24. Jul 2025

Miroslavas - Grauzai

Photo 1: This is my first cow picture that I have posted this trip. The camino path went right through a cow pasture. I unfortunately mistook a cow path to be the camino path and went twice in a circle until I got my orientation. Was God adjusting my time schedule?

Photo 2: I really like the perspective of this wood carving in the typical Lithuanian fashion on a path with the stations of the cross. It reminded me of the verse from the book of Hebrews where it says that Christ endured the pain of the cross for the joy that was set before him (Hebrews 12:2). He saw what his suffering would bring. He saw us... and it was worth it to him to bare the pain.

Shortly after I walked by this church, a group of young people were walking up the road towards me. They were doing a field project and one teenager asked me if I had seen any mushrooms. His name ist Ryan and is 16 years old. I told him that I said "Yes" to Jesus when I was 16. He replied that he is a Muslim that he has a Christian mother and a Muslim father. I answered that the Koran speaks of Jesus and that Mohammed wrote that Muslims need to believe the Torah and the Gospel (Ingeel). The problem is that the Koran contains neither the Torah nor the Gospel, nor the Psalms, Proverbs and so much more. I suggested that if he wanted to be a good Muslim, he should read the Gospel from his mother's Bible. I also said that mushrooms are more likely to be found in the nearby woods than on the side of the street. Maybe this brief encounter was the reason I needed to walk a few circles in a cow pasture...

Photo 3: The storm eventually caught up to me.

Photo 4: After about 15 minutes of walking through the rain, I came to a small grocery store. It was lunchtime and I bought something to eat. They did not have tuna fish, so I purchased a can of chicken meat... never done that before. It reminded me so much of the packages of cat food that we give our cats. Sometimes eating on the pilgrim path is more about giving your body the bio fuel it needs than it is about having an enjoyable meal.

The people at the store were kind enough to allow sit in narrow entry way to the store and gave me a crate to sit on so I would have shelter from the rain while I ate my lunch. All of a sudden Andrius stood in the entry way as well. He is 17 years old and just returned by bus from a trip to Kaunas and was waiting for his dad to pick him up. He wanted to smoke a cigarette asked me if I had a light. "Only in my heart", I answered. We then started talking about Jesus and what it means to follow him. He has a real desire to do so... and to stop smoking. I told him he needs to get to know Jesus by reading his words in the New Testament. Walking and talking with Jesus, knowing his heart and words, will give him strength to overcome tobacco addiction and lead him to the purpose for why God created him. He was so happy when I prayed for him and said he was looking forward to seeing his picture with me and reading this story about our talk on the Snail-Trail Blog.

Perhaps that is why I walked twice in circles in the cow pasture: One was for Ryan and one was for Andrius.

Photo 5: I managed this time to get my rain pants on before the rain got to be too persistant. My feet stayed basically dry...

Milestone: 1000 Kilometers now completed