~upon his having almost made it~

     I have written many times since this blog's inception in 2011 and this one tonight is number 803. It's partially a reprint actually of the very first post I made after meeting a young man named Norman Horn earlier this summer.  It seemed fitting at this point in time, now only a few hundred miles from his final destination that I read through the post I made on the 16th day of June this past summer. How time flew.  It seemed strange that day to imagine that Norm could make it up to Monarch Pass and beyond into the canyon lands, let alone to get through the entire Midwest and to points further eastward.  He could and he did.  Now over 3,000 miles across America on foot, he aims to be at Atlantic City, New Jersey by the 11th of October in celebration of having taken each step with one purpose in mind.  "FTK" he always refers to it as.  For The Kids.  For yours and for mine and for everyone in between.  You know, I admire him for that.  Not everyone would have undertaken it.  Few would have been willing to sacrifice the time it took to do this.  Norman Horn did.

     I mentioned in my blog post that day about a young man named Calvin who was a former student of mine back at Yoder Grade School in Kansas, now so very many years ago.  Calvin was stricken with leukemia at a very early age.  He passed away from it as a teenager, now quite some time ago.  Knowing Calvin changed me, changed the person I was into someone much better.  In many ways, knowing him as a student helped to refine my character and mold me into the person that I was to become today.  Normally I don't write about any of my students in particular, let alone to identify them by name.  But you know what?  Calvin's story needs to be told and even though he lost his battle with childhood cancer, that young man fought it bravely and with much dignity and courage.  To tell his story and refer to him by any other "made up" name would be a disservice to his memory.  I wish you would have known him.  I'm so happy that I did.

     I'm so glad that I was able to bring as many "Norman updates" as I could while writing my blog and this one tonight is a good way for me honor his journey one last time.  I knew that he would not quit and he did not.  It was apparent that he was more than determined and that proved most certainly to be the case.  For your final steps Norm as you make it to where you were bound and determined to get from the very beginning, I'm pulling for you from a place so very far away.  Some day perhaps my friend, we shall meet again.  Until that time, I will forever be inspired by what you have done.     
     Godspeed the last leg of this epic trip all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.  May God continue to bless you and keep you safe until the end of the road is met.

A blog post from the 16th day of June, 2014~the first one done on behalf of Norman's journey~

~and the little boy's name was Calvin~

"Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without even knowing it."  (Found in the "Good Book", Hebrews 13:2)

The little boy's name was Calvin and he was one of my students from back in the days when I taught a combination class of 1st and 2nd graders in the small, predominantly Old Order Amish town of Yoder, Kansas.  Calvin, an Amish youngster himself, had been diagnosed with leukemia as a very small child and by the time he had made it to my second grade classroom that year, had been in an ongoing battle with cancer  for many months.  He had been undergoing rounds of treatment just prior to the opening of school that year and because of that, had no hair at all left atop his little head.  I will never forget that first day at school when  he arrived wearing a woolen blue stocking cap on a very hot August day in Kansas.  His mother had warned me ahead of time that he probably would be too embarrassed to remove it, for fear what the kids might say.  So for myself and the other 25 students in our classroom that year, the very first order of business of the day was not to put our school supplies into our desks in an orderly fashion.  It wasn't even to put name tags on our clothing or have a "show and tell" time of what we did for fun on our summer vacations.  No, the first order of business, the most important thing to do that day was to convince young Calvin that even though he could wear his wintertime cap all day long in the stifling heat, we loved and respected him enough to say that it would be equally fine to remove it and put it on the coat hooks against the east wall.  A few minutes later he did just that and we all went on to have a great school year.  Each of us.  All of us.   Especially Calvin.

