Day 2

Sorry for not many updates. The mobile updates don’t want to work for us very well – but we’ve got wifi tonight! We’re at Lakeview Church in Marion right now after biking 64 miles today from Columbia City.

It’s been a good start! Everyone is a little tired, but doing well. Tomorrow is generally the hardest day each year. For whatever reason the third day of biking tends to be the most challenging mentally, then by Wednesday and Thursday everyone gets their legs under them and bikes really well. Tuesday is always the day you’re thinking, “Why in the world did I sign up for this???”

We just finished supper and the food has been outstanding! They cook crew does a great job. They prep for weeks ahead of time each year. On the trip we bring three refrigerators and two standing storage cabinets on wheels full of food that get strapped in the back of the box truck. Each day the cabinets get wheeled into the kitchen of the church we’re staying at and they work from there. You’d be VERY impressed to see it in action.

In about 15 minutes or so the mapping team will head out and paint the route for tomorrow’s ride.We map the trip online over the winter, then Chad and I drive the route in early April each year. We go out and find churches that will let us spend the night and make sure that all of the roads we mapped online are actually paved and bikable. When we get on the trip, this team goes out each night and drives the next day’s route again. They check to make sure that no roads are closed for construction that weren’t in April. As I mentioned before, they also paint the roads. We put small markings on the pavement at every turn and stop sign to help students navigate the route. Today there was one road we had to re-route on the fly, though, as they had started construction work and closed it just TODAY! That was a surprise, but our roving team did well to reroute the cyclists and get us on the back route. Just like in life when you get a curveball thrown at you, God provides another way, and he did that for us on our bikes today. The mapping team is taking the video camera with them tonight, and we’ll be editing a video of their excursions in the next few days. Once it’s done we’ll try to post it here for you to see.

Our session last night was based on Hebrews 12:1-3. We talked about the Christian life being a marathon, not a quick sprint. It takes time, work, and preparation to live it well. You could even compare it to biking 300 miles to Louisville. We talked specifically about the need to train for that type of race. If you don’t train, you’re bound to have a long, hard go of it. It’s the same way in living the Christian life, if you don’t train yourself and grow in your faith, life becomes a long, hard go of it. This set up the rest of our week talking about Spiritual Disciplines, or spiritual habits, that we should develop that help us grow up in our faith and refuel our spiritual tanks. At some point I’ll post the teaching notes here.

That’s it for now. I’ll post some pictures with this post as well.

Thanks again for your support and we’ll continue to be in touch both through the blog and text messages! (If you haven’t signed up for text message updates yet, you can do so online via our website at thesaltcompany.com.