as Ann & I were still looking for somewhere to stay. It was then that we passed a Lutheran Church on the way in & then first thing the next day found 6 evangelicals meeting in an old church followed by a Russian Orthodox Church with 3 parishoners standing at the front door. One of the men only spoke Russian so I asked him in Russian, "Can I have fish please. Thankyou." That was all I remembered from Russia but it once again broke the ice & we had a fun time trying to communicate. His friend spoke fluent english though so he stepped in when we'd talked ourselves into a brick wall. The call to pray for complete unity was well recieved. It has been a culturally bizzare week for me. I say this with half a smile; I really didn't get into the Genova Coast lifestyle. I just didn't get it. I grew up on an island (Flinders Island) & so the environment was very familiar & welcoming. It was just that the hundreds of lifeless bronzed bodies beached along the shoreline was not what I'm used to seeing. When we went to the beach we'd swim, but no one here was swimming! They were ALL tanning. I said to Ann that I didn't understand why no one was swimming, after all it was nearly 30degC. Ann proposed that it may be polluted. Not too much further down the road we passed a fellow who was standing at the water's edge urinating into the sea. Yep, it's polluted :-) I tried to buy a sunscreen at a shop but for the shelves of sun products all I could find was tanning lotions. In the end I had to ask for help & after a few minutes of searching I was on my way with my 'SPF50 Babies Milk Lotion'. No pride lost there. I like it. It's not greasy. The beaches were a mass of bronzed bodies (clothing was very optional) & the car parks were filled with expensive automobiles reflecting the million dollar yachts anchored beyond the section of water reserved for swimming. Or urinating. I just didn't get it. I have no idea why, but as I walked along 'opulence coast' the strangest thought poped into my head. I once shot my sister, Rachael, between the eyes with a suction dart gun (still sorry about that Rach) & as I walked I thought, "I bet these guys wouldn't have done that". Basic point being, I felt out of place (no idea why that memory of all the possible memories was the one to come to mind). I'd like to go for a swim some time before leaving the coastline however my very well tanned hands & face coupled with my Omo-white chest could cause people to think that a Panda has escaped from the local zoo. I'd better not cause a scene. Last night I decided to operate on my left big toe before it succumb to the same fate as it did in Panama & the USA. The now re-grown toenail had begun to bury deep again & was within a whisker of splitting to toe open & another bundle of painful walking. With a set of small scissors, some tweezers & a nail file I was able to cut away the ingrown nail & clean up a nasty looking wound over the course of an hour. It wasn't quiet as painful as I thought it would be but that was the point in taking an hour to do what a doctor would do in 5mins with anesthetic. It wept a little over the course of todays walk but not too seriously & I think it was made to look worse by the antibitoic gel I put on it. Not sure. I'll be keeping a close eye on it though. Ann & I walked along the grand prix track in Monaco today on our way to Nice. Monaco was over flowing with mansions, unbelievable sports cars & the biggest luxury water craft I have ever seen in my life. And at one point I counted 4 helicopters in the sky at one time. The whole day left me with an overwhelming sense of sadness. I was praying as I walked along a high, winding cliff road past a mansion clad nudest beach & I kept thinking, "Why? How can so many live like this when so many fight to stay alive?" Some of you may remember Adolfo from Panama who shared his tin shed with me & a bread role when I had nowhere to stay & nothing to eat. He was leaving his wife & little girl the next day for a few months to try & find work before returning with whatever money he could muster up. I kept thinking of him as I walked & prayed today & now I'm getting up to date with the tragedy in Myanmar this past week so it's all hitting home pretty hard. Unity is choice & to not choose it in it's fullness is to not choose love in all its fullness. God is love. I'm looking forward to making it back home but I'm even more eager to hit the missionfileds again. Actually, I booked my flights home today. I'll catch a train from Spain to Paris & fly out on Friday the 11th July & arrive back on home soil in Sydney at 8:15am, Sunday the 13th. It's near & yet with a my left toe, right foot & right shoulder all in some sort of trouble the last few thousand kilometres looks very real indeed. I'd better get bqck to it then. God bless & please pray on!! Sam.
