On Saturday May 5, 2023 we started out on A Quest For Christ across America. Our focus was to bring an awareness to the current condition of our country. I always find myself in AWE of both the beatitudes that America bestows upon us with its unique beauty, and its expression of pain. Some states lean more towards the exposure of the beauty, while other states fall more into the pain. This Quest most certainly earned its titling question, “Are road debris crashes our new norm?” for a reason.
As we left Ohio traveling through the state of Pennsylvania my mission was to begin our journey across America by filming, and interviewing people in the Washington D.C. area. I wanted to know how people felt about the happenings in our country, and what action steps we could take to get us in a more positive position. We passed by some beautiful, large colonial type homes that made me wonder if senators lived in them, as we made our way to Lancaster Pa. which was a short jog from D.C. We spent the next 2 days trying to wait out the rain to get into D.C. The roads getting here seemed normal with nothing really standing out except for the occasional debris, and the unpredictability of the rain, and traffic.
Finally, on the late morning of day 3 as the rain continued to linger, the decision was made to move on. I made a plan to continue down the eastern coastline to the upper peninsula of Florida where we would spend a couple of days before heading to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I knew that when I made myself available to be usable by God I would get a truer understanding of what was happening outside my bubble of normalcy. Most of us adapt to our environments, whether we like where we are or not. We become conformative creatures, rather than seeking out the truth of what is happening around us!
From the time we left Lancaster, Pa. and hit the freeway to turn South where Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio come together we met with heavy traffic along with the ins, and outs of heavy rainfall. We had some nerve wrecking moments watching for our exits on slippery roadways while dodging debris on the roads, and drivers on their cell phones. Sometimes our GPS would get lost, and we’d find ourselves in scary situations, with shady people where we could do nothing but trust that we’d come out unharmed.
These trips to pray over America, and talk to the people sound glamorous, but I’ve learned that it’s not all glam. It’s FOR REAL, and you see, and hear some real crazy stuff. I’ve spent the past several years working on having a deeper connection with my Spiritual side, which is my Finite side. I am also on my 8th walk of reading the Bible from front to back. I find it amazing how consistent the Bible is in relation to what is happening in my life, and in our world. It’s crazy, yet, impactful!
I have also recognized that the Bible is consistent in its warnings against man following his sinful side rather than connecting with his FINITE side. The Bible talks of peace for a time, and it talks of war and famine for a time. And I found myself feeling overwhelmed, and consumed by the things that I saw, heard, and experienced by the end of this journey compared to any other journey since I started back in 2017.
I’m not one to try to sell anyone on the idea of God, or Jesus; I just can’t be swayed because I’ve been a witness to too much to deny that this spiritual stuff is very real.
We were approaching the lower edge of Virginia into North Carolina when we met with what appeared to be a huge tractor tire laying in the middle of the freeway. By now it had just gotten dark, and my son was on his phone as he felt the swerve from my jolting of the wheel. He yelled out, “Are you trying to kill us?” And I said, “Actually, I just saved our lives.” After this I found it very intimidating to drive at night, so I had to change my strategy of how to travel. After all, I was traveling America to pray over her, and ask for the healing of our country, and this was showing me the first signs of the decay that was coming.
We continued to travel through North Carolina into South Carolina. Then Georgia, and the panhandle of Florida. Passing through Alabama, Mississippi, and New Orleans. The farther south we went leading to New Orleans it became obvious that the roads were not the city, or states priorities. These were death traps for motorcyclists for sure. It was so sad seeing literally hundreds of full tires on the causeway to New Orleans strewn in random heaps along the road. I tried to make sense of it in my head, maybe from a storm or something, but there was evidence that it was not just for that occasion.
When we got into the city my son looked at me and said, “Why would you even want to bring me here?” The rubbish, and people lingering around, graffiti and filth that had taken over everywhere was certainly intimidating. As bad as I wanted to taste that cajun food that I had eaten just 6 years ago, it was not worth the uncomfortable feelings that surrounded it.
Debris in our roads has become one of our most common road hazards, and is claiming many lives. I was listening to a man in Atlanta, Georgia tell me his story of a couch that’s sitting on the freeway he drives to work for the past few days now. He praised how the drivers of the vehicles were so good at maneuvering around it without having an accident. When did we ever think our beautiful country of America would be seeing furniture, ladders, huge boxes, tires, wood, plastic lawn mower parts, metal rods, trash build up from paper, and plastic of every kind, and I could keep listing more things; just thrown across our freeways, or any roads for that matter?
What are you willing to do in this arena of our world that is happening right now to make our lives, our children’s lives, and our grand children’s lives a better place?
This my friends is only the beginning of what this last quest showed in the decay that is happening in our country. I am not here to be the bearer of bad news! I am here as a reality check, WE ARE A COUNTRY IN GREAT TROUBLE! Not just from debris on the roads. Have you heard why the bordering states along the coastline are bracing themselves. It was all we heard about on the news, and from the people living in these areas. More to come…..
It is never too late to get on our knees as a country. It all begins in one heart transformation at a time. Let it begin with me, and hopefully you will be willing to follow…..