A couple of days ago (It’s Too Hard!) I challenged us to re-think the notion that serving others is supposed to be easy.
One of my role models for this lesson is my friend Una. I first wrote about her several months ago when we rode together on IJM Freedom Tour 2012.
Una grew up in Botswana. She came to the U.S. for medical school and became a pediatric critical care specialist. She serves in an inner city hospital in Brooklyn, saving children’s lives and teaching other doctors.
Una told us the hardest part of her specialty is watching sick children die. She believes God called her to this work, but she’s sometimes confused about why God would call her to heal children and then allow them to die.
I asked how she could remain in a field that caused her so much pain. She replied, “I learned to choose gratitude.”
Gratitude—that God gave her the gifts of a calling and the ability to pursue it, that many children survived and thrived under her care, that she could pray for all of her patients.
Una believes she’s called to help children—all children. So when she heard about a bike tour to raise funds and awareness to combat the horrors of human trafficking, she responded.
Oh, there’s one other detail.
Una had never been on a bicycle.
So a few short months before the tour, Una bought a bike and began learning to ride. By herself. In Brooklyn. When the team gathered in Cincinnati she was afraid. Una still wasn’t completely comfortable maneuvering, turning, stopping quickly. But she was absolutely committed to facing her fear and riding five hundred difficult miles through the hills of Ohio and West Virginia.
On Day 1 of the tour, when Una pulled into the parking lot at the end of the ride, she’d covered 98 miles. She asked the tour leader to do an extra two miles with her to complete a century—100 miles!
You can’t do that!
Someone who’s just learned to ride a bike can’t possibly ride 100 miles on her first day of serious touring, right? That’s as crazy as a guy in a wheelchair believing he can crank a handcycle 1500 miles.
Hope changes what’s possible.
We’re doing a fun tour called U COUNT Front Range Tour 2013. We’ll do what we can to make a difference for women and cildren who’ve been rescued from the sex trade. It won’t be easy. But it’s gonna be a blast!
Here are some links to check out:
I hope you’ll consider joining us. Free people—free people.
Please leave a comment here.
Una must be some amazing woman! Thanks for inspiring me with her story.
Keep up your good work. You’re making a difference.
God Bless,
Dick