It was the late summer of 1976 and my girlfriend of two years had just broken off our relationship. We had been together for a couple of years and had talked about marriage after college. I didn’t realize that her influential parents had different ideas for her daughter, a beautiful auburn blonde with more freckles than she could count.
I was heartbroken and felt very alone. I knew that I would not find peace in this breakup until I felt fully connected to God.
Growing up in an orphanage, I had no family to turn to for emotional support, so I decided that the best way to reestablish the foundation of my faith was to place myself completely in His hands. I decided that I needed to take a break from college and go on a spiritual journey that might also lead me to find myself again.
I bought a small backpack, some yellow construction paper that I could fold into three sections, a pack of eight-inch stencils to write my “destination signs,” and began hitchhiking across the United States.
I had two hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket and was armed with a wavering faith that the Lord would provide any and all of my food and lodging needs along the way. I also realized that this could be a dangerous journey, but I felt a bit reassured that God would be there, keeping me safe.
After using the templates I had purchased to make my destination signs indicating each major city I was headed to, I started walking towards the interstate somewhere in central Florida. When I reached the top of the entrance ramp, I held up my sign while keeping my weight evenly distributed on both feet and smiled without wincing at the sun shining on my face.
I’d seen a lot of hitchhikers over the years and most of them slouched, gave thumbs up, and didn’t seem like the kind of person I’d like to pick up, so I kept the image of a well-dressed college guy. student with a neatly printed bright yellow sign that motorists could read from almost a quarter of a mile away.
It worked.
A businessman, traveling to a business meeting, stopped and gave me a lift. He said, “Nice sign. I was able to see you long before I got to where you were standing. Since you seemed like a nice person, I didn’t mind picking you up to help me drive.”
So, that’s how I began my ten thousand mile, six month journey across America, stopping in cities for just a few days to earn food money, and then back on the interstate to my next destination.
Every ride I got I always thanked the person for stopping by. Most were families or business people who wanted someone to help them drive or chat with to while away the time. Some were truckers who were impressed that someone would bother to make such a neatly printed sign.
Amazing how nice the people were. The “scary or creepy people” would just look at me and move on. When this happened, I would say under my smile, “Thank you Lord for encouraging that person to keep going.”
In every city in the United States, my jaunt to Mexico, and the long drive from British Columbia to Quebec and then back through Ontario, Canada, I could feel God’s presence. I knew that He put me in the path of other people to help me on my journey of self-discovery and spiritual healing.
It provided resources for me to get a job in Denver, Colorado, where I was able to visit such beautiful places as Boulder and Estes Park, a small resort town built into the side of a mountain like a Swiss village in the Alps.
I found work in Los Angeles where I lived in the garage of a church Debbie Boone attended and the church group helped me find work delivering Indian rugs around town. While there, I had the opportunity to collect autographs from various movie stars including Cybil Shepard, Clu Gulager, and Tommy Smothers.
I experience miracles, big and small, on this journey.
While working in Denver, painting houses, I took a trip to Golden, Colorado. It was still very dark and I was sitting on the side of the mountain road high above the Denver skyline enjoying the distant lights of the city. I stood up, and just as I was about to take another step, a car passed and illuminated the place where I was about to put my foot. What I saw was a drop of about 500 feet to the rocks below. I thanked God and for the angel he sent to make me hesitate to take that step.
Before I went down to Tijuana, Mexico, the church group warned me to beware of little Mexican boys who would try to pick your pocket and if you caught them you would be arrested until you posted bail. Supposedly, this was another way to separate the gringo from his money.
God again took care of me and I didn’t have any problems in Tijuana, but I was cautious and didn’t stay long.
During my trip through Canada, the temperature was minus forty degrees.
She had purchased a nylon-covered goose down jacket with a hood along with thick gloves and boots. It seemed that the time between rides took much longer in Canada and I could often see forty meter high snow drifts as I waited for my next ‘guardian angel’ to pick me up.
It suddenly occurred to me that if God hadn’t been watching over me, I might have frozen to death.
After six months and ten thousand miles of travel, I finally found my way back to Florida, relieved that I no longer needed that goose down jacket.
At the beginning of my journey I felt lost, but as my travels continued, my faith and sense of connection to God continued to grow. I felt this so much that, when I returned to college, I was filled with excitement and hope for the future knowing, if the Lord could put so many wonderful people in my path to help me on my journey through the US, Canada, and Mexico that he could accomplish almost anything.
Over the years, as I graduated from college, two graduate programs, and established a family of my own, I knew that God was with me and would never leave me lost in America.