Yesterday was so busy, I didn't get time to blog. We were at 3 services at St. Paul's United Methodist in Joplin where our team member Aaron pastors. Right now they're meeting at a college chapel until October 9th when they move back in to their home church that was mostly destroyed in the tornado. What a great church! So loving and fun to meet all of them.
About 40 of them met us for the send-off along with Fox and CBS reporters. It was really great to be there as they sent off their pastor as the rides on their behalf.
We rode about 20 miles and then had to hop in the van so we could meet the rest of the team in Branson for a presentation. The rest of the team rode from Springfield to Branson on Highway 65. If you've driven this road before, you know this was no easy feat. They road beastly hill after beastly hill. I'm going to be honest, I felt like I dodged a bullet. That is until today. The ride to Marshall had some doozies. But it was one of the most beautiful rides I've ever been on.
Ernest Hemingway wrote "It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle." I felt this in every pedal stroke today. It was beautiful country with rolling hills and some really big ones too. They stretched all of us.
I'm loving this experience with this team and growing closer every day. Tomorrow we do 101 miles.
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