Bennettsville

We didn't leave St. George until noon on Tuesday, already blazing hot, but we walked well all day and made our furthest stretch. A good twenty five miles on the day, and we put up the tent on the lawn next to a hair salon, after raiding a little hotel of about half of its ice.
In the morning we got a good breakfast before heading out of town, then crossed a long, closed to traffic bridge over Lake Marion. By one, sitting behind a gas station drinking sweet tea, the Clarks found us and got us to a hotel in Manning. Later in the day they shuttled us to Sumter, fifteen miles off the route, to find a new backpack for me, as the one I left home with had started, in the previous couple of days, to fall apart pretty badly. After finding a good one we ate dinner and then drove back to the hotel, and I spent the rest of the night tinkering with my new setup.
Thursday morning we met up with Tiffany (Soles4Souls Nashville connection from last trip), who is from the Manning area, at a school for the children of migrant workers. A good bunch of volunteers came to assist with the distribution, and it didn't take long to get all of the children a new pair of shoes.
And then, after a bunch of photographs and some hugs, Timothy and the Clarks got back aboard the S4S RV and headed for Columbia without me. Allan and Silvana dropped Timothy off at the airport on their way to Nashville, and Timothy got on a plane and was home before midnight.
His decision to leave had been brewing for a while, and though I won't pretend to understand exactly what he was feeling, I think that I can hit on the main focus by saying that Tim is a much more social guy than I, and being away from friends and family, regardless of where you're at or what you're doing, is difficult. Also, for being such a slow and deliberate thing walking is incredibly unstable and hard to predict. Each day is different, and there is no way to judge exactly what's going to happen - who we'll meet or where we'll sleep, what we'll eat. Stability is hard to come by out here, and that makes it hard to find a good rhythm.
So certainly I've been readjusting to being by myself, not having somebody to talk to out in the middle of the swamp, but things are going well.
Friday night, shy of the little town of Effingham the sky darkened quickly and I stopped to rest in front of a church before it started raining. Not long after sitting down under the awning a few cars and trucks drove up and parked behind the church, and a man named Jeremy came to the front door and invited me inside for dinner.
The men's fellowship of the church treated me with incredible generosity. After two plates of bog rice, sweet potato casserole, green beans and Cole slaw I told a little bit about my walk, and the organization, and Jeremy made a movement to give the night's offering straight to me. Everyone else agreed, and I was handed an envelope, and have been eating well ever since.
I spent the night at a smaller building behind the church, out of the weather, and some other men from the church arrived to do some work in the morning and filled my pack with crackers, peanuts, and candy bars.
Saturday night I spent in Florence, Sunday in Floyd, and last night I camped in a small park here in Bennettsville, where I met some cool guys and hung out for the evening. I should be across the border into North Carolina by tonight.