Ride For Haiti, part 2, Day 12, Final Devotion

May 12, 2011

Final Devotion

Philippians 3:3-6  “Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.  Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all  of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now.  And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Today as we make our journey home to Juno Beach, FL I am very aware that what we accomplished is due to the love, support and efforts of many many people.  Martina and I were able to share the good news of the Gospel in a unique way the past 2 weeks.  But to do that we relied on the help and support of many:

·      Nicholas and Caley Kukla and Casey Jerauld kept an eye on my son Mark who stayed home while we were on the journey.

·      My mother came and watered our house plants.

·      My son Mark took care of himself and all his responsibilities without his parents hovering over him.

·      At church, JoAnn Hayes (church administrator and my assistant) Fred Kempel (Council President) and Pastor Jim Stilwell (visitation pastor) worked hard, served faithfully and covered many extra duties so that I could be gone.

·      Pastor Andy Hagen of Advent Lutheran Church in Boca Raton, FL kept my blog on the website current each day.

·      I am most grateful to every pastor and church leader of each congregation that we visited for welcoming us and making all the arrangements for our presentations and providing us with a place to overnight. 

·      I thank God for every person He prompted to come and hear and see about the Village of Hope Ministry.  I am absolutely certain that God will cause a wonderful harvest to occur through all these people who came.

·      I am very thankful to the people of Holy Spirit Lutheran Church who allowed me to make this journey.  Together, God used us to do a great work for the Village of Hope.  Our sacrifice together will allow the love of Jesus Christ to be spread further in Haiti and to make a powerful difference in the lives of many hundreds of children.

·      Finally, the prayers of hundreds surrounded our journey.  All went so well for us because our mission was fortified by constant prayer.

This is the church at it’s best.  Many people humbly pitching in to do their part so that Christ can be glorified and His grace shared to all who need it.

Prayer:  Father in heaven, thank you for watching over us throughout this journey in ways that we are aware of and in many ways we have no clue about.  Thank you for the hundreds of people whom you utilized to bless us along the way.  I pray that you will use our efforts to bring a blessing to the children of Haiti and to each of the congregations we visited.  Father, I look forward to the next great calling you will place upon my heart.  Give me the courage to accept.  Amen.

Ride For Haiti, part 2, Day 12, Final Day!

May 12, 2011

Journal

WE MADE IT!  We arrived yesterday afternoon at Fairfax, VA, to Lord of Life Lutheran Church.  I say “yesterday afternoon” because today is actually Friday, May 13, and we are on the highway driving back to Juno Beach, FL.  Last night got way too late to still write  a journal and devotion.  The day of bike riding was uneventful.  I continued to ride 63 miles through the Shenendoah Valley.  Then time ran out and we drove the  rest of the way into Fairfax to the church.  This was a very special day for Martina and I.  Not only was it our goal destination and it meant the end of our ride, but the  pastor of this congregation is very special to me.  When I was 16 years old and my home pastor Ed Simonsen encouraged me to become a pastor I then turned to two other pastors who I knew well and respected, Pastor Ron Qualley and Pastor Albert Schmidt of Grace Lutheran Church in Miami Springs.  I asked them  what they thought about Pastor Ed’s recommendation.  They both agreed and gave me some very helpful advice.  They encouraged me to seek out another career that I would enjoy doing should I at some point decide I did not want to be a pastor.  That is how I ended up getting my masters degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management and worked for 5 years in the business.  That education and those experiences have been very helpful to me in the pastoral ministry.  Now, 38 years later I had the opportunity to be with Pastor Ron Qualley again.  Since he was at Grace in Miami Springs, he accepted the call to Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Fairfax.  Pastor Ron and his wife Sandy were very gracious to us.  They invited us to their home for a celebration dinner and a shower before we were expected at Lord of Life for our final presentation of the Village of Hope.  The reality is the people of Lord of Life Lutheran know much more about the Village of Hope than I do.  This congregation sponsors over 90 children and last year gave $100,000 to the new health center.  Along with years of being generous donors to the VOH many of the members have visited and served at the VOH.  Pastor Ron is on the board of directors for the VOH.  So as we showed the slide presentation to the gathered LOL members they were able to share with me information about the pictures I had no idea of.  I should have visited this congregation first to get all the facts.  It was a fun evening.  I am so thankful to the people of LOL for their strong support and leadership over many years at the VOH.  Because of them many other congregations have come on board and have had life changing experiences at VOH.  They were grateful to Martina and I for our two week mission of sharing the VOH story.  Martina and I left LOL around 9:30 PM and drove for 2 hours so that we could escape the Washington DC and Richmond, VA traffic.  As we are driving home and I am pondering the last two weeks there is a part of me that is sad that the journey is over.  The exercise was awesome.  700 miles of pedaling in 12 days has put me in the best shape of my life.  I lost 13 pounds which means I am back to my college days weight.  We’ll see how long that lasts!  I will miss the opportunities of meeting new people each day, at new churches I have never been to before in communities I had never visited before.  I will miss the beautiful forests and rivers and lakes and farms that we rode by.  There is also the other part of me that is glad the journey is over.  We are glad to be going home, to be with our family, church and friends and to get back to our life routines.  Once again we realize how fortunate and blessed we are.  We traveled 700 miles without any sickness or injury.  We had no bicycle flats or breakdowns.  Everywhere we were, we were received with special kindness and care.  We had the opportunity to do something very unique for a wonderful and life changing cause.  And now we get to go  home, to people, a home and a calling that we love.  God is good, all the time!

