Author: Ruth Waite

July 24.

The highlight of this day was a trip for frozen yogurt!  But first, news of our bike ride:  We started out the day in Jackson and shortly after leaving we rode a causeway over the Barnett Reservoir.  The sky was overcast and the weather  was not too hot for a little while.  I have had days on this southern part of the journey where the sweat ran down my legs and my socks were as wet as when it is raining!

It got sunny later in the day, so the day got plenty hot.

We arrived in Newton, MS in the afternoon and saw on the info board that there was a trip for froyo at 3:30 pm!  If you have small children, or have been around them recently, think about how excited they get to learn of a special treat they are about to get.  That is exactly how excited we got about our trip to the frozen yogurt shop.

As we were getting ready to go, our host offered a ride in the church bus.  The Baptist Church in Newton, MS has a very nice church bus–one that requires a chauffeur’s license to drive.  We are dependent on a van that has had sweaty, dirty people in it all summer long.  Sometimes when we get up from the seats, they are soaked.  Twice a week, the van transports our dirty laundry to the laundromat.  I don’t have a good sense of smell, but even I can notice the smell of our van from time to time.  The step up into the van is very high and it’s difficult to get to the back seats.  The back door no longer opens from the outside–we have to reach inside the front door to release the latch from the inside.  So it was a great treat to ride in the tour bus belonging to the Baptist Church!

We were as delighted as kindergartners to get a chance to ride in a bus with stairs and a railing to get in the door, and plenty of room and comfortable seats for everyone who wanted to go.  I have never seen a group of fifteen to eighteen adults be so delighted by the prospect of riding in a bus.

Of course, I wondered about this.  What made us so delighted at something that would normally be simply routine?

We work hard nearly every day.  We say things now like, “We’re only going 72 miles.”  Even though we get tired every day, 72 miles sounds perfectly doable—especially if it’s flat.  At our rest stops we rejoice at how delicious ice water is, and how wonderful fresh watermelon tastes.  But we’re largely limited to the snacks provided for us—things that are non-perishable or that will fit in small coolers.  In the evening we eat what the dinner team or a local church prepares.  On laundry days we put our dirty clothes in piles and two or three people head off to the laundromat with all our clothes.  When they return, we rifle through the clean clothes to find our own.  We’re getting by with very small wardrobes.  Each day we head out on the route planned for us to the city and destination already selected for us.  Much like little children, we don’t have a lot of control over our day to day lives.  So, much like little children, we can be delighted by very simple surprises that come our way.

It was wonderful to share in such joy over such simple things as a bus ride and frozen yogurt.  It’s a reminder of the delight that we once had as children, and we learned that we can still experience joy over very simple things.

 

July 23.

This portion of our journey begins a historic civil rights tour.  We joined in the worship service at Woodworth Chapel at Tougaloo College.  I happened to get there about half an hour early.  Our group, as a whole, often operates on a last minute basis which I don’t like that much.  On top of that, I heard the start time incorrectly.  I thought the worship service was at 9:00 instead of 9:30, so at 8:50, instead of trying to get anyone from the group to join me, I walked on over.  So I got a few minutes of quiet time in the chapel with just those who had come early to make sure everything was set up correctly.  Besides serving as the chapel for the college, a United Church of Christ Congregation meets in the chapel.

Tougaloo College was founded in 1869 by the American Missionary Society to educate the recently freed slaves (Note the date.  For those who don’t remember dates, the American Civil War ended in 1865)  I think it started off as a trade school and normal school, i.e. teacher’s college.  As the years went by, they added more courses of study.  Currently, a huge percentage of black physicians and lawyers in the state of Mississippi are graduates of Tougaloo College.

We learned this history in the afternoon from the director of facilities who gave us a short tour of the campus.  Woodworth chapel served as a planning site and respite site for people in the nonviolent civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s.  Henry, our trip leader, was allowed into the same pulpit where people such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, and Robert Kennedy.  Performers who came were Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez, Frank Sinatra.  I know I have forgotten some!

The chapel was built in 1901 and closed in 1988 because of structural problems.  It was restored and is a National Historic Building.  The restoration cost a lot more than originally estimated (remember that our tour guide was the facilities guy?).  I wish I could remember more of the details.  For example, the pipes on the pipe organ had been painted in gold.  When they began the restoration, they found that under the gold the pipes originally had stenciling.  A lot of the chapel was built by student labor and the chairs up front were hand-carved by students.

