The Last Day

Today we woke up, got our things together, and left the Isaiah House. We ate breakfast at a Wendy’s and went over our final day’s route. It was raining and a bit chilly outside. We felt the past two days inside us and the third day did not seem too welcoming. Before we even got onto the bikes we were pretty wet. 

The first half of the day was a struggle. Every time we stopped for whatever reason, it was really hard to get back onto the bike and start riding again. We did though, and I honestly feel that only He could be given the credit for that. 

After lunch, the sun greeted us, and we got off the super busy roads for a while. Not too many interesting stories, except for Jeremy’s awesome bail. He flipped over his handle bars in the outskirts of Louisville, flying through the air, and instinctively catching his bike. Words can’t do it justice.

We saw the skyline around 3:45, though stressful for my dad in the SAG, once in Louisville, biking was a breeze with all of the bike lanes and sidewalks. Jeremy and I snuck off course to sneak a peak at the Ohio river, it was insanely pretty. 

We met up with Dr. Matt Smyzer, and he lead us to a spot that we could get into the river. Jeremy and I disregarded the “Warning, Waste Run-Off is Deceptively High” signs and jumped in. It was the perfect end to a 182.45 mile bike trip. 

After we dried off, Dr. Smyzer showed us around the Baptist Fellowship Center on the west side of Louisville. In each room, he told us about what was done there. Literally every room had a God centered purpose. There was a daycare that was extremely affordable, so people could go to work and not be paying half their wages to child care. There was a program they set up to help people understand federal grants for cheaper prescriptions. There was a food bank that gave people 4 days worth of food, so they could figure things out when they were in trouble. The list of things was endless. Dr. Smyzer is a pastor of a church, in addition to doing all of this. It is crazy to think that I often say, “I just don’t have the time.” Dr. Smyzer doesn’t have the time by my standards, yet he still does so much. After this experience, I hope I’ll remember that with God all things are possible. 

Rehab

Tonight I am in rehab. After a 74 mile day, we arrived at Isaiah House, a faith-based rehab facility, in Willisburg KY.

We started off the morning with Kifu coffee and McDonalds breakfast. Our meal choices were highly influenced by Monopoly. Thankfully, the requirements for biking fuel are calories, a hard target to miss at the Golden Arches. We reviewed our route while my Asbury biking kit that Trent Ellsworth let me have received some negative attention. I guess it is all I could hope for with a  purple, spandex assemble. 

The day was über pretty. We road mostly on back roads, a huge contrast to our “north on 27” route yesterday. We got to see the beauty of Kentucky: its red leaves, its smiling people, its rolling hills (the beauty of which were only visually enjoyed). Among all of this beauty there was super-craziness as well. We almost adopted a dog. He approached us while we stopped to eat some junk. He was really friendly. He enjoyed our company too, as evidenced by his running after us for a mile and a half. 

About forty miles into the ride, Jeremy and I began constructing highly improbable situations that would make awesome stories later. One was having a squirrel jumping into the spokes of our tires and beheading itself. Morbid? Yes. Improbable? You tell me, after I tell you this. About ten miles outside of Willisburg, we watched a squirrel run head first into a fence. He then ran, dazed and confused, into Jeremy’s front tire. It did not behead itself, but honestly, did it have too? It is still a pretty cool story. I, being terribly unobservant, lost every county line race today, and am predicting that I will do the same tomorrow.

The odometer read 74 miles when we arrived at the Isaiah House, nine miles longer than what we were expecting to ride today. However, yesterday was cut a bit short with all of the construction, so it all evens out. We were all super tired. 

Dinner was chicken and dumplings. During dinner one of my neighbors from my childhood recognized me, and  we caught up. It was super awesome. After dinner, we were told church would start in about thirty minutes. We arrived and it was unlike any service I had ever been to. It consisted two testimonies and a few worship songs, one written and played by my old neighbor. Both of  the testimony givers had been fully captured by drugs when they came to the Isaiah House. They were extremely resistant when the first got their and God helped soften their hearts and mold them into new followers of him. 

