Movement is healing according to Edie Littlefield Sundby. So when she was diagnosed with stage 4 gallbladder cancer, Edie began to walk. Her journey became a pilgrimage. A long and hot one along the El Camino Real Mission Trail. First through California and then through Mexico, making her the first person since the 1770s to walk the sixteen-hundred-mile mission trail. But our interview with Edie starts at the beginning, her beginning. One of 12 children on an Oklahoma cotton farm, no electricity, working from an early age, then putting herself through college and moving up the ranks of tech companies and starting her own, she had nothing to prove when the cancer diagnosis came.
A pilgrimage is often a journey to the past. Edie Littlefield Sunby hiked the El Camino Real Mission Trail as a way of dealing with her present. However as she took step after step of gratitude along her journey, she connected to many of her childhood lessons of grit, gratitude and God's provision. This sister interview gives us a peek into Edie's childhood on an Oklahoma cotton farm, her rise in the corporate tech world, and her pilgrimage of miles and miles through the desert with only one lung. We hear about the vaquero cowboys who guided her through the Mexican portion of the trail, how her husband could follow her progress through the desert, and why she felt compelled to take this journey.
Truly a story like none other we've highlighted on the podcast, you will not want to miss Edie's tale of grit and healing. She is a woman of deep faith and strong character. Her determination to live paired with her acceptance of her diagnosis is inspiring.