Sunday, August 3, 2008

Fremont

Sat August 2, 2008
York to Fremont NE. Another long hot day with a strong SE wind. The wind helped when we turned north and hindered when we went east. Still it was an enjoyable day. We were off at the crack of dawn as usual. At about 30 miles we stopped for a cup of coffee at a bakery in Seward, NE. The first 50 miles went pretty well, but then we ran into strong headwinds and a bumpy road, not a good combination. My bike does a little better than the uprights in the wind so I went on up the road a bit. It was really hot so I stopped at an ice cream place for a grape slushy; it tasted really good. While I was enjoying it, a lady walked up to me -- she looked familiar, like a student Brenda and I had years ago in our home church young peoples group. It turned out it was her; Alicia (Nugteren) Admiral now lives in Lincoln, NE with her husband, Dave and their 3 children. We had a very nice chat. Dave was going to ride the rest of the way to camp with relatives he had on the tour. The rest of the ride was uneventful although a section of it was on a kind of ground asphalt, it vibrated the bike and me so badly I thought my teeth might fall out. When we got to camp I walked over for some water and was greeted by Stan & Revena Bruxvoort, Ryan Bruxvoort’s grandparents, (Revena is Mom’s first cousin) and Wilbur Vos and his wife. It’s always fun to play Dutch bingo! I worked on a couple people’s bikes, then set up my tent and put all my gear in it, as it is trailer cleaning time. Just as I was finishing a shower, Ken and Gloria Van Zee and Brenda arrived. Ken & Gloria treated us to dinner and a great room. It was a very nice day.

Odometer reads 10311

Sunday August 3 2008
After breakfast with Ken and Gloria we went to Prairie Lane Christian Reformed Church in Omaha. It was again a great service. We had a speaker from the homeless mission in Omaha and from Mission India. Both talked of how young most of the homeless are. Did you know that the average age of a homeless person in the US is 9 years old and that in India over 700 million people live on less than a dollar a day. Mind boggling statistics. A nice treat for me at the service was seeing Morry and Rose Blankespoor, who are from my home church.

After lunch at the church Ken and Gloria drove me to Fremont about 1:00 pm and then they and Brenda headed back to Pella. Camp was really hot as the temps climbed over 100 degrees. I then found out that the Lutheran church across the street had found out about Sea to Sea and quickly and graciously opened the church and their brand new event center for us to use and to sleep in tonight. They then proceeded to bring out home cooked goodies, drinks, and snacks all afternoon and evening. It was just a splendid display of hospitality.

3 comments:

Chris (Team Gritters) said...

Hi Rick,
Dora and I have been reading about your adventure every day. It's awesome. We are glad that you are doing so well. Stay strong. We have you in our prayers for a continued safe trip.
Chris and Dora (Team Gritters)

Unknown said...

I think what you are doing is wonderful. I hope it helps. I do, however, have to take exception to your quoted statistic of the average age of a homeless person in the US being 9.

If you just look at the simple math involved you would have to have 2 newborns (age 0) for every 27-year-old homeless person to reach an average age of 9. Or even worse, for every 45-year-old homeless person there would have to be 4 newborn homeless.

I think the goal is a good one, but it doesn't help the cause if you use obviously trumped-up statistics.

Rick said...

From Brenda: Still in the midst of research on the homeless stats, I wanted to at least post the source of Rick's quote: http://www.opendoormission.org/
documents/pdf/children_in_
homeless_situations.pdf
More info also available in a study by the Univ of Iowa: http://planning.urban.uiowa.edu/
homeless/DRAFT4report.pdf
If I'm able to learn the original source of the stats, I'll pass them on.