The largest obstacle I have had to overcome in my faith is self-pity. I still struggle with it now, but not as often as I used to. I would often hear testimonies like these and resent the fact that I grew up in a Christian home, and contemplate denouncing my faith  so I could just have a story to tell. I basically thought my life was hard because it was so easy. I never had true hardship like these people, and all “hardship” that I had encountered could be dissolved by dismissing it as petty. However, God has recently given me a great community within my school and within my church to ween me off of this destructive behavior. Tonight when I heard these men speak I did not think to myself, “How unfortunate is it that my testimony is nothing like this?” but “Praise be to God, for these men are and will be of great use for Your will.”

Neat Things

I enjoy doing neat things. This past winter my buddy said, "Let's go vegan for a month." I replied, "That sounds neat." -And that is honestly how many of my "What shall I do?" decisions are made. This was the decision making process I used when I determined to bike across Kentucky.

Recently, my small group met around a campfire at our leader Jeremy's house. Around the flames, we answered the question, "What would you like to do?" Although our answers were different, how we answered was not. We all talked of what we wanted to study, or what occupations we may want to pursue; which, considering the open-endedness of the question, is strange with the seemingly infinite ways to answer this question.  I do not remember what my answer was, but I do remember I was not satisfied with it. I get anxious when I think too far ahead. Thinking about how vast the universe is, what would I do if I were to encounter a shark while scuba diving, and how my actions now affect what I will do in the future are surefire topics that always send me spiraling. When it came time for Jason, my groups other leader, to answer the question, there had been several well articulated plans and one drawn-out declaration of uncertainty (mine). His answer greatly differed from ours. He wanted to end everyday feeling that what had done was important. 

This morning, we left the house a bit off schedule. I had forgotten quite a few things: to print off the route, to get my rain jacket out of the car, to ask my dad to pick up spare inter-tubes... all of which compounded to about an hour delay. While we stopped at Walmart to purchase inter-tubes, I joked that if God really loved me I wouldn't get a flat throughout the trip. I got my first flat around mile nine. Road construction also proved to be a hindrance. There was one stretch that was un-bikable were we had to hop into the Mazda until conditions bettered. Other than that (and the craw-pain associated with long bike rides) it truly was a great day. The weather was perfect, our route was simple, and we did not have to stand on our heads for longer than ten seconds.

         Before lunch, we stopped at AIM to say high to Becky. AIM is a pregnancy were caring people come alongside young women who find themselves pregnant. It was encouraging to see how much passion Becky had for her work, her workers, and who she worked for: a nice rejuvenation before our last stretch.

         The last miles to Eubank were surprisingly easy, taking into account that we had just eaten our fill at Sonny’s. Jeremy successfully beat me to what from afar looked like a county line, but ended up being a mile marker that was shaped slightly different than all. With this victory included, the county line record ended Jeremy: 4 wins, and me: 0. We pulled off 27 to end our day. Josh Anderson, a staff member of FCA in South Central KY, met up with us. He helped with the Appalachian Baseball Outreach this past spring, an event that taught kids in Eastern Kentucky how to play baseball as well as hear the gospel.

        

         Dinner was at the Depot with Robert and Kay Camenisch, Joe Winston, Lauren Patterson, Keldy (Jeremy’s wife), and my mother. The Camenisch’s are the founders of “Uprooting Anger” a guide to overcoming anger issues, used in prisons. Joe Winston and Lauren Patterson are both working on the Net, a neurological electronic device that provide rapid detox therapy for drug addicts. Jeremy and Keldy own Kifu coffee roasters, which sends a cow to Africa for every five thousands pounds of coffee sold. It was extremely entertaining to listen to these people talk about what they do. Not only did I find it interesting, but they did as well.

         At the end of day one, sixty miles away from the Tennessee border, I have the comfort of knowing what I want to do: neat things.