Today we rode from Jefferson to Marcola, a small town East of Springfield. The trip was 56 miles by my GPS with one big monster hill that got me panting pretty good. We are camping in a big room inside a church in Marcola. The pastor and I are good friends. It is nice because we don’t have to set up our tents; we just throw our pads and sleeping bags on the carpeted floor. We all ate Mountain House freeze-dried dinners tonight. I had Teryoke Chicken and Rice, it was delicious. A screw fell out that was holding my rear rack in place, so the last couple of miles were very noisy as it rubbed on my back tire. I think we got it fixed. We will see if it is really fixed tomorrow. I am very tired tonight and I am hoping that ten hours of sleep tonight will fill my gas tank. I am sorry this blog is so short, but my brain isn’t working very well tonight.

Every year for the last twelve years, I have done a bicycle trip of at least 2,000 miles. The very first one was to Fairbanks, Alaska, with my brother Cliff and his wife Kathy; that was the first and probably the most memorable. We saw 92 bears on that trip, some very close. I have made three trips coast to coast across the United States, each with a different route and with different people. The longest trip so far was when four of us went to the Grand Canyon, then to Yellowstone, and then home. That 4000-mile trip was gorgeous, with the scenery of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and all the rock formations throughout Utah.

This year’s trip will be interesting as I will use it as a test to see if I will make any more trips. My motive in all of the past trips was as therapy for my Parkinson’s disease. Well, I don’t have Parkinson’s now, so I don’t know what is going to happen to my motivation. It definitely will need to switch to some other reason for doing it. The question is if another reason, such as enjoyment, recreation, challenge, health related to aging, or emotional refueling, will be strong enough to motivate me to do something this strenuous and time-consuming.

It is an excellent time to study and write, but I can do that in my recliner and pretend I am riding my bicycle through the jungles of Africa. It is a hard challenge and positively affects my character traits, such as determination and self-control, which I definitely need to grow in. Still, I can probably get the same results going to the gym at the “Y” in Albany with my wife every morning at 5:00 am.

It is probably a good thing that we don’t have a support vehicle going with us; otherwise, I would probably be riding in it every other day because I was tired, and it was so haaaarrrrd!

Travel with me on this trip by reading my blog every day and see what happens!

“Old Saints” is the phrase I use for the couple of hundred or so people who were part of JBC thirty to fifty years ago. Many have moved away, and many have already died and gone to heaven. I have cut back a lot on what I do as a Pastor in the last couple of years, but I am committed to doing funerals and memorial services for the “Old Saints” if their family wants me to. I think only about a dozen of us are left before we have all gone to be with Jesus. Today, I will preach a sermon at Pat Smith’s Memorial service. She was the piano player in the early years of JBC, before the days of drums, sound systems, and other electronic stuff that typifies modern worship services in the church today. She was also the pioneer of women’s ministries at JBC and many other things as well. There are the old saints, and then there are the faithful foundational old saints; Pat Smith was definitely one of the latter.

Jefferson Baptist Church is a healthy, loving, unified, growing church glorifying God and accomplishing His will. The key to a healthy church is the foundation. When the foundation is strong, solid, and true, the building will usually follow that beginning. Pat Smith has gone ahead of us to heaven, but the effect of her life will be felt for many years to come.

I pray that the younger saints at JBC will continue to build on that foundation with gold, silver, and precious stones, as the apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 3, and will be faithful.

God is faithful and He blesses and uses faithful people. A faithful person is one who makes commitments and keeps them, no matter what. A faithful person invests their life for others, even when it is hard. A faithful person works hard and sacrifices, and is in it for the long haul. Pat Smith was a faithful saint who is experiencing her reward for a life well lived now.

Everybody dies sooner or later, and we all know that. Many people are afraid of death, and most are very nervous about it. Even many who say they aren’t anxious or afraid are deceiving themselves. The main issue about death and dying are all the unknowns. Most deal with their impending death and that of their loved ones by simply ignoring it. The medical business makes a lot of money by keeping people alive just a little bit longer. It isn’t braveness or toughness that makes death a non-issue or even a positive issue; it is our faith.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

Philippians 1:23 But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better;

So, we all want to grow strong in our faith so that the other side of death is more attractive to us than this side. Also, so that we can deal with sickness and problems with confidence, peace, and joy because we trust God totally.

2 Thessalonians 1:3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, because your faith is greatly enlarged.

Romans 4:20-21 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.

How do we grow our faith? How do we become strong in our faith like many of the Biblical heroes in the Bible? Many of us know how to grow tomatoes or zucchini, but how do we pro-actively grow our faith to be stronger every day we live.

