Two-and-a-half years after an accident left in doubt whether she would ever take another step, Rebecca Bosquez, 19, and her mother, Lisa, have set out to walk from Tybee Island to San Diego.
    After dipping their toes in the Atlantic and strolling along the beach with the Moon River Walkers, they set out June 12 from Tybee on an intended 2,400-mile journey. They made halting progress for eight days before skipping ahead a little in their support van to speak at the Wednesday noon prayer meeting in the chapel of the Guido Evangelistic Association in Metter.
    “I think this will be a trip that will build our faith, build our trust and also allow us to provide hope and inspiration to other people,” Lisa told the prayer group.
    Like the Guido family’s Sower Ministries upon whom they called, the Bosquezes have a Bible-based name for their journey: Cloud and Pillar. It reflects their belief that Rebecca’s being able to walk — or simply being — is a miracle and that God is guiding them on their journey.
    The story they tell starts in November 2009 in their hometown of New London, Wis. After a missionary who had returned from Burkina Faso spoke to Rebecca’s church youth group, she announced to family and friends that she wanted to become a missionary to the impoverished African nation.
    The next day, Nov. 5, Rebecca was driving a Chevette with her sister Hannah, now 18, and a friend named Morgan when a full-size pickup T-boned the compact car. A resulting impact shattered Morgan’s eye socket and broke her collarbone. Hannah, in the back seat, had minor injuries.
    But Rebecca sustained a traumatic head injury, six broken ribs and lacerations to her spleen and liver. The chest injury greatly reduced her breathing capacity.
    Doctors at first didn’t know if they would be able to save Rebecca’s life, Lisa said. She recalled the news that she and her husband, Tony, received after a terrifying phone call directing them to a hospital trauma center.
    “If she did make it, they didn’t know if she’d ever leave a medical facility — or walk,” Lisa said.
    “That’s part of what this walk is about, celebrating my recovery,” chimed Rebecca, who obviously has made one. “We’re walking because I should not be able to walk.”
    After being placed in an induced coma for 2 1/2 weeks and then slowly revived, she took her first steps within a month or so, but remained in the hospital for two months.
    The brain injury left her with memory problems and mood swings.
    “It was really difficult being not angry at someone all the time, or crying all the time or laughing,” Rebecca recalls. “Everything was intensified.”
    After leaving the hospital, she received physical therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy. Her mother notes that speech therapy also includes work on memory and reasoning.
    Rebecca was halfway through the first semester of her senior year in high school when the accident occurred. She returned the first day of the second semester and was able to graduate on time. This spring, she became a certified nursing assistant, completing the program at a technical college.
    She wants to continue her education to become a physician’s assistant and still would like to serve as a missionary to Africa, perhaps making short trips instead of an extended stay, she said.
    It was Lisa who was paging through a magazine in January when she “felt like God told me to walk across the country,” she said. After laughing at herself, she talked to Rebecca, who quickly agreed to go. They set up a website, www.cloudandpillar.com, to raise money “to give to organizations that help people become self-sufficient, contributing members of their societies,” Rebecca said.
    Hannah and their aunt, Julie Bosquez, drive ahead in the van to scout the route, then pick up Rebecca and Lisa after each walking session.
    The first week brought challenges. Leaving Tybee, mother and daughter balanced between handrail and traffic whizzing by on the Lazaretto Creek Bridge. A couple of days later, Rebecca ran out of a medication, causing her stamina to decline. When their insurance would only cover the prescription in Wisconsin, they had her grandmother mail them a refill.
    After receiving the medication Monday, they hoped to improve on the maximum 13-mile day they had managed so far, but revised their goal down to 10-15 miles per day from a more optimistic projection first given on their website. They still hope to reach the West Coast in October.
    “The whole thing is just to keep them going, and they’re not discouraged one bit yet,” said their friend Angie Coenen.
    By phone and email from her home in Wisconsin, Coenen is arranging speaking engagements and lodging for the Bosquezes as they move forward.
    So far, the journey has an improvised, spontaneous feel to it. One day, they rode rented bicycles instead of walking, but Rebecca found cycling too unsettling. Originally, their itinerary had them traveling through Statesboro on U.S. Highway 80, but they saw Georgia Highway 46 offering a straighter route westward and changed course. It was then, through contact with the Statesboro Herald, that they learned about the Guido Evangelist Association.
    Lisa and Rebecca had traveled by foot power as far as the intersection of Highways 119 and 46 before driving to spend Tuesday night in a Statesboro motel. After the drive to Metter the next day, they backtracked, walking east to connect with their previous stopping point.
    They have accepted an offer of a week’s lodging at the Guido Bible Institute while they complete this leg of their walk and proceed west from Metter.
    They hope to call on the kindness of more Americans they haven’t met yet, especially churches and other Christian organizations, as they go. Lisa indicated that they also have a few friends at various locations across the country already set to help as the walk progresses.
    An experienced public speaker through her membership in the Toastmasters, Lisa said she and Rebecca would welcome more speaking engagements either on or slightly off the route to share what they believe is a spiritual quest.
    “I think the goal is to share that God is the same today as he was yesterday,” Lisa said.
    “I would say that He’s the same as He was like in the Bible times, still doing miracles,” Rebecca added.