some fine testimony
Walking by Devils Tower in Northeastern Wyoming
Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Since my last update of a week ago, we left South Dakota and have walked almost halfway across the State of Wyoming. Yesterday, we stopped at the head of Crazy Woman Canyon just south of Buffalo and at the literal feet of the Bighorn Mountains, Northern Wyoming’s front range of the Rockies. I am so excited to be getting back into the mountains and to have finally walked across the Great Plains. Here are where things currently stand with #TheLongWalkUSA:
Almost Halfway Across the State of Wyoming
I have SOME FINE TESTIMONY from this past week that I thought would encourage you: good encounters; kind provision from the LORD; and a true deja-vu blast from the distant past. I cannot believe I actually found myself walking with the cross over the very spot where I should have been killed 28 years ago not long after I was converted. This was never planned and kind of just happened. Anyway:
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2).
Two believing families remembered this Scriptural exhortation, and like Lydia and the Philippian jailor for Paul and Silas (see Acts 16), opened their homes to us. We definitely were not angels, just a ragtag bunch of walking preachers, but these brethren treated us as such. We were so blessed by provision of food and shelter for three nights in a row in a remote corner of America where I had no prior contacts.
This chain reaction of provision all started at the end of a 23-mile day as we took shelter at a small park in the hamlet of Hulett. It was raining, and we needed to cook up some dinner. Eric and I skirted over to the local market and saw two boys standing by their vehicle. We stopped to witness to them and handed them each a Gospel tract. They then went and got their mother; their mother went and got their local church pastor; and the pastor then came over to the park to offer us a place to stay for the night in his camper and hot breakfast the next morning. The LORD knew it was going to rain that night, a cold rain.
After the pastor and his family from the local Baptist church put us up Thursday night, we met a believing family down the road as far as we could walk on Friday. Pastor Jim had called ahead to some folks that went to another church in the area and gave them a heads up that we would probably be stopping for the day near their place. The husband, a truck driver, was on a long run and wouldn’t be back until late that night. The wife and mother of four was nursing a badly broken ankle. None of this seemed to phase them. They gladly opened their home, fed us a hot supper and breakfast, and then offered their home for a rest day even though they were leaving to go camping for the weekend. It was such a blessing. When the man of the house got back real late that night, after an all-day trucking run to Denver and back, we sat around the kitchen table until the wee hours of the morning, enjoying good edifying fellowship. The LORD also knew it was going to rain Friday night, and the pitter-patter on the roof of the loft where we hung our hammocks was good music and good medicine, not the cold trial it would have been had we been forced to camp.
These few days of genuine hospitality from Christian strangers in northeastern Wyoming reminded me of a stretch of very remote gravel highway that I pedaled in British Columbia and the Yukon back in 2009 when I rode the bicycle all the way to the top of Alaska. I had been stressing a bit about the Cassiar Highway prior to reaching it, knowing the weather was unpredictable and that there wouldn’t be any supplies for many miles. As it turned out, the Lord provided us different Christian homes four nights in row out there. I never had to camp once. Yes, there are still believers out there in wild and remote places “given to hospitality” (Romans 12:13). God bless them. I’ll never forgot the Cassiar Highway, and I’ll never forget Northeast Wyoming.
I pedaled a bicycle to Alaska back in 2009 via the very remote Canadian Cassiar Highway, and on that stretch of road, I never had to camp once. Every night, a believing family opened their home to me.
You know, there was a time when a preacher could travel all over America (back when there were no paved roads) and never have to worry about a place to stay for the night. Even non-believers were hospitable to preachers. Those days are gone. All Christians (read Romans 12:13), not just pastors (I Timothy 3:2) are to be “given to hospitality” and willing to “entertain strangers” (Hebrews 13:2). Very, very few are. But, there are some. Praise God for the Paulus and Dennis families that we had the great privilege of meeting this past week—SOME FINE TESTIMONY.
“And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:13-14).
Just the other day, and for the very first time on this long journey, we found ourselves walking interstate highway. In Wyoming, that is actually legal; and for the long stretch of nothing between Gillette and Buffalo, I-90 was pretty much our only option if we wanted to avoid private ranch land and ornery ranchers who have to regularly deal with meth heads rustling their cattle to sell off for more drugs. Fentanyl and cattle rustling walking hand in hand, imagine that! I guess it should be no real surprise in a nation so far from God.
