The Pacific Coast Highway
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Miles and Smiles on God's Gift
It amazes us all the time. Where ever we go -- and we have ridden God's Gift more than 32,000 miles -- people want to talk about the motorcycle. Old people. Young people. Male people and female people. Maybe it is seeing two senior citizens having so much fun on a motorcycle. Or, more likely, they are drawn to it by the Holy Spirit.This 2003 Honda GL1800 Gold Wing is a tool used by Shalav Ministries to tell people how much God loves them. That's why we ride it. To tell people about God's love.And just because riding it is great fun.
In the Beginning
Wayne Cochran, senior pastor at Voice for Jesus Church in Miami, bought a Harley Davidson in 2002 with author's royalties from his hit song "Last Kiss." Seeing him on that bike brought back memories of Sylvia and I riding a Honda and then a Harley all over Mexico and Central America when I was a foreign correspondent in Mexico City.
The urge to ride again was strong. I started saving toward a motorcycle.
- I saved $12,000. And had to put a new roof on the house. Cost: $13,000.
- I saved some more. Got it up to $10,000. And had to replace a sewer line that backed up into the house. Cost: $9,200.
- I started again. I had $6,500 set aside but another emergency took away that.
In February 2003 Jerry Savelle brought his Chariots of Light Christian Bikers Club to Voice for Jesus Church in Miami as part of the Chariots' first Florida tour. The sight of all those motorcycles parked outside our church was almost more than I could take.
Sylvia and I firmly believe in the Biblical principle of sowing and reaping. As we left for church a Sunday not long after the Chariots’ visit I told Sylvia that I wished I could sow motorcycles into people’s lives.
“So do it,” she said. “Just sow as much as you can to people who are praying for motorcycles.” The first $100 – all I could afford – went to a guy at church I knew was standing for a motorcycle. Then another $50 went to someone else. Then another $100. Now the die was cast. I started fixating on motorcycles, the way guys do when they are bitten by the new vehicle bug. I dreamed motorcycles. I talked motorcycles. I went to the end of the Internet looking at motorcycles. It began to seem to me (wishful thinking?) that God would use us and a motorcycle as a tool to show people how much He loves them.
“If that’s true then you better join Chariots right away,” Sylvia said. I scoffed. Join a motorcycle club without a motorcycle? She insisted. I joined Chariots of Light even though I had no chariot.
Within days money started coming in from strange sources. Writing I had done months before brought some. New unexpected assignmnets brought some. I didn’t think much about it at first. But then I realized that this was unexplained money coming to us for some specific reason. It was God responding, the reaping that comes after the sowing. Within two months I could see in my mind’s eye a new bike sitting in my driveway. I drug Sylvia to every motorcycle shop in South Florida. She saw so many motorcycles she, too, decided to get her license. Now she is waiting for God to let her know if she will ride her own bike.
I bought my first bike for $50, a Simplex ServiCycle, in 1952 and rode other bikes many miles as a younger man. But I was an older guy now and it was probably not a good idea for guy 65 to start riding motorcycles. Could I still ride? There was only one safe way to find out. I enrolled in a Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic rider course. A paunchy grey haired guy among people half his age. Some young enough to be his grandchildren. But I did it. I could still ride. And that course got my motorcycle endorsement. The next day I tested a Gold Wing. What a huge bike! A week later I paid cash for a new 2003 GL1800 Gold Wing with ABS and $1,500 worth of accessories. Not a nickel came from our household budget. It was God's Gift.
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