Rick and Jane McKinney, the evangelist couple who are heading east in their Walk Across America trek, debated walking on the interstate in eastern Arizona.
Instead, they walked on Route 66, mostly through Winslow. They had a much more life-affirming experience (I could have told you that đ ), including an encounter with an Navajo man:
Then we met Raymond and Celeste standing outside a senior citizens center. Raymond is a Navajo. Celeste is a Christian but Raymond is not. He told us lots of interesting and heart wrenching stories about being shipped off to “Indian School” as a boy. He told us how the teachers would wash the children’s mouths out with lye soap when they spoke their native language to try to force them to speak English. He told us about he and other Native American children were mistreated by those in authority. As we spoke to him of Jesus and his love it was obvious that his deep wounds had hardened his heart toward the gospel. This was the first time since God had broken our hearts over the treatment of the Native Americans that we’d had an opportunity to express our remorse to a Native American face to face. Right there on the main street of Winslow I told Raymond how sorry we were for what had happened to him. I told him that although we had had nothing directly to do with his treatment and the treatment of his people, that we were heartbroken over it and that we had repented to God for the action of the “white man.” Another miracle began to happen before our very eyes. Raymond’s heart began to melt and the expression on his face began to change. It was obvious that this was the first time he’d ever been apologized for all the horrible things that had happened. We continued to share and although we spent about 30 minutes with him we could not overcome a lifetime of bitternews in a half an hour. Raymond was moved by the gospel and promised us that he would consider its importance in his life.
Rick and Jane’s experiences of walking across American is becoming an eye-opener for them. Again, I think their true purpose is to not “reclaim America’s Freedoms, Families and Faith” or some other grandiose goal. It’s to extend acts of human kindness along the Mother Road.
To read the rest, the diary entry is here, under the Feb. 7 heading.