"We continually remember before our God & Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, & your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thesolonians 1:3

Huge Days, Taunts & Stuff

Hello from Genova in north western Italy. The beginning of this week feels like it was a month ago. Argh! I hurt. I've walked 108km in last 2days alone & I have no idea how many km's for the whole week. It was long though. Last Sunday will go down as was one of the most difficult walking days of the entire journey with numerous factors making it a physically & mentally tough challenge. From Orbetello to Grosseto I had to tackle insane holiday traffic on a road with only 30cm between the white line & the crash barrier & that 30cm was overgrown with knee high grass. It was a hot day & the 44km day felt like a 70. My arms were exhausted from constantly having to drag the poles through the long grass & my legs were burning. It didn't help when some drivers wanted to make of point of their disapproval of me walking beside the road by driving as close as they could & squeezing me up into the chest-high crash barrier. The whoosh of rear-vision mirrors & dopler-effected slurs defines that day. My left hand clipped a barrier join half way through the day & it placed a nice slice across the finger. Blood started flowing but with nowhere to stop & grab a band-aid form my bag it was left to 'run its course'. I'd trudged past a few road-kill snakes & found myself thinking about the probability of stepping on a live one in the long grass on a 44km hot day. It was less than 5seconds later that I was jamming the walking poles into the ground with full force & thrusting myself backwards away from a 1metre Biacco snake as it took flight in the other direction. Probability: 1. I was relieved to finish the day & I was offered a small room behind a church with nothing more than two bench seats, which I pulled togther & made into my bed for the night. I had been directed to that church by a young lady who had walked From France to Santiago de Compostela & said that she remembered how difficult it was when no one welcomed her, so she wanted to make a point of helping me find 'something'. I felt very welcomed. The next day was my 500th day on the road. I celebrated by looking at my itinerary halfway through the day & muttering, "Wow, 500 days... Thanks Lord." And that was it. I'll celebrate at day 571. I was lost a few times that day as my map didn't line up with the actual roads & the road signs pointed to towns that weren't on my map at all. I Began the week a day behind schedule & was struggling to hold onto that 1day gap until mid way through the week when the roads opened up, the traffic eased off & the map & signs became helpful. I caught up the extra day by walking 25km on my rest day but it was a fairly relaxed walk & it still felt like a rest after the torturus beginning to the week. Having said that, I was also very close to throwing all my gear away as I left the city of Pisa on Friday. I was going to toss my backpack in the ditch & somehow walk the rest of the way to Spain with nothing. I'd had an absolute gut-full of the locals behaviour that it was the only non-violent protest I could think to make. Within a 12hour space I was followed & heckled by 20youths who kept yelling out, "Hey! Hill-billy!" as they laughed & made jokes, I was turned away from a church were they told me they weren't interested to hear what I had to say (& I hadn't yet said anything), I was pointed at by a young woman who burst out laughing & pulled her boyfriends attention to me & I then had a young bloke toot his horn at me as I walked down a footpath & I looked over just in time to see him give me the 'bird' (middle finger). I've heard a song on the radio lately that has a chorus line of, "Stop & stare" & it was playing as I walked into a shop & everyone did exactly that. I actually found that one funny though, "What is this! Am I in some sort of Trueman Show Muscial!!" I know throwing my gear away might not sound particularly applicable to the situation, but it made sense at the time with a philosophy of if they weren't going to take the unity of the broken body of Christ seriously, I would. I didn't