End of the Cross Country Ride

August 5 & 6.

As you may recall, I received news earlier in the week that my Aunt Karen and my colleague and friend, Bob Walters had both died on Monday, July 31.  Aunt Karen’s memorial service will be held later.  But Bob Walters’ service was held on August 5.  Because he has friends and colleagues all over the country and all over the world, Plainfield United Methodist Church in Indiana made arrangements to lifestream the funeral.  It was at a time when all of our celebrations were over and people were each doing their own thing, so I decided that I would participate in the funeral.  One of our interns, Becky, had kindly offered to sit with me while I watched the funeral.  She was also the one who was able to figure out how to get it to play, as I was having technical difficulties at first.

As the first hymn was sung, I realized, “We’re in a Methodist Church.  I can sing along!”  So we found a hymnal, which happened to be already open to the hymn that was being sung (though I didn’t notice and went back and looked up the number).  Occasionally, the feed was interrupted, making it slightly difficult to sing along, but for the most part it went well.  There were parts of the sermon and the speakers that I also could not understand but I was able to join with the clergy in singing It is Well With My Soul.  I was thankful to be able to participate in that way, and thankful for Becky offering to sit with me.

In the evening we headed to the celebration for the tenth anniversary of the bike adventure.  The banquet was more fun than I expected!  First, we had an hour of meet and greet.  There was a banner to greet us and a cake, and jerseys and posters from each year of the ten year bike adventure.   Though we had raised more money than any of the previous bike adventures, we were still about $70,000 short of the goal of raising $2 million over the course of the ten years.  So, of course, there were some requests for pledges during the evening, and about $25,000 more was raised.  You could help us toward the goal–even $10 or $25 makes a difference!

Donate to the Fuller Center

We had speeches by the founder of the bike ride, Ryan Iafiogla, and current trip leaders, Henry Downes and Connor Cimente.  Leaders from the bike adventure in the past were introduced and we had a video review of ten years of Fuller Center Bike Adventure.  Ryan said they learned a lot in that first year when it really was an adventure, one thing being to call host churches ahead of time!  He also said, when the pavement turns to dirt and then the dirt becomes a track, and then even the track fades out, it’s probably time for the trip leader to admit he made a mistake!  Linda Fuller also gave a talk.

The food was great.  It was a “low country boil” in which they boil all the food together–corn, potatoes, onion, sausage, carrots, green beans, shrimp–and then afterwards, pour it out on a paper covered table and sprinkle on spices.  It was quite tasty, though some was a little too spicy for me.  The spice was red, so you could tell if you were getting medium spicy or super spicy.  You could also request to have some separately done if you were vegetarian or if you didn’t want all that spice.

Then we went our separate ways.  I had met one new rider at the church in Savannah, but then realized that it was hopeless trying to figure out who was on the East Coast ride, who was leaving the East Coast ride, and who was a previous rider who had come for the banquet.  It was too confusing for me, so I decided to wait for the team meeting on Sunday night to really make an effort at meeting people and learning their names.

I stayed in a room with some of my cross-country compatriots who were all going to go to church in the morning before they left.  We had morning devotions together, also, from Oswald Chambers’ book, My Utmost for His Highest.  In the afternoon I enjoyed coffee while working on my blog and then went to the famous Leopold’s for ice cream!

Team meeting and getting introduced to new people in the evening!