Day One

Day one of riding, the big prize!  We loaded up the truck and rode to a tire shop away from the center of Bangkok, partly to start out away from heavy traffic and partly because it was clearly where God wanted us to be.  Back a few years ago when planning out this ride pastor Suphot rode the whole route in his car looking for places to stay, plotting mileage, etc.  He said that while he was driving the Holy Spirit told him to turn into this tire store.  While there, he noticed a framed picture of The Last Supper and asked, "Is this a Christian shop?"  The owner answered that it was.  That may not seem that spectacular of an occurence in the US, but given that less than one percent of Thais are Christian, it was clear confirmation of the Holy Spirit's prompting.  The owner was very enthusiastic about what they were doing and insisted that they start here.  I'm not sure how they were the prior two years, but they were so sweet and gracious to us.  Once again, we were served various exotic (to me anyway) fruits and such that were fantastic.  They brought out their folding Brompton bicycles and rode around the shop waiting area.  We sang a little and then prayed over the sweet couple.  They were such sweet folks that I think we could've stayed there all day, but there was work to do.

It was a good day.  We maintained a good pace with a quick chain issue being our only mechanical and a little dehydration being the only physical.  Had another fantastic lunch and then we went to a children’s home nearby.  Bunch of little kids just having a good time ogling the pale force (pale by Thai standards anyway).  I think we all would have taken every single one of them back with us if it had been an option. It’s a great motivator to see all of those little faces and recall that those are the ones we ride for; we want to see hope in them.