Thankfully, I-90 has a good shoulder, and we were able to bust out a long 48-mile section in a single day. And along that stretch, we had an interesting encounter that reminded me of a scenario Jesus relayed in Luke 18 about a self-righteous Pharisee and a humble publican, both of whom went up to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray. A small car flew past heading west and then later came back in the eastbound lane. John, a Mennonite from Wisconsin, pulled over to see if we needed a ride. Traveling with him was a hitchhiker he had earlier picked up on the side of the road: Vlad, a Russian-background hippie from Northern Washington. We expressed our genuine gratitude for the offer, but as is our custom, we explained that accepting a ride would be cheating, for we had promised the LORD that we would WALK across the United States. From there, we bridged into the Gospel. John the Mennonite claimed to follow the LORD but only wanted to proclaim his own goodness (see Proverbs 20:6). Vlad the Hitchhiker didn’t claim to follow the LORD, but he listened intently to the Gospel and admitted he was a sinner in need of a Saviour. In the end, Vlad took a Bible to carry with him in his backpack and promised to read it along his journey. Please pray for him and for John. Truly, “every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:14). Praise God that a Bible went out along Interstate 90 (that’s a total of 124 so far on this long walk)—SOME FINE TESTIMONY.
Walking WEST on the shoulder of the EASTBOUND lane of Interstate 90 in Central Wyoming
“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (II Corinthians 1:3-4).
The day before we met John and Vlad, the sun had gone down over the mountains; we hadn’t made it as far as I had hoped; there had only been a few brief encounters passing through Gillette; a painful blister on my heel was throbbing; and I plodded along a dirt I-90 frontage road somewhat downtrodden. Then, this happened, as conveyed to me in an email correspondence I later received:
Thank you for walking down our road this evening. As you walked away, I was in tears. My husband and I survived what could have been a tragedy this morning when we hit a deer that had been hit by a semi moments before. I know 100% that God was watching over us and the truck driver. When you walked by, it was God’s way of reminding me He is ALWAYS there! May God bless you and your team while on this journey and there after!
Ironically, on another morning 28 years ago and only about 4 miles down the road from this lady’s home, I too survived what could have been a tragedy when my high school buddy fell asleep at the wheel on I-90. We were suddenly flipping in the air and there was a loud crash. My mom’s car was destroyed, but by the abundant grace of God, we both were able to climb out and walk away relatively unharmed. We found ourselves shaken up in the middle of nowhere, and in those moments, I never could have conceived that I would one day be walking right back through that same middle of nowhere on a long hike across America, and that my presence then would be used of the LORD to comfort someone else who was spared in that place (II Corinthians 1:3-4). All the trials and delays of the day, even the hobbling from a blister, suddenly made sense. Sheer profundity and SOME FINE TESTIMONY!
Just down the same dirt road where I had the encounter described above, we caught our first view of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming’s Front Range of the Rockies.
“But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee” (Acts 26:16).
A year before that terrible wreck in 1994 along I-90 in Wyoming, the LORD had saved me. A few weeks after that terrible wreck, I was SITTING DOWN, seeking Him in prayer and in the reading of the Word; and He spoke to me directly through the Scriptures. He gave to me Acts 26:16-18 as a commission, and I knew it was His call, so much so that I literally got off my bed and stood up. I immediately surrendered my life to the work of the Gospel ministry. And the proof that He was speaking to me directly through His Word is not an experience I had that day, but what has transpired these past 28 years. God did in my life everything He said He would do in those verses. That has been my life’s testimony since. The came can be said of my salvation, my conversion. The same LORD saved me on July 21, 1993 (a year before He called me into the Gospel ministry) at a little Baptist church down in the Florida backwoods. And the proof of that isn’t in a prayer I prayed that day or in an experience I had in those moments. The undeniable proof is that all these many years later, I am still living by HIS GRACE and HIS POWER a life of repentance toward God and faith in the LORD Jesus Christ (read Acts 20:21). On July 21, 1993 I realized and confessed that Jesus the Messiah, Jesus Christ of the Bible, is the only merit for my soul. Today, I confess and preach the same. Today is the proof that these things which transpired so many years ago were real and genuine. To God be the glory, great things HE hath done.
Not only was I able to bring comfort to a woman who had been in an accident only a few miles from where I had been in a terrible accident many years earlier, I actually found myself walking over that very spot the next day, once I found out from the Wyoming Highway Patrol that is was ok for us to walk along the interstate highway. I paused at this place and recorded the following video testimony—SOME FINE TESTIMONY. I pray it blesses you abundantly:
Well, that’s it for now. Carter will be returning home to Missouri in a couple of days, and we will miss his company greatly. Praise God that his boss gave him an extra week off, so he has already been with us longer than expected. We now have to climb up into the mountains where there has already been a couple of snow dustings. Please continue to pray for us: for strength of body, soul, and spirit; for provision of physical and financial needs; and “that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ” (Colossians 4:3).
America remains in BIG TROUBLE with the Lord. Oh how desperately we needs spiritual awakening in our streets and genuine Holy Spirit revival in our churches! God save the United States!
If this long walk across America has edified you in some way, please consider sowing into our ministry. We have needs, and gas is real expensive these days. Anything you can share, if the LORD should lay it upon your heart, is a blessing that will be used faithfully and with account. All contributions are tax-deductible. Thank you in Jesus’ name. Learn more . . .
We walk on …
Jesse Boyd & TheLongWalkUSA Team