‘Go, Pray, Serve’ prayer walk travels through Starkville
Lyn and Dave Hanush have been participating in prayer walks since the 1980s, and their current “Go, Pray, Serve” walk across the country has brought them to Starkville.
Lyn’s current walk - “Go, Pray, Serve” - started on July 4 in Madawaska, Maine, on the American-Canadian border and will cover over 6,000 miles across the country to the Mexican border near Tijuana.
“This walk is strictly a walk of prayer for our nation,” Lyn said. “I’m praying for an awakening in America that we will awaken to our need for God.”
Dave said they also pray for the safety of first responders throughout the country and the wildfires in their home state of California.
“I will have walked through 48 states when this walk is complete,” Lyn said.
Lyn and Dave’s church, Atascadero Bible Church in Atascadero, California, support the Seek Him Ministries founded by the couple.
Dave and Lyn stopped to camp at The Pines in Starkville, and will be making their way to their next campground in Kosciusko.
“Starkville is where we’re staying and camped,” Lyn said. “We’re actually not walking through here, but we’re spending a lot of time here. I’ve prayed for this city and for the leaders of the city and the university here as I’ve been here. Wherever we stay, or as I’m walking through, I always pray for the community.”
Lyn said she and Dave attend church each Sunday in the community where they are camped.
“This past Sunday we went to Calvary Baptist Church wonderful people,” Lyn said. “We were just treated like royalty.”
Lyn and Dave said they have loved the friendliness and hospitality of the people they encountered as they’ve travelled through the South.
Lyn has walked in all climates and weather across the country, including rain, snow and the steamy humidity of Florida summers.
“This trip, we’ve tried to plan it out to where I will
walk in the South in the winter months and the North during the summer,” she said.
Lyn and Dave rented out their house in California and are currently living out of their motor home as they walk and camp across the country. Their bulldog, Miss Pearl, walks short distances with Lyn, but mostly keeps Dave company as he rides along in their van.
“The walking itself has been incredibly wonderful, and the scenery is amazing, but the people we meet on the road are the friendliest people,” Lyn said.
Lyn said she has wanted to travel the country since she was a child, and the dream never left her.
“It started when I was 11, and I wanted to bicycle across America with a friend,” she said. “At 11, we weren’t going to do it. We didn’t even ask our parents, but it was a dream that kept coming back.”
As she began walking for exercise, she decided to pursue her dream to walk across the country.
“I started out in California just to see how it would go,” Lyn said.
Lyn, who is 75 years old and has seven great-grandchildren, said she is unsure what
the future will hold when she completes her current walk in approximately three years.
“This is probably my final walk, but I’ll see what God says,” Lyn said. “If He leads me to do another one, I’ll do it.”
Lyn started on her first walk, “California Walk for Relief,” which began in Tijuana, Mexico, 1,035 miles to Brookings, Oregon, in 1983 to raise funds for refugees.
In 1993, Lyn walked 773 miles from Brookings, Oregon, to Blaine, Washington, in the West Coast Walk. In 2003, she walked 4,026 miles from Blaine, Washington, to Key West, Florida, in the “Great American Journey.”
In 2008, she began the “Great American Journey,” which was 1,832 miles from Ormond Beach, Florida, to Madawaska, Maine, in an East Coast prayer walk for the 2008 elections. Lyn averages 15 to 20 miles per day and is occasionally accompanied by family and friends.
“We figured we would just go as much as I can walk and as fast as I can walk in a day, and that’s it,” she said. “Some days is small and other days it’s larger.”
Lyn documents her walks online at GPSwalk.org and on Facebook.com/GPSwalk.