toss the bag though (my shoulders would have appreciated it!) but instead put it all to good use as I found a campsite & then met the very welcoming hospitality of 4 camping couples from Holand. Funnily enough, they didn't know each other. They'd all driven down from Holland, set up their campervans next to one another & then discovered they were all Dutch! We ate together & shared a lot of stories in a very relaxed posi a short distance from the beach. It was such a diverse 24hours. I've had a little more of a taste of the different world of driving over here. A firetruck rumbled past me at full speed with lights flashing & siren wailing before 3 more firetrucks came into view in the same manor. As they approached me the traffic pulled over to give them a clean path through but a fellow driving a semi-trailer decided it was a good oppurtunity to drive out off a side road onto the main road. Being a semi-trailer he had to swing out across the entire road & thus forced the three trailing fire trucks to both brake heavily & make a line for the gravel on the far side of the road. I was still a few hundred metres off but it didn't stop me yelling out, "What are you doing!? Un-be-lievable!" The semi tucked it's nose around just in time for the fire trucks to squeeze past & accelerate on towards the billowing plume of smoke now rising from the town I'd only just passed through. There's just something fundamentally wrong with that. Who pulls out in front of racing emergency vehicles? The other side of the new world of driving I've walked past was the Sunday motorbikes covering the same mountain I was traversing. I'm a bike rider myself but I was torn between, "Nice!" & "Are you serious!!" all day long. Nice bikes, very dangerous speeds & lines through corners. Twice I saw a rider take a dangerous line through a blind corner in order to get maximum speed out of it, only to be met by a bike coming in the other direction doing the same non-intelligent thing. It seriously had me flinching as they jaged onto new lines to avoid becoming intimitly connected. Another fellow had to change his line & speed so drastically as a family van rounded the corner that he locked up the rear wheel & fish-tailed it sideways before regaining control. He missed the van by a good 50cm, not bad when you're not in control. So which one of you is the real Valantino Rossi? Nice bikes though. And then there was the Porsche 911 Carrera that was actually over-taking the bikes. Thnakfully I could here him coming from a few kilometres away so I 'went bush' for each of his passes. I don't think I was on his 'obstacles to avoid list.' More & more though I was thinking not about which bike I'll buy next, but about what my priorities are in life. To a point, surrounded by so much gleam & chrome made me long for missionary work with the poor. Probably best not to look at the bikes too much & concentrate on a little more prayer. That day was 62km long & lead me to yesterday's walk into Genova. Here, after quite an exhaustive effort (it's a whole blog in itself) I have met with Ann from England, a vertran of pilgrimages after her return to the church a few years ago. Ann has waved goodbye to her husband & working sons for a week to join me on the road in prayer & conversation. I'll introduce her properly next week! I'm about to duck off to the post office to mail home some gear that I either no longer need or is weighing me down & then we'll hit the road. My gear is suffering a little. To use an engineering term, my backpack is stuffed. Some zips are completly stuffed, while others are almost stuffed. The straps are somewhat stuffed & so I'm removing as much stuff from it as possible so it doesn't progress to the totally stuffed phase. I did a fresh air swing with my walking poles this week & nearly landed flat on my face. I was confused for a split second as to what had happened until I looked back & saw that half the walking pole was laying on the edge of the road. It's stuffed too. The good ol' sticky tape has once again come to the rescue! So, with a bible in one hand, sticky tape in the other & less weight in my backpack it's on towards France! Pray, pray, pray. God bless & peace be with you, Sam.
