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.