Sunday, August 3, 2008

The End of a Long Journey

Distance: 3km
Time: ?
Experience: Priceless!What seemed like only a dream and a possibility has become a reality this morning. The end of our more than 6, 300 km journey across this great country of ours comes to an end today. The three of us boys got on our bikes one last time for the shortest ride of our entire trip. As we made our way down Barrington Street in Halifax it didn't seem to matter that there was a heavy mist in the air. It was good to know we were finished and that we had done our very best throughout the course of the journey. Wanting to do this trip together we were blessed enough to go the full distance in the time frame intended with all three of us biking the entire time. A pretty good accomplishment for three brothers who had never really biked together before.

The media had been invited to meet us at the Delta Halifax hotel and with none in sight as we left the hotel it was comforting to have our wives, Mother and Grandmother in the van behind us as we made our way. Arriving at our destination, Point Pleasant Park, we came to the beach where we planned on dipping our tires and found that there was an event scheduled to begin there very soon. The event was called "The Black Rock Beach Party" and was to celebrate the reopening of the Halifax waterfront to swimmers after a 30 year closure due to a sewage problem the city once had. One of the event organizers (Sue) was kind enough to let us intrude on their party before it began. It is always amazing to see how God works certain things out in our lives as we found out that Sue's husband had passed away with ALS a number of years ago and that cleaning up the waterfront for public swimming had been something her husband had first spear-headed! Not only did we meet Sue, who is a city counselor but we also met the Mayor of Halifax. There were also a number of reporters there to cover the story and we had a chance to share of our journey with a number of them.

We dipped our tires in the ocean, gave each other high fives and got hugs from family as we enjoyed the reality of being finished. We decided to stick around until the official opening of the waterfront and were among the first people to take a dip in the newly reopened Halifax harbor. So there was history in the making in many ways for us on this very special day!

WE MADE IT!!! Today marks the official end to our 62 day journey that saw us travel across eight provinces, go through 8 flat tires, a combined 3 spills off our bikes and 1 stolen bike. There is so much to be grateful for that it is difficult to start. We were truly blessed with good to decent weather throughout our trip and even more fortunate to make it across the country with only a few minor mishaps. We truly enjoyed seeing, smelling and hearing the Canadian landscape as we slowly traveled through it. The people we met along the way were so encouraging and we could not have kept going if it were not for the encouragement we received at timely junctures along the way. There is so much to take in that it will likely only be in reflecting upon our experience in the days, weeks, months and years ahead that we will truly be able to appreciate what this time has meant in our lives and the lives of others. We hope that you have been encouraged and blessed by our journey and would love to continue hearing from you. To be in touch email us at brothersbike4als@gmail.com

2 comments:

Rebecca Lynn said...

Praise the Lord! Hurray! You've witnessed His faithfulness and achieved a major feat. So happy for you guys.

Anonymous said...

Ditto...what a ride!