Like her name suggests, the Rev. Carol Cruise is on a journey.
She literally has been around the block.
The Ohio woman lost her lower right leg to a medical mishap nearly 20 years ago. But that hasn’t prevented her from conducting a personal pilgrimage, a “faith walk” for God.
Cruise – with the help of a prosthetic limb, and accompanied by friends and a three-legged Pomeranian fittingly named “Walker T” (the T is for Tripod) – is walking the perimeter of the United States counterclockwise.
All in the name of God, country and her ministry.
“It’s been awesome. I have met so many nice people along the way,” said the 54-year-old Cruise, who recently passed through Auburn’s streets on her way across Western Washington to the Oregon Coast. “I would like to say God’s carrying me every mile because I can’t do it. My doctors said I couldn’t do it.”
Doctors tried to save her leg, but despite 15 surgeries and three years, they could not. She accepted the loss but gained strength in her faith.
She decided to walk again, but this time with a purpose.
“I’ve been blessed,” said Cruise, a single mother and former chemical dependency counselor who became an ordained minister. “I’m doing all of this on faith.”
Cruise has a long way to go before she reaches her ultimate destination – South Beach, Miami – but she’s allowed herself plenty of time to get there.
On a 9-year mission
She designed her walk to stretch more than 10,000 miles and finish exactly on the day it started nine years ago.
Cruise’s journey began with her first northerly steps out of Miami on Jan. 1, 2002.
On New Year’s Eve 2010, Cruise plans to finish the mission with a bang, amid some fanfare and midnight fireworks in Florida.
Cruise averages about 10 miles a day, with Sundays off.
For every mile she walks, Cruise places a small wooden cross into the ground, marking her progress and spreading the word of her mission. Each cross is attached to a card that explains her ministry and asks the finder to pass the crucifix on.
“Through this, I have become a better person, not a bitter person,” she said.
A friend she met along a remote Montana highway last summer escorted Cruise on her brief visit to Auburn.
Auburn’s ultra-walker, Don Stevenson, was heading east on his benefit walk for Huntington’s disease. Cruise was heading west.
“Don extended an invitation to meet up again here,” Cruise said on a break from her jaunt along the north Auburn sidewalks. “I’m glad I came.”
Added Stevenson: “She’s a remarkable person.”
Cruise intends to follow the coastline to San Diego before turning eastward toward Corpus Christi, Texas, and eventually, South Florida.
Just last week, Auburn – precisely at the intersection of Auburn Way North and 37th Street Northeast – represented the 6,125th mile.
Wendi Miller, a friend, stays nearby, driving a support vehicle. Donations from well-wishers, churches, organizations and businesses generously support the walk. A New Hampshire firm, for instance, donated the last three prosthetic legs. Cruise currently is pounding the pavement on her seventh one.
The walk is a testimony to her inspiration and devotion, and a way to pray and spread the good word.
“There have been so many changes in my life,” she said. “My faith is so much larger than when I started.”
