By Kiri Lanice Walton, Staff Writer
kwalton@williamsonherald.com

Franklin resident Chris Hennig has been hiking the Appalachian Trail for the last two months. He began officially on March 29. His life is not measured in minutes, hours, meals, but more so measured in steps, miles, states and iPod songs now.
He started the trip of 2,200 miles because he wanted to bring attention and awareness to child poverty.

For the last four years, Hennig, 27, traveled throughout the nation with exhibits that educate people about the extent of the African AIDS pandemic as part of his work as a contractor for World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to helping impoverished children and their families.

While working for World Vision, Hennig learned about the Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. He wanted to combine his love for travel, adventure and helping children of poverty.

The result was a six-month commitment, in which he would not receive any pay and has had to sell his possessions in order to receive more money.

He hopes that hiking the trail will encourage people to join World Vision’s child sponsorship program. Those who are members of the program make a monthly monetary commitment to provide for the physical and spiritual needs of children by sending monetary assistance, cards or letters.

So far, Hennig has hiked about 600 miles including about 140 backtracked miles to Trail Days, a festival in Damascus, Va. for hikers.

It is estimated that about 20,000 people come to the festival for the trail’s hikers, where at the festival’s free clinic he saw a doctor about his leg, which he injured around mile 575.

The trip, the trail, the financial and physical hardship is all teaching him unforgettable lessons. He said, “It’s basically about me getting out of my comfort zone” and forcing him to lead a more simplistic, minimalist life, he said, adding that there are children in “exponentially worse situations.”

He is used to a life of constant Internet coverage, a laptop, a cell phone and other technological aspects of everyday life. However, he is learning how to operate without those things, well, except his iPod.

“I have put myself in an environment where I am more focused” because he is free from the everyday technological “distractions,” which has “been a refreshing change of pace.”

About once every week or every other week, he stops to blog about his experience, progress, mental and physical state.
He stops about once every week in a local town to blog about his experience at www.2200miles.com.
“In 2009 technology and nature can hold hands,” he said in one blog post.

He has gained a nickname on the trail: Feed Bag because he carries the top compartment, where he keeps food and snacks, of his pack across his chest so that he does not have to stop to eat.

However, he said he likes the deeper meaning of the nickname as well, “I also feed off of my MP3 player while listening to Scripture, sermons, music, and yes, Jim Gaffigan, all day,” he said in his blog, which can be read at www.2200miles.com.
Through the blog he has been able to bridge the obstacles on his hike to the everyday struggle for survival that impoverished children face, like finding clean water.

Throughout the trail, there are creeks and springs, but it’s highly recommended that hikers bring their own water filters in order to drink from them.

He compared his experience with children who must walk several miles to the nearest water source, which often is contaminated. Many children die from common illnesses like diarrhea because they lack filtration for the water they drink.
“It’s unfathomable to us,” he said.

“This is what a large portion of the world does to survive.”

He said he knows that he physically can hike the trail, but it’s the spiritual and mental exercise that he finds challenging. For the first weeks, he said, it was just him and his MP3 player. Silence and his own playlists, a private soundtrack through the Appalachian Mountains. However, he grew tired of the music. The silence was filled with doubts. He wondered if he had made the right decision. If he had invested, spent or lost money for a good reason.

His Appalachian Trail dreams were almost dashed towards the end of 2008 once he learned that the amount he owed in taxes was three to four times more than he had estimated.

“So I started selling things, and I’m still selling things,” he said in his blog. “Things I have loved and really enjoyed.”
Hennig, who is a musician as well, has sold his keyboard and a Web site domain name. He is in the process of selling his saxophone and his motorcycle.

He is calling it a “hike of faith” because he believed that he could have relied upon his earnings from last year, but now he must rely on God.

He is not certain exactly of the next step after his last step on the trail, but said he would like to continue working and traveling, but he said he has three and a half undistracted months to figure out his next plan or adventure.
Hennig only knows for sure that one child has been sponsored as a result of his trip.
“Even one makes a difference,” he said.

To sponsor a child or learn more about Hennig’s trail progress, visit www.2200miles.com.
To purchase Hennig’s motorcycle, see his ad in the classifieds section.



 

Posted on: 5/28/2009