After learning the history of the chapel we went outside and saw a sidewalk with commemorative bricks for the Freedom Riders and participants in Freedom Summer, a voter registration drive in 1964 in Mississippi.  Our guide talked about one of the commemorative events where someone had said how brave the very first Freedom Riders had been.  Their bus was set on fire and the doors held shut to try to burn the riders inside.  The man said, “We weren’t brave.  The ones who rode the second bus were brave.”

Here is part of a Wikipedia article:  “On May 14, Mother’s Day, in Anniston, a mob of Klansmen, some still in church attire, attacked the first of the two buses (the Greyhound). The driver tried to leave the station, but was blocked until KKK members slashed its tires.^[11] The mob forced the crippled bus to stop several miles outside of town and then firebombed it.^[12][13] As the bus burned, the mob held the doors shut, intending to burn the riders to death. Sources disagree, but either an exploding fuel tank^[12] or an undercover state investigator brandishing a revolver caused the mob to retreat, and the riders escaped the bus.^[14] The mob beat the riders after they got out. Only warning shots fired into the air by highway patrolmen prevented the riders from being lynched.^[12]”  

All of this happened within my lifetime in my own nation.  I was a child, but was still vaguely aware of most of the things that happened during the ’60s.  More, of course, as I got older and learned to read.  I didn’t know about the issues at all.  I only really knew about the violence and hatred, but only indirectly.

A Tougaloo  professor and some of his students staged a Woolworth sit-in in Jackson, MS. I don’t know how to embed the picture, but they had a copy on the wall in the small art gallery we visited during our tour.  There were also some very moving art works.  One was titled simply Labor.  It showed a nine months pregnant black woman pulling hard on a rope.  It reminds me of what I heard from a man a few days later in Montgomery, AL.  His mom picked 200 pounds of cotton on a Friday, and two days later, gave birth to his brother on Sunday.

I thought I took some pictures inside the art gallery, but I can’t find them, so I may not have done that.  They never really convey the meaning anyway.

This is a remarkable journey.  I am glad that you are joining me along the way.

 

 

 

July 22.

Just outside of Natchez, less than three miles from where we spent the night, we began our ride along the Natchez Trace Parkway.  It was magical!  We started out just after sunrise because we were riding 104 miles that day and the sun rays were shining through the mist.  It was humid and later very warm, but especially first thing in the morning, it was one of the most beautiful rides I have experienced.  This is a ride that makes me wish I were a poet.  Even when I was getting tired I was still constantly giving thanks for the entire experience.  The surroundings were beautiful, the road was smooth, no commercial traffic was allowed, and other traffic was minimal.

On July 19, the day we were in Searcy Baptist Church in Louisiana, the church prepared dinner for us and then we got to watch the videos of our trip on their big screens in the sanctuary.  I don’t know if they really wanted to do it, but they let us watch, at that time, all six of the videos that had been completed.  There are now seven.  We watched them in reverse order, newest to oldest, but you can watch them in any order you wish.  It was surreal to watch.  I can hardly believe we have actually done all that during the previous six (now eight) weeks.

Week Seven: Shreveport to Jackson, MS

Week Six: Lawton to Shreveport, LA

Week Five: Santa Fe to Lawton, OK

Week Four: Craig to Santa Fe, NM

Week Three: Salt Lake City to Craig CO

Week Two: Fernley, NV to Salt Lake City UT

Week One: San Francisco to Fernley, NV

 

July 21.

This was a really fun day, riding from Searcy Baptist Church to Natchez, Mississippi.  Judy and I were the sweeps for the day.  There were a couple of interesting stops along the way–the Frogmore Plantation and the Delta Music Museum.  The Frogmore Plantation had an interesting store, and the dinner bell was outside, but I didn’t pay for the tour of the plantation.  It was a big cotton plantation.  Now, apparently, they are a cotton gin and touring operation.  There was also a mound nearby from some of the more ancient mound building peoples.

The Music Museum was the most fun, mostly because of the ladies working there.  This was a small museum started from scratch in the town of Ferriday.  It was free to visit and they let us bring our bikes inside.  There used to be a bar in Ferriday where the blues musicians congregated.  Jerry Lee Lewis wasn’t supposed to go there, so he snuck in when he was a kid to listen and learn.  There are a surprising number of musicians from the tiny town of Ferriday.  The museum, itself, used to be a post office.  Honestly, I don’t remember too much about the museum’s exhibits because I’m not that familiar with that genre of music.  I mostly remember our tour guide’s enthusiasm.  She clearly loved the museum and what they had been able to build there.  She was thankful to the musicians who had donated their stage costumes.  She told me about the three cousins who were all in the music industry–the oldest having taught at least one of the other two.  When she found out that Judy had lived in Lafayette, IN, she showed us that was where the Post Office safe had been made.

