I was so nervous about this weekend’s service and my sermon. Been so long since I have preached that I was afraid that I would do a really bad job with so many glad I was back and then be a major disappointment to them. I think it turned out alright, at least that is what my wife said and she is usually painfully honest with me. This whole experience of being uptight about this weekend prompted some reflective thinking on my part about motives. What is my motive for teaching the Bible to people each weekend at our services at JBC? I know what I want it to be, but my motives seem to be very slippery! They move and change without me even being aware that they have until some pressure prompts fretting and then all of a sudden I see clearly that I am trying to please the wrong audience. I can see people and hear their words, but it is much more difficult to sense the pleasure of God. I preach and teach for the benefit and edification of those who hear so I know I need to be concerned that  my message is clear and accurate, but I must work hard at keeping God as my source of approval. I know that when my motives are pure He blesses and empowers and I desperately need that. I am determined to be ruthless in my own self reflection and decerning what truly drives me. Help me Lord.

I was really nervous tonight as I preached at JBC. I haven’t preached in over 2 months and it felt much longer. Before I preach the Word of God I always pray and ask God to bless me and to give me His anointing so that each person listening has a genuine encounter with the living God. As I prayed that tonight before the service I was almost overwhelmed with the seriousness of that task and responsibility of it. I think it turned out alright tonight and I am hoping that tomorrow morning as I preach twice I will be more relaxed and comfortable. Thank You Lord for the awesome privilege of teaching your Word.

Many of you know my daughter Sherri and her husband Thomas and their little boy Courage. Thomas had an accident a little over a year ago resulting in a broken neck, being  paralyzed, and in a wheel chair. They moved in with us last month, moving from Seattle where Thomas was involved in a rehab program. He now has a number of “machines” that he continues to use almost daily working at trying to regain strength and more and more movement. They take up a lot of room so today we enclosed our back porch and are making it into an “exercise room” for Thomas. Worked all day on the project with my son Sam and it turned out very nice. I get a special joy in my heart helping them. I enjoy helping all of my kids, but Thomas is working so hard to walk again that I feel like a part of his effort and faith when I do something like today. I like being part of overcoming the seemingly impossible, even if it is just building a wall and putting in a door. 

You may have noticed that the title of this blog has gone from “crazy pastor on a bike” to “Pastor Dee’s blog”. Sounds kind of boring compared to the crazy pastor one😄 I enjoy writing about life, wisdom and insights gained, and just being creative communicating stories. I will work at being faithful to write something most days so those of you who take the time to read it I hope that you enjoy the experience.

I have lots to write about with 23 grandkids, fishing, hunting, pastoring, and the list goes on so hopefully I will be able to communicate stuff that will be helpful to you all in living life as well as being entertaining.

I spent a couple of hours working on my goals for next year today. I enjoy this discipline very much. I like to dream and imagine all the things that I can do and then put a few on paper in the form of goals.

My BHAG this year is to finish an official Ironman Triathlon which is swimming 2.4 miles, bicycling112 miles, and then running 26.2 miles, a marathon. I am committed to training 10 to 15 hours each week for the next year to accomplish this goal. A major reason that I have gone kind of nuttso on these physical goals is to keep my Parkinson’s at bay, plus the challenge keeps me alive and full of energy and passion for life and ministry.

i will write quite a bit about the pursuit of this goal as I believe it is going to be as tough to accomplish as the bicycle ride to the Atlantic Ocean was, and I like to write about challenge and endurance and accomplishment.

love you all. Dee

Probably one of the hardest things for me to do in life is wait and do nothing. I came home with all these new goals and plans to maintain my new level of physical fitness, but because of this prostate/bladder condition and catheter, I can’t do very much. My urologist appointment isn’t until Tuesday so I just have to wait, and hope that it doesn’t continue much beyond that so I can get on with things.

When I start fretting in my head about it, getting impatient, I respond with a self lecture. “Be happy, trust the Lord, come up with some new goals that you can do now, don’t just sit there do something that matters, be flexible and let God lead”.

My wife is happy with this self sermon because besides ministry goals I am choosing to do a bunch of things on her list. I hope I get them done before Tuesday!!😄

We had a surprise party for me tonight at my daughter Sandee’s house and all the grandkids except Hawaii and Alaska ones were there. They made hand drawn cards for me with pictures of bicycles, and sang to me as the conquering hero. Had a tasty cake made to look like a bicycle and we sat around eating listening to me tell stories of the trip. Not much equals the fun and joy of celebrating accomplishments with family.

