My Great Great Grandfather Reginald Selmer Plummer. He used to take this bike out on the weekends and ride 100 miles! Whoa!
Over the past month or so God has changed a lot of my plans for my cycling trip. While praying about my planned trip this summer, I kept thinking that I needed to contact Simon Guillebaud, a man that I met last spring. Simon is a missionary to Burundi, and when I met him last spring he told me that he would next summer be riding his bicycle across the USA in hopes of raising $1 million for the missions of his non-profit organization, which is called Great Lakes Outreach (GLO). When he told me about this trip he was taking I was immediately interested in joining his team, but when he eventually decided to move his trip back to early March, I thought that I wouldn't be able to recover from my severed achilles tendon quickly enough to join his team. My job also would not permit me to leave in March.
Over the past few months, however, I have been preparing to ride across the country this summer to raise money for Water Missions International. I have not been able to find anyone to ride with. Although I love what Water Missions is doing, I kept feeling a nudge to speak with Simon about joining his trip. There are many reasons why I felt that it was going to be a better idea to ride with his group. If you want more details on how that thought process developed, please ask me. When I started considering Simon if I could join his team my physical recovery was going more quickly than I expected, but my job was still not permitting me to leave. I eventually figured that since my boss David is a Christian man, it would be a good idea to speak with him about all these ideas and passions I was praying about. When I eventually spoke with David he told me that if I felt called to the Bike for Burundi trip that he would look for a replacement for my position. After some prayer and deliberation I felt freed up to ask if I may leave my job so that I could ride with Bike for Burundi. My participation in the trip is still pending, as I am waiting and praying that someone will be able to fill my role here at the Barrier Island Environmental Education Center. We need a replacement Naturalist by January 9, so please pray for that.
It is pretty obvious to say that if it is God's will for me to partake in this amazing adventure, He will provide a great replacement for me at my job. I will miss everybody here enormously, but I do also believe that it is time for me to move on. To be completely honest, I only have a little bit of an idea of the situation that Great Lakes Outreach is dealing with in Burundi. All I do know is that last spring I had a burning desire to ride a bicycle across the country. During prayer I felt that I should buy a bike. Since then, God has really been putting together the pieces. I am not saying that this is necessarily why I severed my achilles tendon while riding my bicycle this past summer, but I do think that my injury was a huge reminder to me that God wants me to use my passion for adventure not entirely for my personal gain, but more so to worship Him and bless others. My injury was a reminder that my strength comes from Him. When you lose your ability to walk, you realize how much God has blessed you in the past. Now I am excited to serve God with the blessings he has given me by allowing me to be able to use my leg again. I'm excited that God put me in contact with Simon. I'm excited to learn about the work that God is doing in Burundi. I'm excited to spend a ton of time with three older and wiser British guys while pedaling for 100 miles / day for an entire month. Basically, I'm excited.
......now it's time to pray
-jeff
