Saturday, May 2, 2009

Run for the Son

Today is the day thousands of bikers all around the world were riding to change the world - one heart at at time. The 22nd annual Run for th Son - in support of 3 mission efforts:
1. The Jesus Film Project. The Jesus film is a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, having translated the film into over a thousand languages and shown it in over 200 countries.
2. Open Doors. This ministry supports and strengthens persecuted Christians around the world. Bible distribution is an important part of this ministry.
3. Missionary Ventures International -through this ministry, CMA has been supplying motorcycles, bicycles and other forms of transportation(horses, boats, etc) to indigenous pastors and evangelists worldwide.

Our chapter combined our bike blessing with this day - we had folks show up early to ride with us, eat with us and be prayed over along with their bikes. We had folks show up even as we were cleaning up to have their bike and riding season blessed. It was an amazing experience. I put 97 miles on Miss Behavin today!

Last night we went to the site of the event to set up and prayer walk the grounds. I was heading across a gravel area to get to the perimeter when a kildeer skittled off in front of me. She stood there yelling, trying to get me to follow her . . . I realized I must be near her nest. Knowing there would be a lot of people around the next day, another member and I started looking for her nest so we could rope it off and protect it should anyone happen to walk out there. We searched and searched and couldn't find her spotted eggs amongst the stones. We changed our strategy. We decided to go leave the area, go on with our prayer walk so she would go back to her nest. Once we knew where it was, we could secure the area. This plan worked. After about 15 minutes we saw she was back on the nest. Rosie walked toward here and I zeroed in on the location as soon as "mama" ran off the nest. It still took us some time as the eggs were larger than what we were looking for - but lo and behold. She had 4 beautiful eggs nestled together. We quickly got railroad ties and bricks to encircle these precious eggs. When I got there today, the first thing I did was check on our little mother. All the bikes and activity had her a little nervous. She was off the nest and trying to distract folks, but once she realized no one was paying her any mind or coming near her younguns, she settled onto the nest - I checked on her periodically and never saw her off the nest again.

Bikers are an amazing group. They love and ride their own machines with pride, but stand in awe and admiration of each others rides. A couple of fellows rode in on some custom bikes - you see them build these things on TV, but to stand in front of one of these rides and talk to the owner/creator/builder is humbling. One guy I talked to just finished his this week. Today may have been its first ride, I'm not sure. It took him 2 years to build it!!!!! These guys are my heroes. It might take me 2 years just to install the sissy bar, luggage rack and engine guard that I purchaed to accessorize my factory made bike!

I've lubricated my dry pipes with a bud light. I'm still a little thirsty . . . might hafta walk out to the beer fridge in the garage and grab another. Bed time will be early tonight - we are biking (kick stands up @ 8 a.m. at Austinburg McDonald's) to a church visit in Jefferson tomorrow, then off to Pymatuning, Pa for lunch, feeding the fish (this is affectionately called our "moldy bread run") then an ice cream stop on the way home. Another full day of fun in the Son!
Ciao