"Be joyful, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances" 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18b

Vatican, Stares & Memory Loss

Orbotello wasn't supposed to be one of my stopping points, however, on this warm Saturday evening, hello from Orbotello on the Italian Mediteranean coastline. On Monday I was scheduled to visit the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity for nothing more than a quick hello before heading off towards France. What I had failed to take into account though was that the men & women I would be meeting with that morning don't simply work in a place that deals with the issues of unity, they live it. The unity of christians is their passion & their mission. Ergo, I was offered a very warm welcome & what I thought would be a 30min wave hello & goodbye turned into nearly a full day. I was greeted at the door by the secretary I had been in contact with prior to my arrival & was quicly introduced to Monsignor Bollen who is in charge of the Catholic/Anglican dialouge. After a considerable chat I was asked to sign copy of the International Week of Prayer for Christian Unity booklet & then introduced over time with the priests in charge of dialouge with the Greek Orthodox, Lutherans, Jews & the World Coucil of Churches, respectively. I then had the oppurtunity to meet with both Bishop Brian Farrell (secretary) & Walter Cardinal Kasper, who leads the 'team'. That meeting was very quick as the Cardinal had asked to say hello in between two meetings but we did quickly pose for a photo together. I blinked. Sorry. There were a number of points to come from all the meetings & conversation though. Firstly, that Christ's prayer (John 17) & St Paul's exhortations call for a 'visible' unity & that the lack of it is in direct conflict with our calling to live as christians. And secondly, what really struck me, was their incredible joy & love of what they did, or more to the point, of what God does are they are privileged to be a part of. The place was litterally bursting with smiles & gentle humour. I asked one of the priests what he did at the council but before he could answer, a Tanzanian priest in charge of dialouge with the WCC called out from down the hallway, "As little as possible!" There where a few laughs before he finally had the oppurtunity to answer the question, but the mood was the same the whole day. There were people bouncing around everywhere. They all enjoyed what they did & had such incredible admiration for all the denominations they each worked alongside. The young Dominican in charge of the Greek Orthodox dialouge spoke about the Greek Orthodox Church with greater affection than I've heard any Greek Orthodox speak about it! The Monsignor called me aside at one point & apologised because he had organised some interviews for me for that day & so I was then off across the street to Vatican Radio before dashing up to CNS (Catholic News Service), then across town to the Franciscan run Centre For Unity & then a rest over night before meeting with Zenit TV for an interview the next morning. The young Dominican priest, Fr Vladimir, invited me to stay in their spare appartment just outside the Vatican walls. Not long after arriving there, Fr Oliver (Catholic/Lutheran dialouge) showed up with a gift from Bishop Brian Farrell; a tour of the excavations of the tombs of the first christian matyrs underneath St Peter's Basilica. Now that's a gift! And so after sharing a meal with 4 Dominicans I was off to bed in readiness for the tour of the crypt & the final interview the next morning. As it would be though, there was confusion the next day at the Vatican gates & the guards directed me to the wrong place & to cut a complicated & frustrating 2hr story short, I didn't make it under St Peter's. I have to be honest, I was bitterly disappointed for about half an hour but eventually managed to refocus & set my mind on what really mattered as Zenit TV showed up for their interview. Eventually hitting the road again after lunch on Tuesday was a breath of fresh air. I felt a lot more comfortable just walking & praying. I've fallen one day behind schedule over the last 2days due a variety of factors but I'll try to catch that day later in the week. I've been taunted for the last few days by 2 old problems that have flaired up badly. I have been walking with a corn on the bottom of my right foot since Mexico & with severe muscle soarness in my right shoulder-blade since Poland. Niether has been too unbearable until this week & I really had to consentrate on not letting out grunts & groans while people were walking past me. My foot feels like it's on fire & my back feels like it has a knife shoved up between the shoulder-blade & ribs. I've had two shoulder reconstructions ('96 & '03) and so that shoulder is a lot tighter than normal & requires particular attention. Obviously more than I've been giving it! I'm pleased to report though that my split heal has healed. Next! Hmmm, you know, I actually thought that by the time I made it to this part of the world I'd be cruising. Oh the ignorence! My reception in many towns hasn't changed a great deal. I arrived in a particular seaside town earlier in the week but hadn't seen any signs showing the name of the place & so I went to ask a lady walking past me what the name of the town was. I only managed, "Excuse me" in Italian before she tucked her handbag under her arm & ran like blazes all the way