bike-a-thon part 2

That cold and adventurous day seems like a long time ago, but I have more to tell! When you participate in the bike-a-thon, you can either bike the full 52km or you can start at a spot where there is 22km to go. I take care of the water station and the registration at the 22km mark. My sister-in-law, Christine joined me that day to help hand out water and register new riders. Soon after we arrived we could see dark storm clouds forming across the river. I started to pray. I am embarassed to admit this but deep down inside I didn't think that God would allow it to rain. We were biking for a good cause and in the past 4 years we have never had a drop of rain. Before we could hand out one water bottle the rain was coming down in full force. Christine and I jumped into the van. Her little six year old girl was already taking shelter in the back of the van and I said "Evie, I am praying really hard right now but God isn't hearing our prayers!" In a very grown up way she told me, "God always hears our prayers, aunt Kerri, but He doesn't always answer them in the way that we want Him to."  Gasp. She was very right. My theology was warped. By this time thunder and lightening were filling the sky. I drove the van around the barrier gate, and onto the Niagara Parkway. We opened up the windows and were yelling to the bike riders to take shelter. We were already soaking and the chill had set in. We were running back and forth to the bus drivers and there was general upheaval. Parents who had let their children bike on ahead lost track of their children. These kids were jumping into whatever vehicle they could, leaving their bikes in big piles along the route. We were opening up vehicles to find kids and we saw some funny sights. Teenagers sitting on grown-up's laps, not one child buckled in, dripping wet hair, chattering lips. Families were seperated and everyone was talking at once. According to a reliable source, my sister Heather was feeling quite miserable being so wet and cold. A bus came along to rescue people and she made a mad sprint to the bus. She was the first one on the bus, and then she commented  that she feared that if she was on the Titanic, she would of been the first one on the lifeboat. Someone was driving a sprinter and he was yelling to the dripping crowd how many people he could fit in the sprinter.  And then he yells, "if you stand up in the sprinter we can fit a lot more people!" There were so many little snap shots of the day. I hope that next year many people will join us for this bike-a-thon. As you can tell it is a lot fun, rain or shine. Biking down the Niagara parkway with hundreds of people, all wearing bright orange is a really neat experience. It is held on the first Saturday of June. Maybe we will see you there!