Came home the conquering super man who bicycled 4,000 miles across the nation, and in a few short hours became the invalid stuck in a chair with my pee running into a plastic bag via a catheter! I started getting sick when we got on the plane in Maine and by the time we landed I was feeling awful. Patty stopped several times on the drive home for me to puke and I had dry heaves until 4 am this morning when she took me to the ER in Albany. They did a CAT scan and discovered my bladder was the size of a basketball (my words), so they put in a catheter, and I set a hospital record for the most urine drained off at one time. The good news is I lost another 10 lbs and look way skinnier, the bad news is I have to go see a Urologist this week and try and find out what is wrong with the plumbing. Everyone’s  guess is that sitting on that bicycle seat 10 hours a day for 2 months is the cause and it will probably heal itself shortly. I am hoping and praying that is so. Reminds me again of Provers16:9, “the mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps”. This certainly is an irritant and a major inconvience, and is messing with all the plans I had about all I was going to accomplish when I got home, but I trust the Lord completely with the details of my life, and have peace about whatever the future holds. In the mean time I will take advantage of the down time to rest up from the trip, read, and have Patty bring me something to drink 😄

i appreciate all of your prayers for my healing and getting back to ministry.

i love you all very much. Dee

Came home the conquering super man who bicycled 4,000 miles across the nation, and in a few short hours became the invalid stuck in a chair with my pee running into a plastic bag via a catheter! I started getting sick when we got on the plane in Maine and by the time we landed I was feeling awful. Patty stopped several times on the drive home for me to puke and I had dry heaves until 4 am this morning when she took me to the ER in Albany. They did a CAT scan and discovered my bladder was the size of a basketball (my words), so they put in a catheter, and I set a hospital record for the most urine drained off at one time. The good news is I lost another 10 lbs and look way skinnier, the bad news is I have to go see a Urologist this week and try and find out what is wrong with the plumbing. Everyone’s  guess is that sitting on that bicycle seat 10 hours a day for 2 months is the cause and it will probably heal itself shortly. I am hoping and praying that is so. Reminds me again of Provers16:9, “the mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps”. This certainly is an irritant and a major inconvience, and is messing with all the plans I had about all I was going to accomplish when I got home, but I trust the Lord completely with the details of my life, and have peace about whatever the future holds. In the mean time I will take advantage of the down time to rest up from the trip, read, and have Patty bring me something to drink 😄

i appreciate all of your prayers for my healing and getting back to ministry.

i love you all very much. Dee

Sitting here in the airport in Portland, Maine waiting for our flight. I went back and reread all, almost 100 blog entries that I have written in the last 66 days, and got totally overwhelmed with gratitude to God for this awesome experience He has allowed me to have, and sadness that it is over. I moved off by myself so no one would notice me blubbering. The whole trip seemed so long, but now seems like it was just a few days ago that we started.

The sad thing is that all the memories of accomplishment, pain, beauty, excitement, fatigue will fade and it won’t be long before it will be like it didn’t even happen. But the character that has been shaped in me by the experience I will work hard at not losing. I am going to put the pictures and blogs together and go back and read it periodically to refresh my memory.

That is the way life is, you forget a lot, but keep pushing on to new experiences, growth, and accomplishments. The Apostle Paul said it this way, “forgetting what is past, and pressing on to becoming  more like Jesus”, that is my life purpose.

I wonder if I could build a sailboat from plans, sail it to Hawaii and sell it? Just a thought, don’t get excited :-).

I do think I will keep writing this blog, if you are interested in reading it. I will work at making it entertaining, and meaningful as I write about going to Vietnam in November, going mountain lion hunting in December, getting along with my wife all the time :-), being a grandpa, being a pastor, working on my next BHAG of competing in and finishing an Ironman event. Woops they are calling for us to board.

I love you all very much. Dee

You all know that I did this trip with John Smith. He retired recently from an Oregon State job, and he and I are in an accountability group together with a number of other guys that meets once each week in the morning. When I started talking about the trip he expressed interest in going with me and over the course of several months made the commitment to go. A number of other guys also expressed strong interest in going but family and job commitments prevented it. So, John going along just “happened”, it wasn’t anything that I planned or thought about. I fretted a great deal about it before we left because I knew 2 months was a long time, and getting along well with anybody who you are with 24 hours a day for that long is difficult if not impossible. But in spite of my worries, his being on the trip with me was a very positive part of the trip, here are a few reasons why.

john was very patient with the limitations that I had because of having Parkinson’s. This was a big worry of mine before we left because I knew that he was an experienced bicycle rider and in shape and 10 years younger than me. He never created a spirit of competition or rivalry that made me feel like a wimp, and treated me as an equal physically that was honoring.

John and I are both natural leaders who intuitively shift into a higher gear when a crisis or problem arises and think quickly about the problem and make decisions about what to do decisively. The problem is that it is easy to “run over” others in the process of fixing things. He and I worked well together as we made decisions and practiced deference with each other that didn’t create hurts or offenses. Everyday there were decisions to be made about how far to bike, where to stay, etc and the decision making process was mutual and unified and fun.

john didn’t talk a lot. One of the main reasons that I go on trips like this is to practice solitude so as to recover from the emotional energy drain that comes from my job and ministry of working with people most of the time and who often have problems and issues that need solved and help. We were comfortable with silence without feeling the need to fill it up with chit chat. We did talk and our conversations about our families and goals was enjoyable.

We were on the same page when it came to our faith in Jesus and our desire to faithfully read the Bible everyday and to pray together several times each day when we ate asking God for protection, guidance, and thanking Him for our wonderful trip.

This trip, as I have said several times already has been an adventure of a lifetime, and John has been a key reason why. The Lord blessed me by Soveregnly working that out.

i love you all very much. Dee