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Part 72: Where All Journeys Grow

Chapter 6: Overland

V2.0 – 10/02/2025

I opened my eyes and listened to the sounds of the night around me. I looked around but saw only dark shadows. The night air had cooled. I shivered. I pulled each of my shoes up higher on my feet and tugged my pant legs down to try to close the gap there.

I heard a distant noise and looked down the road. Far away I saw headlights. As time passed I heard the sound growing louder and louder. It was the sound of a truck, a very large truck. The headlights grew larger and larger, coming closer and closer to me. I stood to my feet and put my backpack on again.

I waited.

As the truck rolled closer it slowed. I could tell now that it was a large semi-truck. Its lights grew so bright they were all I could see in the darkness of the night. It rumbled to a stop, its engine idling in the night air. I heard both doors open at almost the same time. Then, stepping into the light of the headlights, I saw a man and a woman approaching me.

“Look Herald! The fallen tree! And that must be the man we were sent here to find. Hello son! Hello!” The woman’s words flowed from her like a river.

The couple came and stood at the edge of the road looking down on me. The man extended a hand to me and beckoned me to come up to them.

I hesitated and listened closely with my spiritual ears.

“Go with them.” The Holy Spirit spoke so loudly to my spirit that it was almost a nudge in their direction. I stumbled forward a bit and caught myself.

“OK, OK.” I whispered.

I walked up to the road and shook the man’s hand.

“I’m Andrew.” I introduced myself to them.

“Andrew.” The woman said in wonder.

The man was older. His long brown hair had streaks of white in the edges of it. He was shorter than me, but not by much. He wore oily jean overalls with a white t-shirt underneath them. On his feet he wore heavy work boots.

“I’m Herald, as you already know, and this wild one here is my wife Mildred.” The man said, then asked, “What are you doing way out here son?”

Mildred was shorter than her husband with wild gray hair pulled back into an unruly ponytail. She wore a jean dress decorated with flowers covered with a jean vest embroidered with similar flowers. She was a herald to the hippies and the long gone 70s era.

“Look Herald. The fallen tree.” She told her husband pointing again to the fallen tree.

“I see it dear.” He told her with a dismissing wave of his hand.

Herald looked me over considering, then said, “We have to get going or we will be late. You’re coming with us. We are supposed to take you to where you need to be.”

“Are ya’ll going to Meribah?” I asked.

Mildred let out a small laugh and said, “Meribah, where is that? No, no, dear. We are delivering a shipment to the Port of Virginia. We will explain everything on the way. Let’s get going now.” She paused a moment looking around then asked me, Where are your things?”

I motioned to my backpack and replied, “This is all I own.”

“Ok, well that makes loading up easy.” Harold said nodding toward the truck. “You can ride in the back. Let’s go.”

And with that we walked over to the cab of the massive truck. I followed Herald who opened the driver’s door and motioned for me to climb in. I climbed up the tall doorway and over the driver’s seat. In the rear of the cabin was a bed, clothes, and other things. I stepped back a bit as the blankets moved and out came a small dog. It considered me sleepily and then retreated back under the blankets.

“You have a dog?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s Marty. He’s a cranky old guy. He won’t hurt you.” Mildred replied.

“Where should I sit?” I asked Herald as he climbed up into the truck behind me.

“Sit in the center of the bed. You’ll find a seatbelt below it that you can put on.” He replied getting settled in the driver’s seat.

Mildred climbed up into the passenger seat and put her seatbelt on then turned to watch me and said smiling, “It’s not much but it’s home.”

I sat on the center of the bed and searched beneath it for the seatbelt. I found both of its sections and pulled them up and fastened them across my waist. I took off my backpack and set it on the floor between my feet.

The truck roared into motion. We sped down the road leaving the fallen tree behind. Mildred handed me a bag of chips and a bottle of soda which I accepted gratefully and began to eat.

Between bites I asked, “How did ya’ll find me?”

“Ah,” Mildred replied, “I guess we had better tell you the whole story.”

She turned in her seat and considered me again. “You’re of the faith aren’t you?”

“What faith is that?” I asked her.

“A follower of Christ. It’s very obvious to me. You shine brightly in the spiritual realm.” She replied with a bright smile, and then added, “And you smell of wildflowers, the pleasant aroma of one who knows and walks closely with the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“I am that.” I told her.

I opened my spiritual senses to the atmosphere of the truck. I saw both of them shining brightly as well. I knew them as I always seemed to know other believers. The atmosphere of the truck was pure peace. I sighed out relief and relaxed.

“Tell me the whole story.” I suggested smiling back at her.

“Ok,” Mildred said looking over at her husband, then she began her story, “We are truckers, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. We came to Christ many years ago and felt called to travel the country sharing our faith as we worked and traveled. We’ve seen God work is such mysterious ways among our trucking community. The Holy Spirit loves truckers and is all about reaching them with the love of Christ.”

