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The Earth Expedition Restructure:
 The first six months of The Earth Expedition have truly been the most unbelievable, adventurous, trying, and affirming days of my life. When I first set out on this trek, I really didn't know what to expect. I mean, I had my ideas. as I had been dreaming about it nonstop for 18 months, but dreams can't teach you how to deal with the sporadic lifestyles of the trail. There is something very beautiful about not knowing what lies ahead of you. There are always recurring questions like what will I eat? Will it be the burger and fries at a local diner or yet another jar of peanut butter and g.o.r.p. on the trail? What will I listen to today, friendly banter from fellow thru-hikers, my favorite audio book or album if my ipod is still charged, or go all natural with the birds and crickets along my path creating my soundscape? Who will I meet? Maybe a college graduate seeking adventure or a true vagabond who has chosen isolation as his new home (Hopefully not an angry bear!). And of course, the ultimate question...where will I sleep tonight?...Let's see...maybe at a host family's place and I'll get a hot shower and home cooked meal, maybe at a hostel with fellow hikers, maybe under some bleachers or a bridge somewhere...or as of most recently, maybe off the highway in some woods or the local cemetery!. Yeah...I will say, I always looked more forward to the first option. But no really, life in this journey has absolutely taught me my place in this world...that I am God's alone and that he seeks me out wherever I go and always makes a provision, whether my top choice or last personal pick.
 And I've learned that people in general are very compassionate, very exciting, and some times over-the-top hilarious. The people I've met along the way, from the trail, to the host families, to the kind passerby's on the road that would pick me up and safely take me into town have proven to me that people care about loving their neighbors (even those that they've never met, will never see again, and maybe could use a beard trim and stick of deodorant! And the response to the cause, a plea for the most basic of needs to be met for our friends in Africa, clean water and medical attention, has been embraced by people everywhere I go. The snowball effect of giving and the ripple effect of looking inside of ourselves and seeing what each of us might have to give have been amazing! I am so proud of the story that our team is trying to tell, and I am extremely grateful for the people who have taken the cause to everyone around them...including several journalist and sponsors who have covered The Earth Expedition since it's launching.
With that said, and so much more that I cannot write it all down, I wanted to be fully honest with all of you and let you know about the new direction that The Earth Expedition will be heading in. As I had mentioned before in my last blog, I have been rethinking the course and actions that I wanted to take with The Earth Expedition. You have a lot of time on your hands to think and pray when you are walking 20 to 30 miles a day. You also have a lot of time on your hands when you are pretty much alone for most of your week. And to be quite honest with you, I don't think that it's very healthy to live outside of community for seven years. I imagine it would cause just about anyone to fall into traps of depression. Don't get me wrong, I believe that it can be done, but I also believe that by dropping the "one-man-record-breaking" portion of the expedition and by embracing more of a team effort, much more could be done for the cause of Africa and its people; I always thought that walking alone and breaking a world record gave intense shock value to the story and created a large platform to speak to others and carry the message about people dying in Africa. But honestly, although it definitely opens up the doors to discussion, it seems to pin more attention to me, the walker, than it does to the cause. It tends to pose more questions of how, against all odds, I will perform this massive physical feat, rather than open up the stories of the millions of women and children in Africa who walk every day, sometimes for 6 hours, hauling bacteria-ridden water to their families, playing horrific odds that one or more of them may die from a water-borne disease... simply because they have no other choice.
I think that the right thing to do is to be honest that I am not a superman, and this journey will be incredibly hard (if not crippling) on me if I go it alone. But our team has talked about how imperative it is that this story be told. So here is our plan, as of November, I am going to continue walking the United States for a total sum of 5,500 miles. I will be walking from San Diego,California back to Georgia where it all began, and I will be traversing through harsh terrain often times at terrible temperatures. We will make a serious grassroots presence in schools and churches all along the way, spreading this story like wildfire. But when I reach Georgia, the prayer is that another passionate athlete will have already joined the Earth Expedition Team and will be prepared to carry our banner on his/her backpack over to Europe for a time and continue this story for Africa, until another picks up the burden and carries it as well to another country, and so on. The best way to describe it is to think of it somewhat like the carrying of the torch for the Olympic Games. Only, this is no game. This is a peaceful revolution for social justice. People run or walk the streets in great numbers for cancer, MS, and diabetes, etc. Let's walk the world for water, and tell everyone that there is absolutely no need for 6,000 people in Africa to die each day because they lack clean water. It's just not acceptable.
I hope that I have not disappointed you by shortening my own personal journey down to 1/3 of the original goal. But I assure you that the intentions that I had when I set out on this journey remain, and I believe that this new chapter in The Earth Expedition will do more for the legacy I was looking to leave, more for myself to feel connected to God and others around me, and more for Blood:Water Mission.
Speaking Engagements: The Earth Expedition has been blessed with many opportunities to speak all over the Midwest from churches and schools to coffee shops and conventions. I have reserved October and the beginning of November to travelling presenting the adventures, stories, and close calls of the Expedition as well as the injustice that is taking place in Africa. If you are inrterested in hearing this story and would like to have Daren come to your organization then contact Amie from The Earth Expedition Team and she will make it happen.
“Life to the Fullest” Daren and The Earth Expedition Team
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