Our Dear Friends and Family,
Finishing Kansas and Colorado was a huge feat for our team. After conquering these two states, anything seemed possible, and with God as our strength, anything is possible. Utah has undoubtedly been the toughest state we have encountered so far, but the Lord is our strength no matter the situation or the difficulty. We are currently about halfway across Utah on our southern route towards Los Angeles, California. Utah began with vehicle troubles and routing decisions that pushed our progress back quite a bit.
Our original route took us through northern Arizona and then down into Southern California, but with many advisors, our team decided to head through southern Utah instead. This routing decision took much prayer, advice, and time to finalize. We spent one night with a church in Blanding Utah that was pastored by Mr. Romero. He gave us a lot of advice about our route as well. We cannot thank everyone who prayed for us during this decision making time. As we were preparing to leave for the wilderness, Anna and Nick’s dad, Mark Hoduski, asked up to get a battery and a few other things done to our van. Pastor Liming, a friend and pastor from Dove Creek, CO., met us in Monticello, UT. and bought a new battery for us and then installed it. While Nick and Pastor Liming were installing the battery, Anna received a call from Liberty Counsel asking to do an interview about the project. The team happily agreed, but we discovered we needed a land line for proper sound quality for the radio. We asked Pastor Liming if we could stay at his house for the phone call. He agreed and also recommended a Christian mechanic in Monticello who he knew was trustworthy to help us with the remaining vehicle problems. The mechanic shop that Pastor Liming recommended was a Christian auto shop called Schaffer’s auto. We went to them initially for a radiator flush and some other basic things before going off into the land of wilderness. We were able to tell Mr. Schaffer about our project for the unborn, and he was touched. He told Anna that his auto clinic donates to the local pregnancy center, and that they love the work that pregnancy centers do. We had an amazing day hanging out in the mechanic shop and they were so hospitable and kind. When it came time to get the bill for the van, Mr. Schaffer handed us a bill of $0.00 and gave us the kindest smile.
After we had left the shop, we drove to Pastor Liming’s for the night. Pastor Liming has become a dear friend of ours as well as a trusted mentor. He has opened his home to us numerous times and has consistently taken us in in with kindness and hospitality. He allowed us to stay the night, and the next day Anna was able to use his landline for a phone interview with Liberty Counsel. The phone interview was with Mat Staver and Holly Meade. The eleven minute broadcast was aired on December 19, but can still be listened to here: http://www.lc.org/faith-and-freedom-full-article/young-lady-runs-across-the-usa-todefend-the-unborn. The interview was a very exciting opportunity to get to share our passion for the lives of the unborn. After we left Pastor Liming’s, we headed to Blanding, Utah to continue on our route, but our van began making really rough noises. We called Schaffers Auto Clinic again, and he said that we were welcome to bring it by again if we wanted. We decided that this was the best idea since we didn’t want to go into the wilderness with a broken van. Just two miles away from the auto shop, our van broke down, and we pulled off on the side of the road. We called Mr. Schaffer and he said that he would drive out to meet us. He came and ended up being able to drive the van the remaining two miles to his shop. While we were there, they did hours of work and once again presented us with a bill of $0.00. They blessed us and encouraged us so much.
The next morning, we headed back to Blanding, Utah once more to continue running. Just before our run, we stopped at a coffee shop called Hunt’s Trading Post. We had met the couple who worked there earlier and they knew about our project. They ended up giving us our coffee for free. Peoples’ kindness on the road has been nothing short of God’s orchestration. After this stop, we were finally able to begin running again. We had finally reached the wilderness. Runs were peaceful and quiet with hardly a soul passing Nick and Anna on the road. On our team’s route from beyond Blanding, there were no people, houses, stores, or anything just desert and wilderness. For a few nights, we decided to use our tent rather than camp in the van. Nick found a lovely spot while we were out running one day. We set up our camp, Nick built a fire, and we relaxed in the silent wilderness. Our first two days of camping and running were peaceful and relaxing. Our third day we ran like usual, but then rains set it. It ended up raining all night long. Megan set out our water bottles in order to catch some extra water to our waning supply, but we didn’t get much. Nick fought the rain by building a fire in spite of it. We cooked our food over the campfire like we typically do, and did our best to keep our supplies dry. That night as we went to bed, the rain quickly turned to snow. A couple hours into the night, Anna woke up and saw that the weight of the snow had caused the tent to collapse. Pushing the sides of the tent knocked the snow down for the night. When we woke up in the morning, several inches thickly coated the ground all around our campsite. Again, Nick fought the moisture and built a fire for cooking our breakfast. Our water supply began to run low, so Megan and Anna gathered pots of snow and began melting them and pouring them into empty milk containers so that we would have something to drink. Having snow to melt meant we could once more enjoy the luxuries of tea or coffee and also enjoy meals that might involve boiling noodles. In preparation to leave our camping area, we boiled about three gallons of snow water, hung all of our sleeping bags and clothes in trees around the campfire to dry, broke down our tent, and repacked everything in our van. Our last part of clean up was burying our fire alternating layers of dirt and snow to ensure we put it out completely.
