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Photo 1: Emilis and I spent the night at the monastery in Sejny and had breakfast with the priests. After they said their prayers to thank God for the breakfast, I said the one sentence that I know in Polish: "Jezus jest moim Panem!" ("Jesus is my Lord!") They liked that and it kind of broke the ice. Communication was otherwise very limited as they did not speak much English or German. They were happy to take this group picture with me... and the breakfast was great. Emilis quipped, "Maybe I should become a priest!" It was a good start for my first day in Poland. Back in the room, after I got my things packed, I said farewell to Emilis and prayed for him one last time. He was returning home and I was starting the Camino Polska.

Photo 2: The day started off quite nice. The fields looked much the same as they did in the Baltics. They were now Polish fields.

Photo 3: Rain did come and go throughout the day. I made it though to the Wigry monastery before a real heavy rain came through.

Photo 4: A very nice pilgrim room at the monastery...
The monastery gained fame in 1999 when Pope John Paul II did a 13 day pilgrimage in Poland and stayed the night of June 12th there. The room where he slept is now almost like a holy shrine and is just one floor below from where I stayed. When I leave on Monday morning, my room will remain a resting place for pilgrims.

Photo 5: One of the things I do every Saturday is wash my clothes, usually by hand.

Photo 1: It was a peaceful morning. I could hear the sand crunching under my shoes and with each stab of my trekking stick in the dirt road. In the distance a lark was chirping as it flew over a field. Wild flowers were mixed with wheat that was waiting to be harvested. On was on my way to the border to Poland. Not to far away to my right was the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. About the same distance to my left was the border to Belarus. It would not have been a good time for war to break out. There is never a good time for war to break out. Recently an US official tossed up the thought at a NATO meeting how it would be to invade Kaliningrad as a distractraction for Putin. Putin quickly pulled the atom card from his full hand of jokers. Is this one strong man trying to bend the arm of the other?

It made me think if what David said to his son Solomon shortly before he died. He said: "Be a man!" Right! But what does that mean? Does being a man mean to face off lions and bears, to slay giants, to become the songs of women, to build a kingdom, to fight wars, to be rich, famous and successful? What, David, does it mean to be a man? David continued his admonishment to his son: "Fear God and keep his commandments!" What a definition of manhood! Can you imagine how the world would be today if all the men of power and influence feared God and kept his commandments? Jesus did it and he released healing grace in the world.

Photo 2: I always feel a touch of sadness when I am about to leave a country. I think of the people I had met, the conversations I had and the prayers that were prayed. I had learned to adapt, knew how to find my way through the country and cultural challenges. Now I was about to enter a new world called Poland. This photo is my first glance of Poland on the other side of the water. About one third of Snail-Trail 3.0 will take me through this land. The first two weeks will be probably the most challenging of the whole trip... long distances, logistical uncertainties, continued rainy weather expected. I am so glad that Jesus walks with me!

Photo 3: Young boys on motocycles riding on the camino path.

Photo 4: I made it to Poland. The border crossing was out in the middle of no where. I was surprised to see a border control of two women and four men, two with machine guns ready to use. Belarus had been shipping immigrants to the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia and telling them that this is the way for them to get to Europe. Poland has reacted with tight border controls. I greeted the border guards with "Dzień dobry!" and then said that I speak English. Two of the guards spoke English quite well. I then told them the only Polish sentence I know: "Jezus jest moim Panem!" (Jesus is my Lord!) That gave me some smiles and broke the ice. I told them what I was doing. They were interesting in seeing my pilgrim passport with all the stamps from Estonia to the Polish border, but they were also very glad to see my German ID and US passport. I said that I was a pastor and a pilgrim and offered to pray for them. They accepted. Never before had I prayed for someone looking at me with a machine gun in the hand. I knew I could not take their picture, so I said that I would remember their yellow emergency vests and smiling faces. They answered: "We will never forget you!" I guess that was a first for them as well.

Photo 5: Sejny is the official end of the Camino Lituano and the start of Camino Polska. Two days ago at the campground I met Gintas and his wife from Kaunas. They are also believers from a Pentecostal Church. We were surprised to have met each other at such an obscur place on the camino. Today we walked the last kilometer to the church in Sejny together. It was the end of their camino. Mine continues...

Sidenote: The maps distances and destinations are not in sync with how I have actually walked the past three days.

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...

Photo 1: I thought this Camino waymarker was interesting. It is on a concrete anti-tank barrier from World War II. Something that was once used to obstruct violent entry, is now pointing the way to peaceful passage. May it remain so...

