An acrostic update.

B eautiful Summits : We climbed over 5,277; 4,788; and 3,672 foot passes in the last two days, all the while discussing

I ssues, both social and scientific. We did not necessarily agree on some points, and we discovered that

K nowing each other was a priority to have higher quality discussions. We are committed to using group time to

E ngage in a time of sharing with each other, one person telling a part of their life story every night. Our

M otivation isn’t dying but getting stronger everyday; evident as we completed 98.8 of

O ne hundred miles on July 15. This is a tribute to our

V itality and vision which keeps us pedaling despite the hot sun and continuing to discuss the difficult, complex

E xperiences our church journeys entail. We sometimes wish we had a guide, like the

M aps we use that show the road grades to warn us what we will be experiencing on the road. (We were nervous when the grade warnings disappeared as we entered Idaho.)

E ven though the news about violence in Lebanon touches all of our hearts

N othing could keep us in Oregon, and we moved on to Idaho on Saturday. Like Paul, we step-up and take-down our

T ents as one of the tasks that we complete in our fine tuned system for daily travel. Other tasks are cooking, loading and unloading, writing web updates, bike maintenance etc.

C rossing Time Zones: The sign to set our watches one hour ahead surprised all of us as we moved from Pacific Time to Mountain Time. Just as the time moves, so do our

O riginal assumptions about each other. They give way to new things that we are learning. We are making both

Mental and physical movement…we sometimes surprise ourselves that we have ridden so fast (50 miles by lunchtime!). This accomplishment mirrors our commitment to the

M ultifaceted organism that we are creating on this trip. We are not afraid to “be real” with each other and work together to ask the questions regarding how to build the intentional and ethical community we are hearing many young people voice that they want to see. Day after day on the bicycles, we tackle these themes as we see

U nique natural landscapes, insects and animals such as the coyote and prairie dogs. We are

N ot giving up on the church, if the church doesn’t give up on us. This relationship is another type of

I nterdependence , also shown by Denver (support crew) and Drew (biker) as they switched roles for a day; and yet again we changed more

T ires. Overall, we are

Y oung adults moving as a community of seekers.

~ Sarah

Posted by Sarah Thompson

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Trip06. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.