Written by: Diane Bies
Fields of yellow, white, lavender, and red flowers. Dogwood and Redbuds in bloom. Sunny skies with puffs of white clouds providing some shade along with the many trees. What a beautiful show of God’s glory!
Today’s ride started with a 5 mile detour which turned out 77 mile ride onto 82 miles. Our destination for the day was Houston, Mississippi. Home of Parkway Baptist Church and Pearson’s Rexall Drug Store and soda fountain, aka milk shakes and ice cream. The church also had sandwiches, snacks, fruit, and beverages ready for us when we arrived. Then they fed us homemade pulled pork, baked beans, slaw, and banana pudding and éclair cake.
After dinner we celebrated Bob Hibma’s 81st birthday with chocolate cake and singing. He is a prime example of the benefits of healthy, active living. We also celebrated my completion of 100 consecutive months of at least one century ride a month. I finished today by riding an extra 18 miles on the rail trail not far from the church. Elliott bought a white cake for me. Such fun!
Tomorrow we get to work on four different construction sites: we will put a metal roof on one home, build two wheel chair ramps and install them on two different homes, and destruct a third wheel chair ramp which is dilapidated and needs some attention.
Most of us come for the bike ride in the first place but end up realizing that the best parts are the build days, morning devotional and prayer, the people we ride with, the people we serve along the way, and those who serve us with great helpings of God’s love. This is so much more than a bike adventure! It is truly an opportunity to step back and renew your faith. What could be better as we head into our Christian celebration of Easter.
We have experienced so much love on this trip so far! Yet we still have so much to look forward to in the coming days. We hope to make it to Natchez, Mississippi on Saturday before the long car ride back to Nashville and normal life again on Sunday. Hoping the weather holds for us this year!
