I am on the cusp of a journey. I am not ready, not quite totally prepared, but none-the-less, it will begin. Today begins the 12 day walk I have spent nine months preparing for. I start on a journey across the Katy Trail between Kansas City MO and St. Louis MO for 175 miles. I am walking for Black Infant Mortality Awareness. I walk because I want people to know about a silent epidemic that is occurring right now in our communities around this nation. Black babies are dying at a rate twice that of their Caucasian peers. I want us to know better so we can do better for these babies and moms.
As I sit here in my quiet house (everyone sleeping), alone with my thoughts, I am eager for this adventure. I am worried too that I will be inadequate to the task. Come what may, I plan to do my part. There are so many moments I am eager to embrace. Speaking for the first time at Missouri's only Historic Black College. I so long to embrace those students and share my stories with them. I also look forward to the warmth and well wishes of my sister Missouri midwives. I'm looking forward to long days on the trail alone with my thoughts shrouded in pristine beauty of central Missouri. I'm looking forward to my talk in Columbia MO to a mixed audience of healthcare providers, educators, birthworkers, and birthing women. I'm even looking forward to my time in Jefferson City talking to legislators about this issue. The talk in St. Louis at the end of the walk is completely humbling to me. They gave me an auditorium that seats 225 people. Wow. I'm excited for the people I'll meet, the conversations I'll have, the lectures I'll give. the new things I learn.
I want everyone to follow this adventure, this journey. I'll be recording vlogs daily, and writing in this blog whenever I have access to internet. Thank you to all my many supporters from around the globe and around the nation. Please make a donation to our work if you have the means. All prayers and well wishes for my safety are equally valued. Pray for my internal fortitude, a deepening of my relationship with my creator, that I would have a heart full of gratitude, a head full of wisdom, and a mouth filled with temperance and forbearance. Pray that I will be a blessing to those along my path. Pray for strength for my team who will be my strength.
Thank you to those who have made this journey possible, my many supporters near and far, my sponsors, Ergo Baby, the JJ Way, and Home State Health Plans, and you.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemingway
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