SEA to SEA
Bicycling Together To Leave Hunger Behind

This is a small cafe that has wireless.

The first thing I do upon arriving in camp is to grab my duffle bag, already off loaded from the semi by the Sweep Crew, and set up my tent and camp. Then to the shower. If I have time I will do Internet otherwise it is supper.

At 7:45 we have Peleton. You will have to look it up. This is a time of stories, jokes, and plans for tomorrow. We have a prayer, sometimes a short personal story of faith, hope, and struggle. This usually takes about 30 minutes.

Every evening except for Saturday night we have small groups. I lead one of these groups. I have five guys who come together after Peleton and we have 10-30 minutes of men's intimacy. Mmmmm .... does that make sense? Well, the idea is that we read from Shifting Gears together, talk about it's application on our trip and in our lives. I will tell you more about these guys a bit later.

There are 10 Sweep Crews. One Sweep Crew works at a time. When you are on Sweep you have to pull the bags from the semi, help serve food and wash dishes, and do the morning clean up before you hit the road the following day. It is a great service to all participants except when it is your turn. Uggggh! I hate it when it is my turn. My turn will come up again on Tuesday.

So what does all this have to do with poverty? Today, there were two people to whom I gave cards and one who said they would contribute to the cause. Who knows? It does make a huge impression with 140 bicyclists riding into these small towns or having 45 men and women parking their bicycles in front of a bar and go in for a drink. The other night a bunch went to a local karaoke bar and sang Amazing Grace where the entire crowd joined.

I just learned about "Goat Heads". These are creeping plants that produce very sharp five-sided thorns. They easily puncture tires. As of two nights ago, we had a total of 142 flat tires and 32 falls. No one has been seriously injured.

I woke up rushing to the facilities this morning and several people informed me that there was a stranger walking around with a cup of coffee looking for me. It was Jay De Boer and his wife Verna who are North West Regional Project Managers for CRWRC - DRS (Disaster Response Services). This is the organization Jan works for. They just popped in to encourage us and to see me. Amazing what a little thing like that can do. For those of you in the Partners network. Jay is the brother of Will De Boer.

We do have some die hard cyclists. There is Ed who after completing the 45 miles of easy down hill decided he needed more. He turned around and rode 15 miles back...uphill so he could come racing back. He said, "I went back looking for my brain but did not find it." Then there is Rueben who had some medication sent to him. It did not arrive on time at the destination we were at but was told by UPS it would be there the next day. He was already 50 miles down the road. He turned around and met up with us that evening. He did something like 130 miles that day. No big deal. They (he talked two of his friends into joining him) averaged just shy of 20 miles an hour!