We camped in our van for the next couple of nights as Nick and Anna slowly conquered Highway 95 through Utah. The hills were high and the grades steep, but slowly, progress was made. One blessing of this wilderness road was cattle trails along side the road. These gave a variety from the road running that Nick and Anna typically have to do. Anna and Nick’s running finally brought them to a landmark: Halls Crossing, but we found that we were too late to take the Ferry across. We had to drive all the way around to the other side of the lake to pick up the road on the other side. From here, running in truly deep wilderness began. About six miles past Bullfrog (the Marina across from Hall’s Crossing) begins a trail called the Burr Trail. This trail is a partially paved, partially gravel road that runs through the southern portion of Capitol Reef National Park. Running this portion of the project has been the most difficult part of the whole run. People told us repeatedly that after the Continental Divide in Colorado, we would be running down hill, but Utah has proved to be a different story. High elevation, extreme elevation changes, grades reaching as high as 14%, switchbacks that last miles, and cliffs and canyons to run over and through, have all proved to make Utah much different than anticipated.
Though this has all been difficult, our team’s strength is from the Lord, not ourselves. More and more prayers are deeply appreciated. After much time and low miles on the Burr trail, we decided that we would take our Christmas vacation beginning on the 23rd of January, but when we woke up on the 22nd, snow was falling as such a rapid rate that we decided we would be stranded on this wilderness road unless we left immediately. After slow and cautious driving, we made it to a gas station in Bullfrog, Utah. While we were there, Nick asked a cashier if she knew when the snowplows came through to clear the roads. She said that she didn’t know. A short while later, the lady called to Nick and then introduced him to a Ranger. Nick asked the Ranger his advice, and rather than just giving his advice, he offered to give us an escort all the way to where the roads would be more drivable. This man was an answer to the prayers of many. He drove behind us all the way until the roads were clear again. We then continued our drive through beautiful canyons and past looming cliffs until we stopped in a small town for a quick gas fill up. We found a small grocery store, and decided to buy sparkling juice, soda, and cookies to celebrate Christmas. We decided to pick up stockings and small gifts to put inside for each other. When the cashier heard about our project, she lit up and told us about how pro-life she is. She then only charged a fraction of what our total cost was. She also helped us pick out small things to put in each other’s stockings and then hardly charged us for them. Her face was illuminated with the light of kindness and love. When we reached our hotel, we checked in and set up our stockings on a dresser by the beds. We also laid out our lovely presents from our dear friend Allison Isola. Our room looked lovely and festive; it was so wonderful. While we were there, we received a call from a contact we had back in Kansas, Roberta Bretz. She and her husband offered to pay for all three nights that we were spending Christmas there. Their kindness touched our hearts very deeply. We had a lovely Christmas opening our stockings and our presents from Allison. Also, on Christmas, every restaurant was closed, so we didn’t know what to eat. We asked a worker to borrow some eggs so that we could make ourselves pancakes in our van. They were so kind as to give us the eggs so that we could have a really nice breakfast on Christmas.
When we left the hotel, we went to spend a few days with our dear friend, Pastor Liming. Our time at his house was the Christmas that we wouldn’t have even dreamed. When we got there, we had a huge honey ham, lots of cappuccinos (a well loved tradition), we baked three types of cookies (lindor, chocolate chip, and no bake cookies), and we got to enjoy Christmas in a wonderful home. Pastor Liming also blessed us with a “wilderness survival kit” consisting of varieties of chocolates, intelligentsia coffee, and varieties of tea. He then followed that gift with a “wilderness refill kit.” This was filled with more supplies when we had eaten through the others. Pastor’s kindness to take us in and take care of us was very touching, and we loved spending our holidays with someone so dear to us. Before we had to leave Pastor Liming’s house to go back into the wilderness, we were blessed by our dear friend Anita and her husband Cyril (we had met them in Montrose, CO because Anita works at the pregnancy center). They had done another food drive for our team. They gave us several boxes of food and even fresh fruit to eat. This couple is one that keeps on blessing us over and over again. We cannot express our gratitude to these people who live out God’s provision for us daily.
Though Utah has proven to be the most difficult state we have encountered, we know that God has a plan and that God will continue to provide. God shows himself in so many unexpected ways whether through the cashier at the counter, through a college friend, through a past acquaintance, through a kind pastor, or through a pregnancy center worker. We can’t thank everyone enough who has believed in us and taken care of us like their own family.