Ride For Haiti, part 2, Day 11, Devotion

May 11, 2011

Devotion

Psalm 19:7  “The instructions of the Lord are perfect, reviving the soul.”

The way this bicycle journey works is that Martina is driving the van and serves as my support vehicle.  She has all the food and drink and she provides direction for where I should ride.  Her directions to me mean everything, because I do exactly as I am told.  I have no maps and I have no idea where I am.  Martina has GPS, computer programs and maps.  We both have walkie talkies which she uses to tell me where to go.  This works very well most of the time.  But today it happened a couple of times that Martina told me to go one direction only to call me back and say that was wrong and I should go in the opposite direction.  In this situation it is not such a big deal because  she usually catches the mistake pretty quick, so I haven’t gotten too far.  This is not a unique experience.  It also happened today that I arrived at the church and they knew we were coming but they did not know what our needs were.  That should not have been because I know that I wrote letters and emailed and talked on the phone with them numerous times.  Again, not a big deal, we worked it out quickly and they were very gracious and accommodating.  But imagine if we had  the same problem with God.  What  if we couldn’t be absolutely sure that the Father and Son and Holy Spirit got it 100% right all the time.  That would be disastrous.  We couldn’t rely on God at all.  But, we need not worry, God is indeed perfect in all His guidance and judgments.  We can trust Him completely.

Prayer:  God, though I live in an imperfect  world and my tendency is not to trust anyone completely, help me to see you differently.  Teach me that  I can trust  you in and with all things.  Amen

Ride For Haiti, part 2, Day 11

May 11, 2011

Journal

Today was a gorgeous ride through a part of the country I have never been in before, the Shenandoah Valley.  I rode my bicycle with the Shenandoah mountains to the west of me and the Blue Ridge Mountains on my east.  Fortunately I did not have to ride through either of them.  Even the valley was pretty challenging with long stretches of up hill climbs.  The distance today that needed to be covered was 150 miles, too far to cover in one day.  I knew already I was going to have to drive part of it.  That was a very fortunate because this morning we woke up and it was raining.  So we got to drive out of the rain.  We drove about 90 miles from Wytheville, VA to Lexington, VA.  Then I rode my bicycle  the  remaining 64 miles to  Harrisonburg, VA where we are staying over night at Muhlenberg Lutheran Church.  This is another older congregation that was started in 1849.  They  built on a brand new  structure of a family life center and a large gathering center, really large.  But so that  it blended well with the original sanctuary they built the outside in the same style.  But inside it is very tastefully modern.  The congregation has dinner and worship every Wednesday evening so they invited us to join them.  After worship they said I could use the showers in the family life center.  The building was empty except for the custodian who did not know that I was there or that Martina and I were staying overnight.  As I walked into the shower room to take a shower the custodian, a woman, had just finished cleaning the showers and  was coming out.  I shocked her at first.  Then I told her that the church Administrator had said that I could take a shower.  She then proceeded to tell me that I should go ahead and shower, but she wishes the office would tell her when they are going to let the homeless people shower.  They never clean up after themselves.  So she told me very clearly that I was to clean up after myself because she did not want to clean the shower twice!  I guess I must have really looked bad this evening!  J  Tomorrow is our last day of riding as we journey from Harrisonburg to Fairfax to visit the wonderful people of Lord Of Life Lutheran Church.  The lead pastor at LOL is Pastor Ron Qualley.  He is one of the pastors who in my youth made a big impact on me and encouraged me to become a pastor.  It will be wonderful to see him again.

Ride For Haiti, part 2, Day 10, Devotion

May 10, 2011

Devotion

Ephesians 5:25  “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.  He gave up his life for her …”

