With the Wind at Our Backs ...

We arrived in Baraga, MI earlier than expected this morning! Such a blessing ... 63 miles - with some reasonable hills - in just over 3 1/2 hours. Usually this leg would have taken us into the late afternoon hours, but a strong wind encouraged us along the whole way. We had camp set up and were eating lunch by 12:30 p.m. (CST). (We decided, due to light availability in the early a.m., to wait until this afternoon to move to eastern time.)

I have snuck away to the local Best Western (Carol Knight and Jill Mohnkern's room :-)) to use the high-speed Internet access for a few moments. As the photos for Days 7 & 8 are downloading, I'll try to backtrack a bit and comment on various moments of the last few days. (By the way ... after we return photos by Arthur Kerle, Logan Shaw and others will be added to the Picasa web album, so make sure to check back with these albums again soon. I will be adding a few more to Day 8 (today) the next time we have Internet access, which should be Monday night.)

After some llllooooonnnnnggggg days of riding, we've had two short days ... yesterday was a short (it's all relative these days :-)) 39-mile ride through the Porcupine Mountains, ending at Union Bay Campground on Lake Superior. It was a beautiful campground (and the showers weren't bad either :-)), and we took advantage of the view for our evening worship.

Today's ride was long-ish, but, as I mentioned at the start of this post, we finished quickly. We are all enjoying a little time to relax, sleep, swim in the lake/bay, play cards, clean up, ride into town for soda and other simple pleasures such as these. :-)

Tomorrow's ride will take us around the other side of the bay and straight up a tough hill. For those of you awake around 6:30 a.m., we'd love your prayers for this and the other challenges we will face in the morning.

A little catching up now ... As I mentioned in the last blog, we are memorizing and studying Ephesians 4: 1-6 during the course of our journey:

As a prisoner for the Lord, the, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit - just as you were called to one hope when you were called - one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

The theme of the trip (which I believe I have shared already) is "On the journey ... with my friends."

Our evening worship and sharing focuses on these two thoughts. Last night Greg challenged the group to expand their definition of "friends" ... to envelope a larger community - specifically Greenville High School as friends as Christ would view them as friends. He also asked FMYers to share their thoughts on specific phrases in the Ephesians verses. (I captured some of these comments on video, so hopefully we'll be able to share some of these comments with you at the stockholders dinner.)

Previously Greg posed the question, "What's the difference between going on a 700-mile journey alone vs. with friends?" Some of the responses ... "I'd lose motivation if I were alone," "I'd get lost more," "I'd get really bored," "I'd give in to challenges more quickly," "I just wouldn't be able to complete it," and "We can't do it without the support vehicle."

He also asked them to share the best and worst parts of that day (one of the longer than expected days) ... beautiful trees, how hard it was to lose the support of the sag wagon for almost 30 miles because of detours and lost groups (we usually have sag support, where a van meets us on our route with water and snacks - many of those provided by you all and we thank you :-)), the challenge of riding on a gravel trail for 3o miles, the great feeling of jumping into the water at the campground lake, riders willing to stay back with slower friends to encourage them, positive attitudes, willingness to continue on in spite of not-so-positive attitudes (someone said this about my son, Will :-)), the fact that everyone completed the challenging day and no one gave up, great attitudes once we got to camp.

Here are a couple of funny conversations we had with people:

Logan Shaw: When we stopped at the bike shop a lady asked, "Where are you going?" Logan responded with, "Mackinac Island" to which the lady responded, "Shut up!" :-)

Sarah Groves: Sarah was asked during a quick stop in central Wisconsin, "Where are you from?" Sarah said, "Illinois" to which the person responded, "Good God, what time did you get up this morning?"

I just got called for dinner, so I'll sign off for now. We look forward to another short day tomorrow (40 miles .... hopefully).

Thankful for the ONE HOPE we have to make this journey and the many others with which life will likely challenge us ... Robyn