up the street. Wow, am I that ugly?? While still contemplating the dashing women, a young man exited his front gate right beside me. He looked up at me, I smiled & said hello, he continued to stare for a while & then returned the greeting before heading back inside through a second gate. I walked on into the town & passed an elderly lady sitting outside a cafe. She was fixated on me. She did not break her stare for a second. It was very unnerving & I felt a tad uncomfortable so I simply nodded & said good afternoon to her but she didn't waver. No return of greeting, no break in the stare. Walk on. Unfortunatky it is pretty common in town after town & it's had me very needlessly contemplating what's wrong with my appearence. Perhaps it's my height (196cm), perhaps it's because I'm carrying a backpack & two walking poles. I don't know. Maybe I just look like Shrek :-) While being interviewed by Vatican Radio on Monday, the interviewer looked at my itineary & pointed out that I was passing by her mother's place where I could stay if I wanted to. I took up the offer & so last night stayed with 81 year old Josette in her country home. It was a stay with a difference. Josette lives by herself & fends for herself pretty well in spight of suffering from short-term memory loss. The thing is, I didn't know this(that information hadn't been passed on) so the first few minutes of our conversation was oh-so painful! Eventually I figured out what was going on & I was quiet happy to have the same conversation 4 times over. I had to stop myself from laughing at one point though. Josette was talking on & on about her cats before she stopped suddenly & asked of me, "Do you murder cats?" I laughed inside but kept a straight face as replied, "No, no not at all." "Good" she said, and the conversation went elsewhere. Do I murder cats? What did concern me though was that at one stage she began to talk about her daughter who works with the Vatican Radio & after I'd pointed out that I met her on Monday she began to laugh at how small the world is that I'd meet 'her' daughter in Rome. She couldn't believe that I'd run into her daughter, but it left me thinking, "Well, how does she think I ended up here?" What was concerning me was what was going to happen the next morning when I walked down the stairs into the kitchen? Would she remember me or think I was a robber? Firstly though we had to get through dinner but because there were 3 options available for dinner, the 3rd was too far away from the 1st & so we'd recycle through this endless cycle of options. Three options was quickly turning into 22options & counting. I eventually stopped the endless cycle of options by offering to cook for her & so sat her down at the table & set to work. It wasn't the best meal I've ever prepared but it did us fine & we eventually tapped into a topic on which her memory was not faulting - the war. She talked for 3hours straight without drawing breath & though she repeated some topics, it was always with a little extra information or from a slightly different perspective. It was a brilliant dinner conversation. This morning I waited anxiously for Josette to make an appearence, wondering if she'd recognise me. When she did walk out, there was a look of complete confusion on her face for a few seconds before she finally relaxed & commented, "So you're off then! Where to today?" Argh, thank the Lord, she remembers me. She sat me down & offered me the last few pieces of bread & some home made marmelade. As I finished the last piece of bread she walked over towards the table & announced, "Now! I have a couple of pieces of bread here. You can have it if you like." She flicked over the tea towel that had been covering the bread but of course it was now empty. "Now where the Dickens has that bread gone!" Oh dear, her we go again... It took a long time to say goodbye but it was a fabulous stay. Her memory has faded badly but her hospitality was as good as gold. Please continue to pray for the unity of christians & hopefully, I'll be leaning slightly to the north of Pisa next week as I touch base again. Until then, bye for now and God bless, Sam.
"Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send greetings." Rom16:16

Deserted Tracks, a Split & Wild Rome

After 12,500km on foot I'm finally in Rome! It was a spectacular walk from Siena to Rome along a vast network of quiet roads & bush tracks. There were times where I had to battle aginst heavy traffic on highways with no shoulder but for the most part it was a treat. The highway walking is a tad scarey here in Italy. It is one of the most dangerous countries I've walked in as far as traffic flow is concerned & it's actually pretty scarey in sections. I've regularly seen cars pottering down the road at about 40km/hr & others, on the same road, pushing well past about 150km/hr. Combined with the numerous blind corners here it is a recipe for disaster. I've also watched cars pull out in front of fast moving traffic causing a succession of screaming tyres & horns (3 in 1min at one intersection). What's really sad though is the huge number of death memorials along the side of the roads. I say it's dangerous with certain amount of somberness. Too many deaths. A scarey yet somewhat funny moment last week was when a middle-aged man drove up along the mountain pass I was negotiating & pulled over just ahead of me. As I walked past him he unashamably stared at me but the poor guy was so