It is October already and time mount up and ride for a great cause! On October 13 I will be heading out for a 100km ride to support my favorite fund raising event “Ride for Refugees”. I am looking for your help to make my 100km ride worth the journey.
This cycling event is held each fall and this year it is bigger than ever. This year I am only one of three hundred riders who will be riding on that day. I am very excited to see the number of cyclists growing with each passing year. I am also thankful to see the awareness and the rising support for refugees being served through the heartfelt organization, International Teams Canada
Last year’s ride was tough; it rained, sleeted, snowed and hailed over the course of the ride. There was 35km of head wind on the ride out, one inch of snow on the road and at times not more that 50ft of visibility. But with all that said; this ride still dwarfs in comparison of the challenges faced by a refugee.
The following link is a video put together from interviews and video shots taken during last year’s ride. From this you will get a sense of what the conditions were like.
This year’s event goal is to raise $250,000 and I am looking to raise my share of that goal. This year my personal goal is to raise $2,500 and any amount you give will help reach or exceed it. Please help me reach my goal and help these people, in giving you too will be riding with me on that day.
Would you sponsor me?
There are over 35,000,000 refugees in the world. Many come to Canada and they need our support as they adjust to our Canadian way of life. Imagine snow for the first time. Imagine if the letters all ran backwards to what you were familiar with reading. Imagine being alienated from your friends and family. They need our support and International Teams (www.iteams.ca) has been serving refugees for over 25 years.
You can also go online to http://www.rideforrefugees.com/ and click on sponsor a rider. Once there you can donate with any credit card to my personal fundraising goal. This site also contains a ton of information about the ride and the cause we are riding for.
A few Sundays ago I awoke from my slumber to a preacher speaking on our favorite radio station, FaithFM. He was telling a story of this Hispanic lady who had started coming to his church. She was a very kind and loving woman who loved Jesus deeply.
After a few months she wanted to get more involved with the church and offered to serve Jesus any way she could. She spoke with the pastor who was happy to find a ministry she could serve in. The next week the pastor approached this lady and asks if she wanted to serve in their transportation ministry. You see, this church was quite large; they had set up their own busing system to transport families and children from all over the city to their church and back again. She was very excited to serve in this ministry as Jesus had called her to serve in any way possible.
Over the next few months she rode on different buses, keeping the children occupied and getting to know people. One Sunday she was on a particular bus route when she met a young boy who was about five or six year’s old sitting alone. He was a very shy and quite boy whom she heard Jesus call to her again, minister to this young boy. She went to the pastor and told him that she had found a bus to serve on. The pastor was very happy she had found her place to serve.
During the months to follow they had developed quite a trusting friendship. A lot of the bus rides she just held him in her loving arms, much like Jesus does if you let him. Every Sunday she met him with the words “Jesus loves you†and the last thing she said to him before he went home was that “Jesus loved youâ€. One particular Sunday during the ride home the young boy looked into the lady’s eyes and said, “Jesus loves meâ€. She responded with YES! YES! He does! She felt what Jesus had sent her to accomplish was starting to happen.
The next Sunday came and this young boy did not step onto the bus, the next week was the same and each following week she waited for him and each week he did not show. A month later the pastor found out that this young boy was brutally beaten to dead by his drug addicted mother. He was found under the stairs in a garbage bag, tossed away like waste.
Now by this time I am lying there listening to this story, tears streaming down my face, feeling my breaking heart come apart at the seams. So much went through my head like, how can God allow this type of injustice? I got up and got ready for church still very disturbed by this story.
As I sat there at church, I was still pondering what I had heard. Our worship team started to play, “Cry in My Heart” and there was a lyric in the song that made it all crystal clear, “For what do I have if I don’t have you Jesus? What in this life can mean any more? You are my rock You are my glory You are the lifter of my head”. Well, the tears started again, realizing what God had revealed to me through the story and this song. This lady was placed in this boy’s life who told him that Jesus loved him and was able to respond to the lady knowing that Jesus loved him, and in his death he knew Jesus loved him.
As I was writing this, I still tear up as I feel God love which is the same love he embraced that young boy.