Many steps, activities, and disciplines will help us grow in our faith, but let me suggest one that very few people know about. Faith is being confident in what we can’t see, walking by faith, not by sight, but our faith grows by things we can see, hear, and experience. God provides us with life visuals in creation that will build our faith, but most people miss them. The Apostle John in the Epistle of First John says, “what we have seen with our eyes, what we have heard, what we have looked at and touched with our hands.” In Romans 1:20, the Apostle Paul says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.

A great visual faith builder provided by God are flowers. I just bought a package of ten different kinds of flower seeds that, when planted, will result in beautiful flowers. In 1st Corinthians 15, Paul says that we are now like a seed, but when we die, that seed changes into something else. How many times more beautiful is a flower compared to a seed. For “Mother’s Day,” some of our kids bought Patty an orchid plant; it is gorgeous.

Faith is built little by little with many repetitions of what builds our faith. I have programmed myself so that whenever I see a flower in real life or a picture, I tell myself, “That is me with my new, glorified body; I can’t wait! Now, I am just an old shriveled up, ugly seed.”

On this year’s bicycle trip, we will stay overnight at three homes of people who know us, three different churches, three motels, and 30 campgrounds. Next year, I will call more churches and ask about staying at their facility. Most have a foyer we can sleep in, and they often have a shower and kitchen. The best thing is that they are free, and they like helping out a pastor going through a mid-life crisis at 75 and riding a bicycle around the country. This year, I will call “warm showers” host homes that are three days out from our present location. “Warm Showers” is an organization that has organized people who are bicycle enthusiasts into a club. When you join, you agree to host at least two bicycle groups a year, letting them camp in your yard and take a shower. When you join, you gain access to a map of all “Warm Shower” host homes in the USA and their phone number and email address. There are presently about 100,000 members. So, every evening on this trip, I will send out text messages and emails to people to check and see if they would be open to three old people camping in their yard. I have always enjoyed the experiences we have had in the past, staying at people’s homes or yards. They are all very friendly and bicycle-positive; again, they are free. When I send a request, they will go to the “Warm Shower” website and check me out. There will be a description of me and reviews by every person whose home we have stayed at. So they will know that I am a Pastor, have eight kids and 28 grandkids, love to hunt and fish, am 75 years old, and didn’t get vaccinated.
I look forward to these opportunities to meet new people and talk to them about their faith or lack of faith. Our trip this year is not one of the recognized bicycle routes, so there will be fewer “Warm Shower” host homes. However, because there is less bicycle traffic, the ones there are will be more open to having guests.
Some of you have asked about our route, so I have included it.

I am leaving with my brother, Cliff, and his wife, Kathy, on a 2,500-mile bicycle trip on Monday. It will take 40 days to complete, averaging 70 miles daily and taking Sundays off as a rest day. We have mapped out the entire trip and reserved all the campsites. Today, I started packing for the trip. We won’t have a support vehicle, so we must pack everything we need for the trip on our bicycles. I will have two panniers on the back and two on the front. A pannier is like a saddlebag, but they are made of bright yellow canvas instead of leather. I will pack twenty pounds in each rear pannier and fifteen in the front for 70 pounds on the bike besides my slim 220 pounds of pure muscle. I have divided up the food into three groups. The first will be on the bike at the start, and I will mail the other two ahead to pick up on the way. I will have my tent, sleeping bag, pad, lightweight camp chair, non-biking clothes, biking clothes, food, cooking and eating stuff, bike stuff, an extra tire, two extra tubes, a few tools, oil, toothpaste, etc. The batteries and stuff we will need to charge them are major-weight items. The e-bikes we ride are nice for going up hills, but the extra weight we will carry when there is no support vehicle is a major trade-off. Each of us will have two 20-pound batteries and chargers, one 100-foot extension cord, and a power strip.

Deciding what to take and what to do without is a significant challenge. I have a fancy hand-held digital scale to weigh each pannier, and when they get to their weight, that is it, not on once more. So some questions are: do I include mosquito repellent? How about sunblock? Shampoo? One pair of underwear? How much laundry detergent? I can probably buy that at the campsites.

The whole process reminds me of Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

In real life, a bunch of stuff dramatically hinders us from running the race Jesus gave us. We need to determine what is essential and what isn’t and eliminate the extra weight. It is too bad that we don’t have some kind of measuring device that we can use to determine when we need to cut back on excess baggage. There isn’t, so we will just have to use wisdom.