We crossed the Mississipi River and crossed the state line into Mississippi.  It was a good day.

July 20.

Time to get caught up on these!  On July 20, we rode through the Kisatchie National Forest to get to Searcy Baptist Church in Trout, LA.  We were originally scheduled to go to Jena, LA, but we couldn’t find a host church.  Brenda and I were the sweeps for the day, but we never did catch anyone or have anyone to help out.  I overdosed on caffeine (not badly, just bad enough it made things more difficult)  I had trouble catching my breath for a few miles.

Because I need to get caught up, I am not writing a lot–but here are some photos:

 

 

July 18 & 19.

In Natchitoches (pronounced Knack-a-tish) we had two days in which we did painting for about half a day and then had the rest of the day to explore the town or rest or whatever…One woman came in with her two granddaughters to cook for us.  She had been on previous Fuller Center tours and had signed up to come on at least part of this one but health problems got in her way.  She came and cooked Louisiana food for us instead!  We had red beans and rice, and shrimp pasta salad and bread pudding with praline sauce.  The next morning she had made beignets and chicory cafe au lait.  She also had decorated cookies to look like hammers and paint brushes.  We were well-fed. We also had meat pies, a Natchitoches specialty.

July 17.

We left Shreveport shortly after seven a.m.  I know the time because Miss Renee came to our 6:30 a.m. circle up and her daughter had to be at work at 7. That helped me peg the time.  During our devotions, Wes told us a story of learning to trust in God’s grace.  He owned a building which was given over to a Christian counseling service in which he also worked.  One room was rented out at market rates to help pay taxes and utilities for the building itself.  At the time it was vacant and getting ready for another renter, another counselor was there helping her clients transition when she retired.  One client needed a handicap accessible entrance.

And here comes the story of God’s grace in action:  Shortly before the meeting, Wes had given over control of the building to God, including worrying about how to pay the building’s expenses.  When the visiting counselor went through the list of clients and their needs, the one who needed a handicap entrance seemed like a perfect match for Wes.  But then the counselor said, “But wait!  She needs a handicap-accessible entrance, no stairs.  And you don’t have that.”  “Yes, we do,” said Wes.  Everyone was surprised by his response.  “No, we don’t.”  The only room with such an entrance was the one they were renting out.  It was not used by the counseling practice.  “Yes, we do,” Wes insisted.

At the very same time that he said that (as noted on his secretary’s log) a person had called and asked him to call back.  When he got hold of him, he learned that the person had been calling for a few days, and they were going to do all the maintenance on the building as an offering to God.  It was a lesson for Wes to trust in God and rely on God instead of on his own efforts in doing God’s work.

We traveled to the Louisiana city of Natchitoches (pronounced Knack-a-tish) where we were going to spend three nights at the Baptist church and work on a project for the local Fuller Center.

July 15 & 16

Donate to the Fuller Center

Saturday we had a build day.  Mike is the construction supervisor for the Fuller Center and he had been saving up work for us at a home build in Bossier, LA (pronounce Bo-zher).  This was for Mr. and Mrs. Combs.  Mr. Combs had to go to work, although we did get to meet him.  Mrs. Combs worked on painting with us.  We had several tasks to complete—cleaning the yard, mowing, framing a shed, installing hurricane clips in the house to hold the roof on, painting the outside…It’s hard to keep 25 people busy, so some of us ended up going to the surplus store to do work there.  We unloaded a truck and put together light fixtures.  People will buy the lights if they can see what they look like, but not if they are in the box.  Also, they can tell which parts are missing when they are put together.  Most of them did have missing parts; that’s probably why they were donated in the first place.

After we got cleaned up, we went to an all-you-can-eat catfish place, Port-au-Prince on Cross Lake.  Renee Hooks, one of the staff, took us out.  That was a very long dinner.  The way they make sure you don’t eat way too much catfish is by feeding you hush puppies, bean soup, and cole slaw and making you wait a really long time before getting any catfish.  Doesn’t matter—it was all very tasty.  I was ready to be done by the time we finished, though.  We didn’t have any down time at all that day.