Photo 2: At noontime I walked through the village of Miroslavas. This young lady passed by me on the other side of the street. I saw her coming and asked the Lord if this might be someone he wanted me to talk to. We said hello and she continued on. About a minute later she turned around and passed me again. She looked at me and asked: "Camino?" Her name is Ruth. She was using her lunchbreak to take a walk. She wanted to know why a 68 year old man would carry a heavy backpack through the Baltics to Germany. I told her that I was walking with Jesus and he asked me to pray for the countries and people as I walked. I said that God loves the people in Lithuania very much and he wants them to know his heart. She placed her hand over her heart and said that these are healing words. I asked her if she knew the story of her name Ruth that was in the Bible. She did not. She said that she loved and trusted Jesus. I asked if she had ever read the story of Jesus in God's book. She had not. She did not have a Bible. I sensed a longing in her heart to know God in a deeper way. I told her that there was so much more to discover about God and his ways, but it is important to know what he tells us in his word. She promised that she would get a Bible. I told her to read the story of Ruth, and then read the story of Jesus. As I prayed for Ruth and her family, she kept placing her hand over her heart. It was a God-lunchtime-appointment. There are so many people in the Baltics like Ruth who hold to a Christian tradition, but do not know how to walk with God in daily life or what it means to follow Jesus.

Photo 3: Originally I wanted to stay at the parish house in Miroslavas, but the weather was good for walking and it was still early in the day. I decided to go to the campground Akromų Sodyba at the end of the next stage. In making and cancelling the reservation in Miroslavas, I found out that the priest there spoke some German and told him that I would like to still come by and meet him. He is actually from Poland and his name is Miroslav like the name of the village. I had a cup of tea and we talked and prayed. Since he spoke polish, I asked him if he could call the monastery in Sejny where I would spend my first night in Poland, whether they had a pilgrim room and a bed available. I could find no contact information. He made the call and it was confirmed that I could come. That was a relief, because the other two places listed in the Camino Lituano App had no availibility and rain was expected that evening.

Photo 4: When I left the church in Miroslavas I took a wrong turn. When I turned around, I saw this Holy-Spirit-Dove-Cloud hovering over the church tower. This is my prayer for Lithuania that God's Spirit would bring renewal and draw people to the truths of God's word and to a living relationship with him.

Photo 5: It was a long day, walked almost 40 km. I slept well in my tent. It did not rain in the night...

Photo 1: It may seem to be the end of the road, but every pilgrim knows that it will continue on the other side of the hill, and at the end of the road there will be another path that will lead to another stretch and will take you to another day and another journey. It never ends.

Markus knew he was going to die. He was just not sure what might be there after. He was a mater-of-fact person who grew up without religious leanings. For a number of years his family came to our church in Moosburg. We had some talks. But his mind struggled to grasp a spiritual reality. Shortly before I left Germany to start the Snail-Trail walk in Estonia, his son contacted me whether I could come and talk with his dad one more time. I gladly went. God gave grace, and Markus accepted it. There were tears. We celebrated communion. Both his sons were there and could pray with their dad. It was a special moment.

Today towards noon I received the news that Markus had breathed his last breath early in the morning. He now knows that the road does not end at the crest of a hill. No, it was at the crest of a hill called Golgatha where Jesus broke open the Way, which is the Truth and the Life that brings us to the Father. The hand that took the nail for Markus on that rugged cross, took his when that last breath left his lungs. The Good Shepherd led his lamb through the shadows of death... and brought him home to the Father. Amazing grace! It is for everyone who would come and receive it. At the end of his road, Markus found that connecting straight and narrow path that led to a new day. His journey continues...

Photo 2: My day started in Birštonas walking along the Nemunas River.

Photo 3: I had a number of hills today going up and down the river valley, for a total of 1087 altimeters.

Photo 4: The bridge that crosses the river to the city of Alytus. I arrived at my destination before the rain came.

Photo 5: The day ended with a very nice, peaceful walk along the river. In between there was one challenging and adventurous stretch... not the normal St. James Way, but shorter. I had combined two stages for 40 km and wanted to cut off a big corner. I made it... as always with God's help!

Photo 1: It was love at first sight... (Wood carving on the path to Birštonas)

Today 37 years ago, Astrid and I stood before the official at the registry office in Munich and sealed our fate. We said yes and signed the dotted line. The civil ceremony in Germany is what carries the legal seal of marriage. Two days later we we repeated our vows before God and man in a church wedding. This is the third year in a row that I have been on the Snail-Trail on our anniversary. As Paul wrote in 1. Corinthians 13:7, "Love... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Photo 2: Most of the walk today followed the Nemunas River.

