My name is Matt Kuyvenhoven.

I'm a junior, studying Marketing at Calvin College.

And I'd like to welcome you all to the 2017 January Series.

I'd also like to extend a special welcome to our guests

on our, or on three of our thirty, or three of our fifty remote

webcast locations in Denver, Colorado,

Tulsa, Oklahoma,

and Whitehall, Michigan.

Now if you would all please bow your heads and pray with me.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day,

we thank you for safe travels here today.

We thank you Lord for the daily opportunity

to challenge ourselves, grow and learn,

especially in this month of the January Series.

Lord, we acknowledge

your presence with us in the trials of our lives

and we pray that we can acknowledge them more often on a daily basis.

Be with us this day. Keep us healthy, keep us safe.

In your name we pray, Amen.

Now, Jordan Daley. He's a research associate

at Calvin Center for Social Research.

He's going to introduce our guest.

[applause]

Good afternoon.

As Matthew mentioned, I'm a recent grad of Calvin.

And while I was here, I took advantage of

an opportunity that would remind me how big

our world is, and that our God is even bigger.

I joined a group of Calvin students and faculty

as we followed the yellow conch shells

through the way of St. James El Camino de Santiago.

El Camino is a 500-mile pilgrimage through northern Spain

with its orgins in early Christianity.

Presently, people from around the world continue

to traverse El Camino for a variety of personal and spritual reasons.

I had expectations for my trip,

such as eating unique food, practicing my Spanish,

and getting to know other Calvin students.

I experienced so much more.

I found rest and renewal,

was reminded of what it truly means to be in a community,

and learned to embrace aspects of creation

that we often take for granted.

Ultimately, I learned not to put limits

on what God has in store for our journey.

Throughout my trip, I listened to stories of others

and got to see life from their perspective.

Today, we get to hear about life from yet another perspective.

Through an incredible story that not only enriched

the lives of those along the Camino,

but continues to enrich lives each day.

This is the story of Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Gray.

Justin lives with a neuromuscular disease

that progressively restricts the ability to use the arms and the legs.

Many people might consider this a fundamental opportunity

to place limits on God's plan for the future,

and be content with saying, “I can’t.”

These two gentlemen did just the opposite.

As they embarked on a 34-day journey

with a resolve to overcome

all manner of obstacles that they might face.

One in a wheelchair and one on foot,

Justin would trust Patrick to push him through the Camino.

By relying on faith, friendship, and fierce determination,

these best friends of over 40 years

took on a challenge that many would consider unimaginable.

And in doing so, they inspired communities across the world.

Justin and Patrick have both continued to move lives

through the production of their film and their upcoming book

both titled, “I’ll Push You,”

and their foundation, Push Inc. which emphasizes the importance

of community and relying on

one another to tackle life's many challenges.

We are very excited to have them here today.

Before we continue, we’d like to remind you that

Justin and Patrick will be available to greet the audience

in the west lobby of the Covenant Fine Arts Center

following the presentation.

Calvin College is grateful to GMB Architect and Engineers

and the Richard and Helen DeVos foundation

for underwriting today’s presentation.

Before they take the main stage, there will a brief video.

Without further ado, please join me

in welcoming to today’s January Series,

Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Gray.

[clapping]

[walking]

-It still amazes me how far we've come

(music playing in background)

-That's been something that's so rare. I haven't seen a friendship

like that before.

I don't know how much time he has

[music]

Mechanical malfunction

It's hard not to feel like a burden in this

- fabrication?

*groans*

slow, go slowly

ahh I'm cramping

-His body is feeling the effects of the last several days

(music playing)

-It sucks! Trying not to let Justin know that it sucks though.

(music playing)

-Man! I don't like who I am

(music playing)

Okay seriously dude it's time to walk

- *laughs* I'm just faking it guys

-I have no idea how far this goes -I don't either

Sometimes, it's best not to know

-It's really hard to let somebody do that for you

(music playing)

-Yo what's up bro? *laughter*

(music playing)

-I don't know how I'm gonna be able to do it

(music playing)

*****

(music playing)

These are waters that are too deep for me to handle on my own

(music playing)

It was pretty stupid. Honey, I love you if I die

I love you

-If I do have the time that I have here now, then let's enjoy it

(music playing)

How're you guys doing? *clapping*

-alright, How's everyone doing today?

