August 11, 12 & 13.
From Ormond Beach we turned back inland to head to Orlando. In Orlando, we have the Central Florida Fuller Center and we will be working with them. We stayed in the First United Methodist Church in Orlando. On the way there, we rode a long stretch of highway called Tomahoka Farms road and I saw signs saying “keep Tomahoka rural”. But after crossing the country and seeing so much of rural America emptied of businesses, I wonder about this dream and ideal. I have spent much of my life in rural areas; rural America instills a strength, devotion to family, and commitment to neighbor that is hard to beat. But agricultural jobs are fewer and fewer, and there aren’t a lot of other local job opportunities in those rural areas to choose from. It’s appalling to visit a town and see one business open along a street full of shuttered businesses.
In Craig, CO we learned, from a local real estate agent, that her business really picked up after Donald Trump was elected as president because they are in an area which still has abundant coal resources—enough to supply the local coal-fired power plants for another fifty years. The local plants have just been upgraded with emission controls to meet EPA standards. Coal may still be viable there, but employment in the coal industry nationwide has declined for decades. The perception that Trump was pro-coal and Clinton was anti-coal was the deciding factor for them. Most solutions to problems will have to be local, but we also need to learn compassion for people whose situations are different from our own. It is too easy, in our modern age, to almost totally insulate ourselves from people whose lives are different from our own.
In Savannah, we happened to be at church when the church was saying goodbye to a family that was going to travel through the US in an RV for the year. He had a job in which he could work from home, and she is a teacher who is going to home-school their three girls. Since I have felt called by God to go on this bike ride, it truly made me wonder what God is up to. This couple wanted to show their girls the beauty of the natural world, and also meet people around the country.
Back to Florida—this was the one day when I had problems with sore knees. It surprised me. I’ve been through the mountains without any knee problems! But my knees were bothering me enough that it was totally throwing me off my game, so I did not ride the entire distance to Orlando.
In Orlando, we were able to have dinner with the local Fuller Center board and people from the First United Methodist Church. The next day was a work day, painting a house that belonged to Helen. Helen was an interesting person—full of joy! She was a widow, and in a wheelchair. When she got the wheel chair, her house wasn’t accessible but she lived there anyway. She was active in her church and she helped her neighbors, even taking in a couple of extra residents into her house. Her bathroom was inaccessible to her, so she used a bedside commode and then, to bathe, she rigged up an outdoor shower area for herself. She would put the hose in the sun to warm up the water and bathe behind a tarp in the carport. One tough lady! So the Fuller Center of Central Florida made her bathroom accessible and made a couple of wheel chair ramps so she could use both doors of her home. We were merely painting the outside. Her church came out and fed us lunch.
Sunday was a day off. Quite a few went to one of the Disney parks, but I decided to visit my nephew, Kris. We had a great time and it was also relaxing—much more relaxing than spending the day at Disney World.
Across the street from the Methodist church was a statue of Homeless Jesus which I found moving.