I was privileged to be Calvin's teacher for the two years that he was a first and second grader and equally blessed to be able to teach at Yoder for the remainder of his years there through the eighth grade.  As time went on and he grew into his teenage years, Calvin continued his fight against leukemia, a type of blood cancer that has its beginnings in the bone marrow.  The cost was high, both in terms of how it affected his overall health and the financial aspect of the ongoing medical care.  Many fundraisers were held on his behalf, both by the community at large and the school community as well.  Once we challenged ourselves in my classroom to come up with a mile of pennies in one month's time to give to Calvin for his medical care.  We ended up going way beyond a mile and at the end of the month were able to give his parents a check for nearly $4,000, all made possible because any time anyone saw the "lowly cent" lying around on the ground or in their dad's pocket, they threw it in a can and brought it to school.  We picked up aluminum cans in the springtime, even challenging (in a friendly way of course) the classes of my older sister Sherry's school down in Altus, Oklahoma to do the same and try to pick up more than we did.  The two schools did it for several years and the REAL winner always ended up being Calvin because the monies made from the recycling of the aluminum always went to his medical account.   Calvin did his best over the years to try and beat the disease that was robbing him of the normal life that other kids around him were having, yet try as he might, he lost the battle in his late teenage years.  Our hearts were broken but our lives had been changed for the good just by knowing that quiet and sweet young man.  We loved him.  In now, nearly 37 years of being an educator, I have taught many boys and girls and loved working with them all.  I should not have a favorite but I do.  It was Calvin.

You know, here's the deal.  Last week at this time, I would have never guessed that I would be making the blog post that I am this morning but stranger things have happened to me in this life.  Sometimes the events of the day can change just like that and people are put into place with one another at just the right moment in time.  Mike Renfro and I are very good examples of that because for crying out loud, how could two people's paths not cross for over 40 years and then all of a sudden, "voila!" they do?  I would like for you to meet a new friend of ours, one that we made in the strangest of places just this past Thursday evening along Highway 50 as we drove east towards Kansas out of Montrose.  His name is Norman Horn and the story of how we met him walking along the roadway, pushing a cart filled with supplies, will touch your heart.  It did ours.

Last week, just about this time, life was going along here in its normal chaotic fashion in the Renfro house.  I'm sure we were multi-tasking, just like we always seem to around here.  We had arisen and were getting things ready for the day that was about to begin.  Per the way that it usually happens in the early morning hours, the TV was going so that we could hear the news and weather on the station out of Grand Junction.  In my haste to get myself out the door that day, I wasn't paying all that much attention to the segment that was being shown about this guy that was walking all the way across the United States from the west coast to the east, to raise awareness about the number one killer of children in this country, cancer.  I briefly caught a glimpse of him, heard him saying a word or two about there being only one medication approved for treatment, as I scurried out the door for the day.  Mike watched the news segment in its entirety and we briefly talked about it later on.  Nothing more, nothing less.  By late that evening, I had completely erased the story of this man's journey from my memory but its departure would not be for very long.  Come later on in the week, as we were making our seemingly monthly trek back to Kansas, he would reappear only this time it would be for real and not as an image on our flat screen television.

As we were readying things for our departure from here along the Western Slopes on Thursday evening, Mike mentioned the young man once again saying that he hoped we might run across him sometime on the journey back to Kansas.  Because his walking adventure is taking him along the very same highway that we use each time we go back and forth to the Midwest, he knew that we probably would.  Mike had seen him a day or so earlier as he walked near the Escalante Canyon area between Delta and Olathe.  If we saw him, our plan was to stop and ask how we could make a donation to the site that has been established for those who wish to offer something to the cause he is giving nearly 8 months of his life to.  Sure enough, not even 30 minutes into our drive to the east, we found him as he pushed his cart along the way near the Morrow Point turnoff.   It was a life changing moment for both Mike and I.  Our chance meeting up with a person who prior to that very second in time was a total stranger to us, was not by "chance" or accident or random selection of the universe.  It was a part of a much greater plan that had been lain out for two kids from "the land of long ago and far, far away".  The photo shown above, taken yesterday when we found him once again in the city of Gunnison and stopped to take him to lunch, shows a man who is no longer unfamiliar to us.  Norman Horn is now our friend and we have so much admiration and respect for what is doing on behalf of kids, just like my student Calvin, who are afflicted with the disease of cancer. 

