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It feels like we are so far away from home, as if we are on a journey in another country, not a journey in our own back yard. By this time, Day 6, we are only a short drive to the comfort of our own beds, our families and our homes. The reality for this team of people is that we are many hours and blisters, tears and feelings of painful exhaustion away from home. And for the people that we walk for, the people of Darfur, there are no homes at the end and there is no respite from the devastation and heart ache around them and in their lives.
I have found myself thinking a lot about home and family today. As each semi whistled by and each time a member of my team laid an encouraging hand on another’s arm I thought about the families that we all have, and the family that we have created. Not only amongst the 25 people walking on that highway but also with the people at the places that we stay, the people who follow our movement and the truck drivers who never seem to fail to wave or give an encouraging honk as they do their best to move into the other lane. Today I have seen the most amazing display of family and community that I have ever witnessed, in two separate rural Alberta communities, Calmar and Millet. And these communities and families came together to raise their voices and their spirits for families across the world. It is so easy to become bogged down and overwhelmed by what you are witnessing half way across the world, to the point where you simply no longer know what to do. However I can not help but think that in it all we miss a very important idea, an idea that I heard Jane Goodall say, that for every cause there is a group of very determined people fighting to make it better. And today I have seen that group increase exponentially as people rallied behind the cause for Darfur. It gives me hope, hope that I have felt waver a great deal in the last year as I prepared for a second walk, a second walk that I did not want to have to do because I wanted to believe that the world, humanity, would not let a genocide to continue, but we have. Hope is what keeps people going, it is what keeps this team walking, it is what encourages others to raise their voices with us, and I believe with all of my heart that Darfur is full of hope.
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