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| Nancy Drew Mystery Story by Lall on Flickr |
The idea for Project FairFeet first surfaced this past April, on April Fool's Day no less. But the first seeds of the idea were planted almost three years ago. For it was three years ago that a friend asked me about training for a half-marathon to raise money for Active Water, which he had learned about at CIY. I looked into the organization, thought it interesting, but then the plan fell through. But that was the first time I'd heard about them. I'd hear a little more about them over the years as my friend Nick talked about them, but it never really meant much to me.
Then this past March (I think) two more seeds were planted that would help jumpstart this first seed into growth. First, I walked almost 9 miles to church on a whim. I have no car so if I'm going to get somewhere I usually walk if it's close enough or get a ride. Up to that point, I'd usually just gotten rides, but that day I decided to walk. I was hooked. There was something oddly thrilling about walking distances that I knew most people would consider too far to walk. The second thing: Nick started talking about Active Water again. Nick and some other friends of mine at our Bible college are launching a coffee shop outreach ministry called Avenue Coffee near the University of Memphis as part of their degree program. Each month at their shop they want the artwork and conversations to focus around a specific global issue and they will partner with a Christian non-profit organization that deals with that month's theme and give them 10% of that month's profits from the shop. They had a list of themes listed on a chalkboard in the school's mailroom and the first theme was the Global Water Crisis. I asked Nick about it and he said they were going to try to partner with Active Water that month.
There was one more factor that helped fertilize the seed in preparation for it's upcoming growth spurt: Chasing Mavericks. That's right, a surfer movie. If you've not heard of it, it's a movie based on surfing legend Jay Moriarty (whom I'd never heard of before the movie) and how he at the age of 16 (I think) rode these colossal waves off the CA coast called Mavericks. It's actually a fairly inspiring movie and this is coming from a guy who does not often find movies inspiring. It fertilized the still-dormant seed of idea with a sense of "Wow! I wish I could do something epic like that!"
That brings us to April 1st. I never found out who exactly, but one of the members of Nick's team shared a link to Active Water's homepage. I'm not sure why I clicked on it, but I did. I looked it over and thought, "I wish I could do something for them," but I've tried my hand at distance running and I know that marathons and half-marathons are out of my league. I followed this line of thinking with "Hey! I like walking long distances! Maybe I can use that! Yeah, but it'd have to be pretty long in order to be a good fundraiser....Hey! I know! I can walk across America!" Out of curiosity I googled how long it takes to walk across America and found blogs by people who've done it recently. The next thing I know, I'm telling myself, "I want to walk across America for ActiveWater!" It felt like it was what God was calling me to do...but I've had those feelings about things before and most of them wound up fizzling out. So I grabbed a friend on chat and after convincing her that this was not an elaborate April Fool's Day prank (I actually was so excited about the idea that it never even crossed my mind what day it was when I told her about it), asked her to pray about it.
I decided, that in order to be doubly sure that this was what I was supposed to do that I would spend a month praying about it everyday and asking God for clear confirmation as to whether it was His will or not. I chose to do this everyday at 10:15 based off of Romans 10:15 which says, "how beautiful are the feet of them that bring good news." I asked 12 to pray the same thing with me everyday. During that month of prayer, I got no writing on the walls or unmistakable signs. I mean, I did randomly stumble across a story about a guy who started running across America for clean water on April 1st, 2013, but I knew better than to take that in and of itself as a sign. I also learned that apparently that the founders of Active Water founded it after one of them finished his own walk across the country for clean water in Africa, but again, I didn't take it as a sign. What I found was that rather than a sign, God gave me peace. Peace in knowing that if it was something I really wanted to do for Him, then I should do it and if He didn't want me doing it, it wouldn't happen. So I decided to do it.
At the end of the 30 days, I emailed Active Water and to my surprise got an email back from Daren Wendell, the co-founder and US-crosser himself asking me to call him at the office. I called him, talked to him, and the partnership with AW was born. It was official, I was walking across the country....I just didn't know much else besides that. Then came the less fun phone calls....telling my parents....
My dad actually handled it pretty well. My mom? Doesn't like the idea, and never will. But she won't fight me on it either and I consider that victory enough.
So there you have it. The story of how Project FairFeet was born. I got the name from the same verse I used as my prayer time, Romans 10:15, and I've been working on it ever since.
Thanks for reading! Keep your eyes open for another post in a couple of days detailing how you can get involved with Project FairFeet and do something yourself to help bring clean water and the love of Jesus to Africa.
'Til then may the road rise up to meet you!
Jordan Miller
This Month's Prayer Points:
-I start back at classes in a couple of weeks. Prayers for a good semester, muchly appreciated.
-Still need someone with fundraising experience to help advise me on the fundraising side of the walk.
-For sufficient funds to complete the walk.
-Still need advisers and planners to help with the nuts-and-bolts of planning this beastie.
-For a support vehicle/driver to accompany through the desert states of Utah and Nevada.
-Also pray for my friend David Kidd who will be walking the first couple of months with me as he makes his own preparations.