As we sat there with him yesterday and listened to his story of what life has been like since he left the west coast and took the very first step of the journey, the "mother" in me rose straight to the top and I repeatedly asked crazy questions like....

"Are you losing too much weight?  Are you getting dehydrated?  Have you ever been scared?  What do your parents think about this?  Do you always have cell phone service?  Is you cart full?  Because you know we have brought some more stuff to put into it.  How much water are you able to carry young man?   What about wild animals?  Do you know how narrow or nonexistent the roadway is up on Monarch Pass? How warm is that winter coat?  Do you know how cold it can get up there?  For crying out loud, please be careful!"

He answered all of my "mom questions" with a smile and assured me that I had no need to be concerned, that all is fine for him out there.  I watched the look in Mike's eyes as Norman told his stories of adventure on the road and for a moment there, I thought maybe my good husband was thinking of his own kind of walking trek.  Later on, he assured me that although it sounded like a great time that I didn't have to worry about it :)  We left Norman there in Gunnison and drove back to Montrose with our bellies full of food and our minds and hearts filled with even more thoughts of how to help him in the remaining months of his journey.   

By the time July rolls around, Norman will have made it to my home state, the state of my birth and most of my 58 years of life.  He will be walking all the way through Kansas as he follows Highway 50 to the northeast towards the Kansas City area.  Dear friends and family back home there who are reading this today, our friend Norman could use your help.  Could you offer up a place for him to rest for the night?  Perhaps you could allow him to use your bathroom shower to clean up in after a long day's journey or allow him to fill up his water containers.  Do you have room to sit an extra place at your table for suppertime or breakfast time or any time that a person might be hungry?  Could you possibly watch out for him along the way and stop to offer a smile and a handshake of encouragement?  One of the things that Norman reiterated over and over during our meal together yesterday was just how much he has enjoyed meeting all of the good folks along the way.  Their conversations with him continue to lift his spirit and keep his morale high.  Everywhere he has gone since leaving in April, the kindness of the human spirit has been with him.  For each bad encounter he has gone through, a thousand more good things have happened.  We were blessed to have met him and now find ourselves supporting his endeavor all of the way to the end as he reaches the east coast in October.

I encourage you to visit Norman's website www.Coast2CoastFTK.com and please read more about his incredible walking adventure.  You can also find his page on Facebook, Coast 2 Coast FTK and "like" it.  The stories and photos that he has posted from along the way will uplift you and remind you that the American spirit is alive and well, that the "power of the human touch" is evidenced each and every day if we can just allow ourselves to slow down long enough to see it.  Kansas friends and family, if you are able to help Norman as he sojourns through the Sunflower state, please message me on FB and let me know.  I will help you to connect to him along the way.  Our help is needed.

It's the "mom" in me, but please pray for Norman's safety as he makes the journey.  Pray that the people he encounters along the way will be as touched by his mission as we were here at our house.  Before we parted ways yesterday, I took off my St. Christopher's medal and pressed it into his hands.  It always meant so much to know that it was with me as I traveled back and forth over Monarch Pass in the more than nearly two dozen times that I traversed over it between Kansas and Colorado.  Today Norman starts out for his passage over the summit that stands at over 11,000 feet.  Just like all of you have done for me, I'll be praying him safely over that pass in the next three days. 

From now until his journey's end come this autumn, one of my blog posts each week will be devoted to an update of what is going on for him as he makes his way eastward.  I hope to share his adventures with my new class of students in the first grade at Olathe when school begins in August.  He gave me wristbands for them to have yesterday and I will most gladly share them with each of my little people.  It would seem appropriate so to do...after all the initials "FTK" stand for the words "for the kids".  That's what Norman's journey is all about and our life has been made better because of our meeting up with him. 

You know it's one thing to see a person on the news and think "Ok, that's a good cause" and go on.  It's quite another to meet them in person on a narrow and twisting section of Colorado pavement.