Ten years later (9/11/2011) Becky and I stood at the dawn of a dream.
The next morning, we met some friends at Lake Itasca. The 1500-mile Mississippi River journey began.
When you tell a story like this, after it’s happened, it takes on sort of an “inevitable” quality. In fact, we were woefully under-prepared for this journey. There were many times, especially early in the process, when reaching New Orleans seemed anything but inevitable.
We pretended to be a lot braver than we felt. Friends thought we were nuts. But we decided to follow what we believed was a God-inspired dream. We wouldn’t have used this terminology back then, but we chose to do what we can, where we are, with what we have (WWC WWA WWWH) – and trust Him for the outcome.
It’s perhaps the only time I’ve done each day with no significant thought about what the next few days would look like. Each day required all our energy and focus, so we had to trust Jesus for the big picture.
And then came another tour, and another…one after the other, and then nine years of the FREEDOM TOUR.
I’d like to tell you it was all part of my grand vision, but in fact it’s been one crank, one mile at a time. WWC WWA WWWH – and trust Him for the outcome.
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Now it’s TWENTY years later. After nearly a thousand cyclists and more than $345,000 for the kids at the Home of Hope…so many miles and memories, it’s time to plan our 10th FREEDOM TOUR. How crazy is that?
There’s a bit of pressure to make it a big deal. I’m sure we’ll plan something special to mark the occasion, but two things need to remain.
We’ll cycle to bring hope and freedom to kids rescued from human trafficking.
We’ll do WWC WWA WWWH – and trust Him for the outcome.