Here Comes the Sun

Under a sweltering, Colorado sun, Sea to Sea riders and others attending a service in a high school stadium in Englewood, Col., heard a message from Rev. Jerry Dykstra about facing life's challenges.

Dykstra, executive director of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, spoke about “life's tough questions which we often ask,” says Claire Elgersma, the tour spokesperson, in her blog.

He challenged riders to keep in mind that the ride, especially at the end of a grueling day, "is not about us. Who we are and what we are doing is about being used by God to communicate the larger vision of who God is and what he calls each of us to do."

The service began with Sea to Sea cyclists riding around the football field. Following a rough week in which the Sea to Sea Tour took them on rugged roads up and over the Rocky Mountains, they spent Saturday night at Denver Christian High School.

"The service was formed around the biblical theme of creation, fall, redemption, and renewal," says Cindy Aukema, of Chatham, Ont., in her blog "It was the goal of the organizers … that the spirit of God stir in us all a renewed hope and action in the name of Jesus."

It also included a moving celebration of communion that involved several ministers from the Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America, which is helping to sponsor the tour.

A few riders took shelter from the blazing sun under some of the Ministry Fair tents that had been set up to give riders and others a sense of the variety of ministries in which the CRC and the RCA are involved. Before and after the service, riders and others took an opportunity to browse through the tents.

Various items were for sale and Marti Du Plessis of Newmarket, Ont., was fascinated by candles from Namibia and beadwork from Kenya. "The beads from Kenya were made from rolled up magazines that are glued, varnished and nicely painted. I bought earrings that look like little bicycles, all made of recyclable wire and beads."

Fifteen new cyclists have joined the tour for the next part of the journey, which today takes them from Denver along U.S. 76 on a mostly downhill ride to Fort Morgan, Col.

The tour is taking cyclists across the United States and part of Canada in an effort to raise $1.5 million to fight global poverty.

As he rides across the continent, Lou Haveman, of Grand Rapids, Mich., says he has been reminded of the value of leaving the predictability of the everyday world for a venture such as this.

"I have come to an awareness of something we all know but too often neither practice nor seek. We have to leave the known, disregard the comfortable, embrace the challenge, and live with hope when there seems little," he writes in his blog. "Then, and only then will we experience the joy of the common that seem just exquisite."

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