Our Dear Friends and Family,
We have been sailing across the Kansas prairie for the last several weeks: we are thrilled and grateful to announce that we have reached the Colorado border! The Kansas route was just short of 500 miles; we are so proud of Annie for her commitment and diligence!
Annie has blown us away with her mileage. She is running more than 20 miles a day! When the miles have been shorter than we hoped or the route has taken a turn, it has been God that has directed our course. The most surprising and lovely aspect of this journey has been the amazing people that we have connected with throughout this project. Our greatest comfort is feeling that we are in the right place at the right time because God has put us there.
Accordingly, each day is different. We always meet different people: we met an amazing waitress that fosters special needs children. Her adopted son suffers from severe fetal alcohol syndrome. She is passionate about protecting women and children from harm through educating them about risks during pregnancy. We also made friends with a teenage Dollar General cashier that has just moved back to care for her foster care parents— she was saving up to buy birthday presents for her own infant daughter.
We also met Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and Mary Kay Culp– which was a great experience! Gov. Brownback was honoring Kansans 4 Life.
It’s SO exciting to meet impassioned pro-life leaders. We so admire their continuing steadfastness for the pro-life movement!
We have received daily kindnesses: We had our first host family when we passed through Manhattan, Ks. Wendy and her daughters, Mikaela and CiCi. HeBrews coffee in Glen Elder treated us to lunch, Hideout Coffeehouse owner in Osborne, Ks. Rachel Heinen had us over to take showers. She told her friend about our project, and her friend secretly gave money to cover our coffee while while we worked. College Drive Church in Colby, Ks. put the team up in the Hampton for several days, which was a lovely and productive stay. It has been a huge blessing to hand out the bracelets our board members Peter and Kim Freund got for us!
The local Kansans 4 Life in Atwood, Ks. Elmer Kelner had the team over for supper and to play the game ChickenFoot— a dominoes game that involves a lot of cackling like a chicken. In Bird City, Ks. the local Lutheran church hosted us in their church apartment for 8 days. Pastor Jim was a huge blessing! Anna was invited to speak— they were SO kind and encouraging to us. Megan learned quilting from Edna and Bethel— two of the church members. Another church member, Loren White and his family, dropped off groceries for the team, made us dinner (macaroni- Anna’s favorite), and homemade chocolate chip cookies. He also did some work on the maintenance of our van.
We stayed with a host, Roberta Bretz, who is also with Kansans 4 Life. Her neighbor co-hosted us— the Gregorys, who made us homemade chicken noodle soup because I was sick and they stocked us with homegrown vegetables. The local auto repairman Jim Gillespie discounted our purchase of new tires to help the project.
We’ve also had the great pleasure of visitors on the run: the Strasburg family met us in Glasco, Ks., our sister Tess & brother Alex dropped off Megan to join the team in Beloit, Ks., our parents Mark and Jeanne in Bird City dropped off Nick to join us. We also had Boyd & Rory Beck, two of our board members, join us in Colby, Ks. We loved seeing familiar, kind faces!
We spent our rest day, yesterday, going to a local church where Annie spoke to the Sunday school class of our host, Dalton Boggs. Later, we hung out at the family farm of Roberta’s nephew, Devan Selby. He treated us to lunch and clay shooting, which was a blast.
Something unexpected on the run has been the problem with Rattlesnakes. I didn’t even know that was a thing in this state? Annie hears them and sees them as she runs along, which has made life a little exciting. The snakes are so prolific that, Devan told us about the local, yearly Rattlesnake roundup—the mission is to collect as many snakes as possible: living or dead. One man is famous for filling a sleeping bag with living snakes and crawling in with them.
We are also glad to say that our brother Nicholas Hoduski has joined us for the first half of the run. He is a very capable and knowledgable athlete; Nick will be running with Annie and serving as a trainer for her.
We are looking forward to Colorado! The weather continues to cool off, which is fabulous, and the landscape is beginning to shift to pines and Aspen. Please keep up your prayers! Our German Shepherd, Atticus, is inexplicably, lame. Please pray that the team stays healthy and safe.
Thank you so much for your love and help in making this project a reality!
We love you,
Sarah-Marie Hoduski & the Project IF Life Team