On Sunday, some went to the Catholic Church where we were staying.  Judy and I decided to go to Mt. Canaan Baptist Church where Renee goes.  We were the only white people in the place at the 8:00 am worship service.  We also felt rather underdressed.  The service took nearly 2 hours and included two offerings, a benevolent offering and regular tithes and offering.  The sermon was roughly 40 minutes long and there seemed to be a tag team that helped the speaker know when it was time to quit.  After one person touched him on the shoulder, he said he was about out of time.  After the second person touched him on the shoulder a few minutes later, he actually did conclude his sermon (after a shorter time).  The speaker was a younger minister.  Pastor Harry Blake also spoke.  He recently celebrated his 80th birthday and will retire a year from December after 51 years at Mt. Canaan.

In the afternoon we had a little free time.  A group of us walked downtown and ate some breakfast.  I don’t remember doing much other than that.  We had our team meeting at 4:30, where we change what chores we’re doing for the week and then talk about our high and low points for the week.

Then back to the Fuller Center for a dinner of red beans and rice (which apparently always includes sausage).  Two vans were in use to transport us back to the church.  I got in Miss Renee’s van.  i wasn’t paying too much attention—checking e-mail and Facebook—and noticed that we were getting a tour of the city.  I still didn’t pay much attention as we went to some of the wealthier parts of town and heard about who lived here and who lived there, and what the director of Community Renewal International did to get Millard Fuller to come.  We saw the entire Allendale neighborhood built by the Fuller Center; the first three houses that were built; the empty lot where the house used to be where Miss Renee grew up…We saw a lot.  It was rather astounding.

Donate to the Fuller Center

Miss Renee had the windows of the van open for us because the air conditioning did not work in the back of the van.  She said hello to everyone who was outside.  At one place she was cajoling a young woman to get her mother to come to the door and wave.  Her sister came out instead and explained what was going on.  We got almost back to the church when she decided we needed to see the section of houses built for veterans, situated near the VA hospital.  She said hello to someone sitting on his porch, and then asked, “What do you have in your hand?!!”  He was smoking.  It’s clear that she knows everyone in those houses.  That was a fun evening, but it was also a bit crazy—what we expected to be a ten or fifteen minute drive lasted for at least an hour!

July 14

Just like yesterday, we got to ride in three states again today.  This time it was Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana.  The day started on a very shady stretch of country road that ran parallel to a much busier road.  It was beautiful, calm and peaceful.  After a bit, though, we were back to the road with the noisy traffic.  We saw more meadows and trees, and then, to let us know we were nearing Louisiana, we passed larger bodies of water.

I took a picture of a Methodist Church in Oil City.  There was no discernible city, and I couldn’t tell if the church was operational or not.  But I love the UMC and it had these crepe myrtle trees out front that I had not yet gotten a picture of.  They’re beautiful flowering trees and shrubs that come in all different colors.

I loved the sign for the town of Frog Level, which later changed its name to Rodessa.  As soon as I saw the sign I had to stop and get pictures—one to show the frogs and another which was legible to read the story.

We arrived at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Church in Shreveport where they have a volunteer center we could stay in.  It had three showers and a washer and dryer—though the washer wasn’t functioning very well.  There were ten bunk beds—not enough for all of us, so some of us stayed in  the fellowship hall.  We learned later in the evening that there are very large cockroaches in the south!

Shreveport, LA is where the Fuller Center really got its start doing building.  And we got to hear lots of their story from the staff.  This is one of the few Fuller Center Covenant partners that actually have paid staff.  I’m not sure of the entire story, but in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, the director of Community Renewal International contacted Millard Fuller about helping build for some of the people who had been displaced from New Orleans.  Mr. Fuller wasn’t moving fast enough, so the man from CRI drove out to Americus, GA to get him and bring him back.  That was the beginning of building for the Fuller Center.  Before that, the Fullers actually intended to simply continue to raise funds for Habitat affiliates even though Millard had been fired from Habitat due to differences in philosophy.  The covenant partner in Shreveport has built 57 houses since 2005—whole neighborhoods.

They welcomed us like we were celebrities!  After getting cleaned up, we went in vans and private vehicles over to the Fuller Center office and surplus store.  Mr. Lee Jeter had made us some delicious gumbo and salad, and we had chocolate cake for dessert.  He gave us a short history of the Fuller Center there in Shreveport.  Monica did a Facebook live segment and Mr. Jeter told everyone that they should also be on the bike adventure.