badly cross-eyed that he had to turn his head a good 90deg & swap to the alternate eye to literally 'keep an eye on me'. He then started his car up & drove off up along the twisty mountain pass. Now that is talent! It didn't fill me with a great sense of security though. In any case, as I said, most of this week has been along quiet stretches & so I've had a privileged week filled with rolling green hills, relaxed farmers, gentle farm dogs & horses eager for some attention &... no hotels. From Siena to Rome I was walking along an old pilgrim's route from France to Rome & so each of the little villages I stayed in had a house set aside for any pilgrim passing through. It was perfect. Other than still pushing the line that I'm here as a missionary, not a pilgrim, but the house would be great, thanks. Many rest houses didn't have hot water, two didn't have a bed (I slept on tiles one night) & I went for 3days without a shower. Don't worry, I did the old 'splash basin wash' with the freezing water. That had me jumping! The first few pilgrim homes I'd stayed in had crockery so as I entered the third village I bought myself some gnocci at the local supermarket to have for dinner. The cupboards were bare! I thought, "There's a reason for everything. Maybe God wants me to meet the locals." So, out I went, looking for a pot. The first guy I met was a geologist & he wasn't carrying a pot, however, he thought it was funny that I was wandering the streets looking for a pot with my gnocci in hand & so he walked with me to a nearby house & did the asking for me to the young man hanging out of the 2nd storey window. The young man was very accomodating & after extending the invitation to pray for unity I accepted the pot & boiled up my gnocci. I haven't shared a meal with anyone in over 3weeks now though so I'm beginning to miss that a bit. I did share half a muesli bar with a friendly horse, but the conversation was kind of one way. One of my favorite places so far on the walk through Europe is a village called Radicofani. It was perched up on top of a mountain with an 80km view out to the south. The people were very warm & welcoming & smiles weren't hard to come by. It was the sort of place where I would be quite happy to simply sit down & not really do much else. Some of the locals were doing just that & I understood why. I inflicted a new injury on myself on the walk up into Radicofani. Where my archilles tendon meets the foot, I have a few crease lines in the skin, which have been amplified by the thickening of skin due to, well, perhaps a lot of walking? Somehow, and I have no idea what caused this, one of those skin creases split all the way through such that I could see all the way through to whatever is under the skin at that part of the body. i don't think I was looking at the tendon itself but it certainly wasn't skin. It was like a little mouth that I could open & close by moving my foot up & down. It was a painful injury that forced me to limp badly for a couple of days but a mixture of creams, band-aids & cushioning has at least helped to heal it shut once more. And shut, I hope, it will stay. The walk into Rome was filled with some wild safari moments that I didn't expect. I accidently headed down the wrong backroad for 3km through some thick bush & rolling hills & within 30mins I saw 2wolves, twice, a herd of wild boar & a young couple romancing in their Volkswagon Beetle. Excuse me, moving on (I didn't ask them for directions though it would have been funny to). Once back on the right road I came within a whisker of standing on a viper, curled up in the grass. I was literally placing my foot on top of it as I caught sight of the circular pile of snake & managed to quickly move my momentum backwards with the aid of the walking poles. The viper stayed long enough for me to film it but then it was off in a flash. I should start a safari tour company; "Rome as you've never seen it before!" I arrived in Rome last night, walked through St Peter's Square & struck up a fun conversation with two Swiss Guards for about half an hour. I had a couple of possible contacts for accomodation here but I sort of missed my oppurtunities so I was left to wander the streets looking for something. Everything I found was either full or €80 a night, which I can't afford. I ended up in a church chatting with 3 very jovial priests & they were happy to do the searching for me. They found a place for me a few kilomtres away where I could stay for free so I headed off with directions across town as the sun was setting. Once I arrived I found they'd sent me to a homeless men's shleter. I thought that was funny but I wasn't laughing when I was rejected at the door. Now that's low. There was no room. I walked off into the Rome night along poorly lit, deserted streets thinking, "I just got rejected at a homeless shelter." I eventually wandered past a hotel that still had rooms available & for €40 a night it was mine. It took a while, but all worked out well in the end. I've been invited to drop in to the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Christian Unity first thing tomorrow morning & then after a quick look around & continued prayer I'll then be turning northwest for the final leg of the journey - to Spain. Please keep praying for the unity of Christians in truth & in love & if you have the time, I'll see you next week. God bless, Sam.
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1Thes 5:16-18