Still sitting in Jerusalem - two posts in one day, hurrah hurrah

I've just returned from the celebration service at the ball park in Grand Rapids. I was really delighted to hear Shane Claiborne. He was the main speaker and he has some pretty phenomenal things to say. He lives in a very poor part of Philadelphia in an intentional community called the Simple Way. He's written some books but he is quite good at deflecting praise for community to all the great people that surround him. He told some great stories about working in Calcutta with Mother Teresa, who had rather deformed feet because she made sure that she wore the worst of all the shoes that were donated to the work she and those surrounding her were doing; an act that over the years destroyed her feet; and some of the very cool people in Philly choosing to live lives that seem counter cultural. He spoke about the Amish as another group of people doing a similar thing, and their response to the school shooting that happened in their community. He said that the world was startled by the grace they showed to the family of the shooter, and in his book "Jesus for President" he suggests that the Amish be in charge of homeland security - a comment that got a significant positive response from the audience. He had a significant southern/Philly twang that was dramatically different from all the dutch people who spoke in the service. Once I had committed to the rhythm of his speech it was hard to return regular church service "talk". One of the fellows on the tour, Kyle, wrote a song and performed it in the service. It was delightful. I think he may have the kind of voice that will take him far. It was pretty cool.

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This past week has been very fun. There were a number of shorter 70ish km days that just make biking feel like a dream. One day was significantly more difficult than the others, but good friends helped to make it all work out. It was Thursday, and we were biking 130 km. The morning started out mildly difficult with a flat. I had slept in, so I was leaving even later than usual, although late seems to be status quo for me. I started to fly, helped someone with a flat tire, and was a little sad because most of the people who might pass me on the road had already left. But, I was cruising for a number of miles knowing there were still a couple of 'fast boys' who would eventually pass me. And then I broke a spoke. Being the super prepared person that I always am, I had a spare, but I didn't know how to change it. Betsy and Jonathan stopped with the SAG wagon, and we had the wheel off in a moment trying to figure out what to do. I immediately thought of Alex, who knows so much about bikes and likes pissing around on the road which meant he would still be behind me and we called him for some expert advice. We attempted to fix it, got stuck, tried a lame bike shop who wanted to charge twice the regular price of labour to fix it in a hurry. They suggested leaving my bike there for a couple of days, not cluing in to the fact that we were biking across the country. Very annoying. Because we knew Alex would be able to fix it we phoned him up again and went to go meet him, Kyle, and Doug riding on the road. The van didn't have the tools need to fix the spoke, so we went back to the bike store to borrow their tools - finding out that they had no spare parts that fit my bike. It was really very lame. Then we went to another sports shop that the boys had seen as they zoomed into town. There were two very helpful girls at the shop, and though they didn't have anything that could help us, Audrey, one of the sales people, said she knew this guy called Terry who fixes bikes out of his barn. She took us to see him in the company van (the store was rather dead) to see Terry, and wouldn't you just know but he did have everything we needed. It still cost quite a bit of money, but I was just so happy that I was going to be able to finish the day.

After all the bike trauma, we went out for burgers, and then had to start riding to our final destination. We were only 20 miles into the actual ride and we still had 90 odd kilometers to go. It was 2:30, but actually 3:30 because we were changing states and time zones. For whatever ridiculous reason every time we changed time zones I would leave camp late, and just struggle to get in on time. So, we were in New Buffalo and it was technically 3:30 and we were supposed to be in by 7:00 p.m. I had been freaking out about making it on time, but Alex promised to stay with me. It is a pretty wonderful thing to have people who, when you need them to, will stick with you, even though they can motor along so much faster than your usual speed. We finally made it in at 6:45 - new time. EFI, thanks Alex.

So it turned out to be a totally sweet day, even though everyone was so totally mad that they were late because they waited to bike with me and my broken spoke.

Another sweet day occured just the next day when Alex happened to bike with me again. We were just having a blast. He kept looking for a store, and I was trying to pretend that I didn't know what was going on. We bought 2 delicious kinds of cheese, focaccia bread, cherries, chocolate, and wine. We stopped in a park in the middle of Holland Michigan and it was just so fun. It was sunny and short and an unbeleivable day.

The last couple of hours we have been sitting in the lobby of the some building on the Calvin College Campus. Just hanging out, watching ridiculous videos, listening to all kinds of music and just having a good ole' time.

Good Night.