A few weeks ago Josh and the youth group did a service project based like the mission trip last summer where they drove around and just looked for opportunities to serve. They heard about this man who was walking 1000 miles in 1000 hours - a mile at the top of every hour- to raise awareness for blindness. Lee Shayler began going blind when he was 22. He had heard a story on BBC about a man in England (where he is from) who enjoyed walking and when he went blind he decided it wouldn't keep him from walking. After being inspire by several other stories, Lee came up with a plan for this journey he recently finished. He and his wife lived in their camper in the parking lots of several parks in Highlands Ranch for the 42 days that it took to complete the 1000 miles.
Anyway, Josh and the group found out about this and decided to walk a mile with Lee. While they were walking they were able to hear a little about his story. On the second day of walking Lee injured his achilles tendon pretty badly. His wife went to Sketchers and asked what type of shoes to buy so that Lee could continue. Sketchers donated I think around 50 pairs of the shoes with the rounded soles so that Lee could keep his foot in a position to not hurt his achilles further.
He had a tread mill inside the camper that he would walk on during the night and several miles during the day. By the end of the 1000 miles (Lee finished on June 5th) he had muscle tears and spasms in his calves, tendon problems, back problems etc. He was going straight into the hospital the next day.
It was really neat for the kids because as they left the church buiding that morning they prayed for God to open their eyes to see people who needed Him and who they could serve. They irony of that prayer was not lost on them during their day. The rest of their day was spent in downtown Denver walking around looking at the areas where the homeless population lives. Dry Bones is a ministry here that our youth group gives their own money to support each month. Most of them had never actually gone downtown to see what they were supporting though. As they walked around they saw places where bars and jagged rocks were put up for apparently no other reason than to keep homeless from sleeping there, they saw places that were considered safe for these kids to go and get help.
All in all it was a pretty powerful day. Below are some links to Dry Bones and to stories about Lee's
mEye Walk. Check them out!
http://www.meyewalk.com
http://www.coloradocommunitynewspapers.com/articles/2010/05/01/lone_tree_voice/news/22_cm_blind_ltv.txt
www.drybonesdenver.org
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