She paused in her telling to take a big drink from her mug, then continued, “We received the gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit a few years back and since then God has really begun to change the way we minister to people as we travel back and forth across the country.”

Marty came out of the blankets and settled himself in my lap. I held him and ran my hand down his coat as Mildred continued her story, “A few days ago we were praying and God showed me a vision of a fallen tree on a remote road. I saw you sitting in the darkness in that vision and you were waiting for us. God told me that you would be waiting for us to pick you up. I shared the vision and what God has told me with Herald. He felt that it was from God and so…”

“We didn’t know where you would be, where this road was with the fallen tree, but we trusted God to lead us to you.” Herald interjected.

Mildred smiled and continued, “Yesterday we received a job to transport cargo from Denver to the port in Virginia. I immediately knew that we should take that job, that somehow it would lead us down the paths that would lead us to you.”

“I felt the same, which was confirmation for us.” Herald agreed.

Mildred continued, “We picked up the cargo yesterday afternoon and began our journey. We have been asking God to show us how to find you this whole trip. Then, and this is the crazy part, a few hours ago we almost got run off the road by this hot rod car. It sped up behind us and passed us. It was driving so recklessly I thought surely we’d hit it. But then…”

“I felt we should follow it.” Herald said.

“I thought he was crazy.” Mildred said with a laugh, “But we followed it off the highway. Of course it sped up and we couldn’t see it anymore. By then we had gotten far off the interstate. We prayed and felt that we should return to the interstate. Then we found ourselves on the road that led us to you. God is amazing.”

“That sounds very much like the God I serve.” I said with a smile.

“He does work in mysterious ways.” Herald agreed. Mildred nodded her agreement.

“You said something about a place called Meribah? Is that where you’re going? How did you get to the side of that road?” Mildred asked.

I ran my hand down Marty’s back. He slept on contentedly in my lap. His warmth was comforting in my arms. I looked back up and replied, “It’s a long story.”

“Well, we have about 18 hours till we reach the Port of Virginia.” Herald said with a laugh.

His hands were tight on the steering wheel. By now we had returned to the interstate and were speeding along it in the darkness of the night. The clock on the dashboard read half-past midnight.

I took a deep breath and let it out. Sitting on the bed in the back of the cabin wasn’t in the least bit comfortable but I was grateful to me in motion again. I considered all that had happened since yesterday morning. One moment I was drinking coffee on my porch and the next I was homeless being transported by this wonderful Christian couple in a semi-truck hurdling toward some port on the coast far away. What does God have in mind ahead?

“You’re story?” Mildred encouraged me softly. I looked up at her and smiled.

I took another deep breath and told them all the events that had led up to the moment I had seen their truck in the distance. When I told them about Aiden, they told me that it had to be the hot rod that had almost caused them to crash, the one they had followed off the interstate.

“You could have gone with him, and we would have missed you by minutes.” Mildred observed.

“Yes,” I said a bit ashamed at even having considered Aiden’s offer, “I was cold, tired, and hungry.” I said lamely.

Mildred turned and gave me a loving look of rebuke saying, “You don’t seem the kind of man to take the easy path.”

“I hate the Dark One so much.” I said aloud looking out the window at the passing lights of a city in the distance.

“I think we all do.” Herald agreed, then added, “But God uses the Dark One to accomplish His will on the Earth.”

“We don’t know where Meribah is,” Mildred said softly, “But we can take you the port. We know a man there who runs one of the shipping companies at the port. If he is in port we can introduce you and perhaps he knows where to find Meribah and how to get there.”

“I only know that I am supposed to climb some mountain. Is Meribah the name of that mountain? I don’t know. God hasn’t told me that yet. I am just trusting Him to lead me there.” I said thoughtfully.

“You could ask Him.” Mildred suggested.

“I have. He hasn’t answered yet.” I replied with a laugh.

“Ah,” Mildred said knowingly, then added, “I think God works in ways that help us grow in trusting Him.”

“Something like that,” I said softly.

Mildred turned to me and said, “You seem very tired son, why not lay down and sleep a bit. You’ll feel better when you wake.”

I nodded to her and said, “Thank you, I will.” I paused and then asked, “But what about you two? Don’t you need sleep to drive?”

“We take turns sleeping as we transport our cargo. We’ve both slept plenty on this trip, but it sounds like you’ve slept little since you left your home.” Herald said.

“Oh, OK.” I said.

I set Marty aside and took off the seat belt. I stretched out on the bed and settled myself on it. Marty arranged himself between my legs. I listened to the roar of the engine and the soft conversations between the couple as I relaxed.

“Thank you,” I said in my spirit to God.

I was warm, fed, and safe. I drifted off to sleep and dreamt of cups of cream-colored coffee.

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