(laughter)

Alright, we're gonna take you guys for a wild ride today.

How does that sound? You guys in for it?

You ready?

So uh, first off, thank you very much for having us

and Calvin and our underwriters

for graciously getting us here

We are very, very grateful for the opportunity, so thank you,

and for all of you guys

for taking time out of your day to hear us ramble on

for a little while.

We're gonna share some stories with you today

Just for clarification

I am Justin Skeesuck

and this is my BFF forever,

Patrick Gray.

And uh, we're grateful, so thank you.

Yes, thank you.

So we're gonna share some stories

And the stories we're gonna share today, there's a number of them

um, mostly relate to this journey you just saw a little bit of a,

a few video clips about

but, uh, these stories are stories

that have kind of shaped our perspective on life.

uh, a perspective that, permeates

kind of who we are

and, we hope will permeate the world around us.

They've influenced our mindset on

our relationship with one another

our mindset surrounding our families

and most notably reshaped our perspective

on God

And it's a gift and a blessing that we get

to share these stories

and so we are just thankful

that we get to be here

with you guys today

but before we dive into some

of those stories

Justin is going to give you

a little backstory on our history.

Real quick, can we get the monitor up front?

It's not showing up so I don't have to turn my head around please?

While they are working on that

I think I can go off of memory,

so we will see how this goes.

So Patrick and I,

like you learned a little bit about our intro,

we have known each other

for almost 42 years.

We were born in the same hospital,

just about 36 hours apart.

Our mothers knew each other

when they were growing up.

Our parents knew each other growing up,

or when they got to college.

And we've been very, very blessed to have

a very lifelong friendship

that we've just been exploring all together.

We grew up just like normal kids

Doing, kind of like, fun crazy stuff

And not being anything crazy

just getting in trouble now and then

But we did alright

You know when I was fifteen and a half

almost sixteen and a half

sixteen years old

My life changed

When I was

just before my sixteenth birthday

I was traveling from my hometown

to a nearby town to play in a basketball tournament

And a friend of mine was

driving his truck and ended up

rolling it on the freeway

going about 80 miles per hour

And believe it or not

I actually walked away from the accident

couple scrapes and bruises

nothing to really be

concerned about

Except for just going through this really crazy accident

But about six months later

I started noticing

weakness in my left foot

I was running down

othe soccer field

that following fall

and my foot was just flopping around

it wasn't working the way that it should

So I brought it to my parents' attention

and went to a podiatrist

and he said that he couldn't do anything

for me so he said I think you need

to go see a neurologist

And so I went to see a neurologist

and he was completely stumped

and thus my lifelong pursuit of

being in doctor's offices

I didn't know it at the time

being so young

I'm going to condense this long story

into a short story for the sake of time today

But several years later

I was finally diagnosed with

a progressive neuromuscular disease called

Are you guys ready?

I might quiz you later

It's called multifocal aquired motor axonopathy

Did you guys get that?

If you want to know

what it's like

It is almost identical to ALS

So those of you who know what that disease

is like, not a good one.

Eventually my life will be

cut short

With ALS, you typically have a

four to six year lifespan

sometimes shorter sometimes longer

But mine is an unknown diagnosis

it just progresses and eventually I

should, from what I've been told,

pass away due to complications

from the disease that I have

So, as you can imagine, it makes life quite challenging.

It started with my left foot, went up my left leg,

went to my right foot, jumped up my right leg, and stayed to my

waist and below for many years.

And throughout that time, I was able to use braces on my feet

to keep me upright, and then as my legs started getting weaker,

I started using a cane; one of which Patrick actually made for me.

Pat made a cane for me one time.

And a walker, then I ended up using a manual wheelchair full time,

and now I use a power wheelchair full-time.

For most of my twenties I was able to adapt and live life.

Despite the disease that I have, I ended up getting married