Photo 3: Shortly before I took a lunch break, this family passed me on their bikes. They are doing the Camino Lituano by bicycle, also as a spiritual quest. Before I continued on, I prayed with them for their family, their Camino and journey through life.

Photo 4: It did not rain today. It is not supposed to rain in the night. I dared to put up my tent! Their were two young girls working at the campground reception and restaurant, daughters of the owner. At lunchtime I discovered that I had bought a can of tuna that does not have the pull off top. So I asked them if they might have a can opener. We started talking about my trip and then about God's purposes for our lives. I encouraged them to look to the Good Shepherd to guid their ways, just as he has done for me.

Scan 5: I am now where the blue dot on the map is. You can see how far I have come from Tallinn on the northern tip of Estonia. Today I reached the One-Third-Milestone and have walked 896 kilometers. With God's help I continue on...

Today would have been a nice day weather wise for walking. I wished the pilgrims well who departed this morning. I was glad though to have the day of rest.

Photo 1: The hostel where I am staying is in the upper left corner of this historic manor.

Photo 2: Across the street is this mansion, at the entry to which I had yesterday the talk and prayer with the young family father.

Photo 3: Big clouds on zhe horizon. It was not supposed to rain today, but in the early evening there was a cloudbust. That is how it was been all week.

Photo 4: A piece of art in front of a church in Kaunas showing fish coming together drawn to the circle of God's grace, love and light (my interpretation).

Photo 5: The St. James shell as a waymarker in Kaunas...

Photo 1: One of the many wood sculptures that are found in villages on the side of the road.

Photo 2: Dog greeters...

Photo 3: A Lithuanian hill...

Photo 4: Storks surrounded by clouds...

Photo 5: There were four of us staying at the hostel in Daukšiagires. It is an old manor in the middle of no where. I was so happy that the host offered to prepare meals, because otherwise I would have had to either carry a lot of food for the weekend plus breakfast and lunch for Monday, or eaten a number of cans of tuna fish.

Across the street from the hostel is a mansion that is used for private gatherings. When I arrived, a wedding was taking place. A man was sitting in the shade with a small child across from the entry to the mansion. I asked if he spoke English and knew what was going on. He said that his wife was performing the wedding ceremony, but that it was not a religious one. I told him that I was a pastor and also had done a number of weddings. He said that he and his wife were not religious, but maybe some day they would come around to it. I said that I was also not religious and explained the difference between being religious and following Jesus. I then offered to pray for him and his family, which he gladly accepted. I think it was a knock on his heart from heaven.

In the photo to the left is Emilis. After a few days, he caught up with me again. I was very happy to see him. Next to him is Iya from Latvia with her 79 year old father. They are both active in developing the Camino Latvia. We had a great time together at the communal meal in the evening. For the picture Iya got the Latvian Camio scarves for her and her father and also gave one to me and Emilis.

Emilis and I continued to talk after the meal. I explained what happened in the Garden of Eden that messed human history up, and how Jesus came to give us a new start with God. We prayed together for that new start in his life. I told Emilis that we are now spiritual brothers through our faith connection with Jesus.

It was a good week... and I am looking forward to my day of rest tomorrow.

Photo 1: As I was walking through Kaunas this morning, I notice this man unloading something to take into a Catholic Church. On his shirt it says "God's Squad". I asked him if he spoke English, which he did, and asked him what his shirt is all about. He is part of a Christian motocycle group in Lithuania that also has connections with a group in the USA. They call themselves the God's Squad, ride their bikes through the land, and endeavor to come into contact with people and, as expressed in the song from yestetday evening's service, to speak Jesus. We understood each other real well. I do not remember his name, but I prayed for him and his group. He gave me a motocycle man hug afterwards.

Photo 2: I saw these colors of the Lithuanian flag hanging down from the dome of the St. Archangle Michael Church in Kaunas. At the center of the Dome is the dove symbol for the Holy Spirit. May the fire of the Holy Spirit bring spiritual renewal to this country...

Photo 3: Two boys crossing the pedestrian bridge over the Nemunas River. If you look close enough, the one on the right is wearing a Milwaukee Bucks t-shirt. Lithuanians are big basketball fans.

Photo 4: I walked an extra half hour to go to this famous nunnery just outside of Kaunas. It was part of the pilgrim path. Since I was a pilgrim I was granted entry without charge. There were several tourist groups going here and there, but I was able to go alone in the church and sing my pilgrim song and pray for the people of Lithuania. Maybe that is what God wanted me to do. I had to walk through heavy rain and cross a long damm to get there and got splashed repeatedly by large trucks passing by, but the rain stopped for the rest of the walk.

Photo 5: I stayed the night at this House of Nature. I was the only one there, could get my things dry, and most importantly, I slept well.