Long Trek To Thunder Bay

The walk to Thunder Bay indeed was long. The great thing is we had an extra walker, Sean to join us. We met him in Winnipeg and in matter of a day he decided to join us. He was God-given because John Deuling was going to leave us in Thunder Bay.

I was on the day team this week. I was told that we are entering bear territory again, so my hair was starting to stand on end again. In summary, the walk was hot, tiring. There were a few honks, mostly pro-life. This was also the first time we would be walking on the No. 1 highway. The traffic there is so much more intense than the smaller roads. We had to move way over every time these huge trucks passed us, which was quite often. The traffic also was much more fast-moving. It was hard to jog on the gravel and my right thigh was starting to hurt. I also got my first blisters of the walk, which I treated immediately. There was definitely a good share of physical pain to offer up.

In Dryden we met with an inter-denomenational bible study group. They treated us to breakfast at A&W and asked us a lot of questions about our walk. In Kenora, Br. Paul met up with a priest that he knew before and the parishners there took us out to breakfast. As usual, it is these people that pray and feed us along the way that keeps us going.

We saw a blue heron in the act of catching a fish which was one of the many treats of the walk. We finally made it to Thunder Bay after what seemed like an endless week of walking from Winnipeg. I was practically limping to the car the last few meters.

At Thunder Bay, we were given an awesome welcome by Fr. Richard of Corpus Christi and his young adult team. We were delighted to talk to them about youth ministry and pro-life work in Corpus Christi. One of the members of the young adult team was the vice-president of the pro-life group of Lakehead university. We gave him some ideas on how to improve the pro-life movement in Thunder Bay. They made us an amazing dinner of spaghetti and mince. After dinner, we got the best gift ever. Fr. Richard opened up the church for us for adoration, confession and our own private mass.

Today, sadly, we had to bid farewell to John. We were scheming ways that we could keep him, but the reality is that good times have to come to an end. It was especially a sad day for us seminarians at Christ the King because John will not be returning to Christ the King next year. He will be discerning with the Jesuits in Montreal. He will definitely be missed by our group. His musical and social talents are just unbeatable! We took a group picture with him beside the sleeping giant on L. Superior and the Terry Fox memorial. Perfect last venue for such a dedicated group of pro-lifers!

When we return back to Corpus Christi we got ourselves organized for the evening masses. Frances and I were set to go to St. Peters, the first Slovak church in Canada. The priest, Fr. Terri, was ordained just a month ago and he gave us an extraordinary welcome. He came and picked us up, gave us an excellent reception, took us out to dinner and welcomed us to his youth group bocchi ball social. All, very memorable activities.

That takes us unto this moment. More to come about Sunday in Thunder Bay and our route to Sault St. Marie. Bye for now