When a man marries a woman, he really only has a small idea of what he is getting himself into.  I have been a pastor now for 27 years.  That means I have officiated at hundreds of marriage services and spent over a thousand hours in premarital counseling.  I have made a sincere effort to help couples who plan to marry to understand the great commitment that is required in order for a marriage to work for 50 years.  But they only half listen to me.  They think they are so in love they can withstand any challenges that will come along.  Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians really sets the bar of commitment very high with this one verse.  Today my commitment to my wife Martina was tested.  It was not a big deal, but then most of the challenges to a relationship usually aren’t really all that big.  We were getting to the end of our day of riding.  It had been our most challenging day because the hills were now mountains and the up hills were one to 12 mile stretches.  I was struggling on the up hills  to average a speed of 4-6 mph.  The distance to cover today was 78 miles.  Out of pure ego I wanted to make the entire ride.  Climb the mountains and ride the distance, just so that I  could say to myself, I did it!  As we were getting to the last 15 miles I had to start pushing myself real hard, but I was determined.  When there was just 5 miles left I realized, I had not heard from Martina on the walkie talkie in a long time.  So, much to my chagrin I stopped and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Now I was getting frustrated because I was running out of time, I would not be able to  complete the  ride, and I so wanted to.  But I couldn’t raise Martina on the walkie talkie or the cell phone.  Something had to be wrong.  Decision time.  Ride back to check on Martina or finish  the ride (yea me!) and hope she shows up eventually?  I rode back to check on Martina.  Yea God for using the big stick on my big ego.  It  turns out Martina had stopped and was looking for me.

Marriage is always about sacrificing for each other, it’s the  only way.  But when you do it, when it becomes the norm in your marriage, the payback over 50 years is worth it.

Prayer:  Father in heaven, thank you for loving me, by giving me a loving spouse.  Please  help me to honor my spouse as Christ did the church, by giving my life for to them.  Amen.

Ride For Haiti, part 2, Day 10

May 10, 2011

Journal

Today I am so tired that I could fall asleep here at the keyboard.  It was our most challenging day of  riding.  We had been warned that it would be.  Today we met the mountains of Virginia.  They are  beautiful, but they are mean!  It’s not that they are real steep, they  just go on and on  and on.  The first mountain to climb was a 12 mile up hill with no break in between!  With every turn in the road I hoped that we had reached the top, no such luck.  So today, all 73 miles that I pedaled had lots of up hill climbs.  But I have to also  say, Virginia has beautiful countryside.  Large  farms, lots of horses and cows, and many Christmas tree farms.  When we arrived at  Wytheville we were greeted  by Pastor Steve Ridenhour of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.  The church is over 150 years old.  The congregation has  done a wonderful job of taking care of the facilities so they look very beautiful.  They even had four showers so that we could shower when we arrived.  Pastor Steve and members of the congregation prepared a wonderful dinner for us.  Afterwards we had our Village of Hope presentation.  This congregation has been long time supporters of the VOH.  They support  many children and Pastor Steve and one of his members visited the VOH about 15 years ago.  I am sure that this congregation will continue to be strong supporters  of the  VOH mission.

Tomorrow we head for Harrisonburg, VA located among the Shenandoah Mountains.

Ride For Haiti, part 2, Day 9, Devotion

May 9, 2011

Devotion

Matthew 28:5-6  “Then the angel  spoke to the women.  Don’t be afraid!  He said.  I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He isn’t here!  He  is risen from the dead,  just as he said would happen.”

Sometimes you have to go through a rough patch before you get to experience the joy.  Today I had two experiences that left an impression on me.  The first is I was riding down hill at a fairly fast speed when suddenly the pavement ended and I found myself in grass and gravel.  I had to make a split second  decision, do I turn the handlebars quickly to the right and try to get back on the smooth road surface or do I ride through this rough patch.  I decided to go through the rough gravel and grass because to have  tried, at this speed, to force my wheel  out of the gravel and  onto the road could have  ended with a wipeout onto the road or gravel.  Better to just patiently ride  through the rough stuff until it ends and then get back onto the road.  The second experience I had today was when I was riding through this long uphill stretch.  It kept going, I  had to gear down to the lowest gears, my legs were getting tired.  It was rough.  Finally, I got to the top and what I saw was this huge several acres meadow of  beautiful brilliant yellow and blue  flowers.  It was breath taking....the little I still had left.  The beauty at the  top made the  rough  stretch worth it.

I return to  the text I opened with which is one of the familiar Easter gospel texts.  The women and disciples who followed Jesus went through a very difficult stretch for  three years as they followed Jesus.  The worst were those  last very confusing days when all their hopes and dreams were  dashed with Jesus’ death on the cross.  But then came the resurrection.  A miracle.  A new reality.  Jesus was  offering them more  than they ever imagined.  Going through the rough patch was worth it beyond any measure.

In our life of faith and  obedience there will be many rough stretches.  We  will experience them in school and work, in all our relationships with spouses, children, parents, friends and coworkers.  We will experience  difficult times in our finances, in our health and in our careers.  Rough patches are a part of life.  And sometimes they are even rougher because we are trying to remain faithful to our Lord Jesus.  My friends, after every Good  Friday there is an Easter for those who believe and trust in Jesus.  And believe me, it’s worth it to remain faithful.

Prayer:  Gracious Father, I pray for your courage and strength to get through the rough patches in life trusting that you will be there with me through it all and there will be grace on the other side.  Amen.