My Mom is the main reason for my present relationship with the Lord. Not only because of what she taught me in our home all day long, every day of my growing up years but because she took us kids to church every Sunday morning and Sunday night, Sunday School, youth group, summer camp, vacation Bible School, everything without exception and without fail. She was also a daily model of how to live a Christian life. Mom also constantly pushed us in school and whatever else we were involved in. Her motto was “be the best you could be, and then a little bit more.” She volunteered me to make a speech in 4-H, she constantly volunteered me to play my clarinet in church, she pushed me to run for Student Body President in my Junior year in High School, she was at all my wrestling matches, track meets, and basketball games yelling and cheering. One of my greatest strengths in school and 50 years of ministry was my love of reading and reading speed and comprehension. In the early years of my life in grade school, when we were constantly moving, following my Dad when he was in the Navy, I would read for hours every day. Mom would take me to the library, and we would check out a box full of books, and I would devour them. George MacDonald, a Scottish writer during the mid-1800s, wrote over 50 Christian novels, and I read them all before I started High School. From him, I moved on to reading CS Lewis novels and Tolkien stories. Then I began reading Zane Grey novels, over 50 of which I read before switching to that great American Theologian Louis L’Amour.

I didn’t choose my mother; God did, and He is the one who worked in her life to make her who she was. I often thank the Lord for His sovereign work and choices in the history of my life, which made me who I am today. I don’t ever want to take His gifts to me for granted or to think for a minute that I am responsible for who I am and what I have done in my life. Thank You, Lord, for my Mom.

Pictures of my Mom when I was ten, a couple of days before she died, and at her burial.

I have been looking at pictures online of the sun flares, of the sun and the Earth compared to each other, and of all the pictures people have taken and posted online of the northern lights seen last night. I also have been reading information about solar storms, what they are, and how they affect life here on Earth. As I was reading that, these verses came to mind.

Psalms 8:3-4
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?

Psalms 19:1 The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

Romans 1:19-20
because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

I was reading a young kid’s explanation for the cause of solar storms. “God poked His finger into the sun.” It sounds very logical to me, but then I strongly believe in God as the creator and sustainer of all that exists, so it is easy for me to believe that.

The most amazing thing about this recent display of God’s power is that He loves me and desires my fellowship with Him for eternity.

One of my favorite memory verses now is 2 Corinthians 12:9
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

In the last year, I have struggled so much with being tired and unmotivated. I have just considered it my age and that I was stuck with it, no matter how much I hated being a wimp. But I have recently increased significantly, praying for strength and motivation, and I have been feeling more energetic and motivated. I pray off and on all day long for God to make me strong like Samson and as motivated as Caleb. I have been increasing my Bible reading, prayer time, and scripture memory as a form of waiting on the Lord and claiming His promise for strength.

Isaiah 40:31
Yet those who wait for the Lord
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

A thought that pops into my head often is, “Just relax and take it easy; you have done your part; now, act like an old man.”

Maybe I should; even the Old Testament saints got old, tired, and inactive. But I have a long list of ministry goals I will try to kick into existence this Fall. We will see how it goes.

On our flight to Oahu and back again, I had a new experience: I didn’t have to take my shoes off going through security. I don’t know if it is a new rule that you can leave them on if you are 75 or older or if I hadn’t heard of it before, but it was nice. I was thinking about why they made that rule. Maybe they don’t believe a 75-year-old would be a terrorist, or actually, could be. Perhaps it is because old people take so long getting their shoes back on that they create a backup in the security line. Or it could be that the scene they make when they fall over while trying to get them back on is about as bad as if they got caught with a gun. Or, as in my case, putting socks on is so time-consuming that we just leave them on for days, and the smell that radiates through the security area when old people take their shoes off causes rebellion in all security workers.

It is funny to me how a little thing like not taking my shoes for security purposes will create this curiosity thinking in my head for hours. So I did what any intelligent person would do: I googled it, and this is what I found is the reason why I didn’t have to take my shoes off. The mystery is solved.

“TSA Security has expedited security procedures for passengers 75 and older, and they are now not required to remove their shoes and light jackets at the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) checkpoint. They are also allowed to pass around the Advanced Imaging Technology devices. Passengers 75 and older can receive some form of expedited screening through risk-based intelligence-driven security that allows TSA to better focus resources on passengers who more likely pose a risk.”

When I was six years old, I started school; when I was 16, I got a driver’s license; when I was 18, I graduated from High School; when I was 20, I got married; when I was 21, I could legally buy beer, and now that I am 75, I am no longer a security risk at airports. Those are significant milestones in life, for sure!

Here is a different list of milestones: When did I become a believer in Jesus, when was I baptized, when did I read the Bible all the way through in one year, when did I lead my first person to Jesus, when did I pray for one uninterrupted hour, when did I fast for 24 hours for the purpose of prayer, and when did I get 50 Bible verses memorized well?

And the best milestone of all, when did I get my glorified body?