Support Update

We had a very encouraging response in July, and we've been able to chip away around $4,000 from our deficit. Thank you so much to those of you who have been praying for us and to those who have generously given because you believe in what God is doing here. We are not out of the woods yet, but all the signs are indicating that we're going to make it through this. If you are waiting to send in support until you saw how this turned out, please don't delay, we are still in a $6,000 deficit. Hearing the reports of the beginning of a turnaround in the economy give us hope, but we also know that the pattern of the kingdom of God is that poverty has never stopped God's people from generosity. In fact, we find our most generous givers are those who have the least! This shouldn't be surprising considering the gospel: he who was rich became poor so that we might become rich. Were it not for Christ's poverty, we would be poor and afflicted and without hope. Yet just as He clothed undeserving Adam and Eve, he gives us grace-clothes too! Keep praying.

Let's Go Ride a Bike

"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."

— Ernest Hemingway

I recently sold my too large guitar amp and got Katie and I a couple of 1970's bikes off craigslist. I had no idea how much I would enjoy riding mine. My bike is a 1979 Raleigh Sprite, which is a road bike for people who are intimidated by road bikes. It's actually comfortable, the handlebars swoop up so you're not hunched over, it has narrow road tires and it's surprisingly fast. When I first started up our big hill, I thought I would never make it to the top. Now two weeks later I am trucking up the hill and loving it. My childhood bike was a single speed, and I remember being "that kid" that always got left behind in races on our street. So for most of my life riding a bike has been associated with pure misery. It's the above Hemingway quote and the now 10 gears to choose from that have liberated me from that old way of thinking about bikes. Turns out there is a whole sub-culture surrounding these "hybrid" retro bikes, the motto being "not sport...transport." Within this culture there is a general disdain for lycra wear, low handlebars, and grim expressions and a love for cargo bags, bullet headlights and taking in the local scenery. I'm loving it!