Over the past two years, Biking for Babies has supported two main charities.

Living Alternatives Pregnancy Resource Center and Students for Life of Illinois are both great organizations that do life-saving work. We are proud to support them!

This year, however, we decided to support a third charity: The Women’s Care Center. It’s a new pregnancy center that’s going into an old building.

There’s something special about this pregnancy center.

It’s going in right across from the Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin. Here’s a video that explains more about this charity:

Pretty exciting, right?

What do you think?

Hey there Fellow Pro-Lifers!

We are less than 4 days from the start of the third annual Biking for Babies 800+ mile pro-life ride from Louisiana to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Before we set off, we want to make you aware/remind you of a few things…

1.) The set up of the ride is changing in order to accommodate the extremely high temperatures… first, the ride will begin in Covington, Louisiana in lieu of New Orleans. Covington sits on the north side of Lake Ponchatrain instead of the south side like New Orleans–making the first day’s ride about 25 miles shorter.

2.) The leg of the route from Memphis to Effingham/Teutopolis, IL will be covered over the course of 3 days instead of the original 2 increasing the overall length of the trip from 7 to now 8 days. (Once again, a change made because of the heat)

3.) Check out the videos which will be posted on the website throughout the ride in addition to daily blogs from the riders which will begin June 13.

4.) Buy a B4B t-shirt or donate if you haven’t done so and are able.

5.) Keep spreading the word to your friends and family about the ride and working to promote a Culture of Life through prayer, the Biking for Babies facebook page, and other means–remember, our goal isn’t just to raise money for Students for Life of Illinois, Living Alternatives, and A Women’s Care Center, but to increase awareness of the importance of the pro-life mission!

God is Good

Once again I am amazed and overwhelmed with all the love and support I received from my parish, Christ The King. The parishioners are so great, I wish I could spend more time with them, even if I could just celebrate mass with them more often. They were very generous with donations but were also very much filled with kind words and good wishes. I am so grateful.

Lately I have been blessed in so many ways, some very unexpected. I got poison ivy sometime last week, and that 180 mile bike ride on wednesday left me tired no, exhausted, itchy and sunburn. This may not sound like a blessing but it is probably the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. I sometimes get discouraged with myself and my ability to do anything. School was really tuff this last semester and I wasn’t running well due to my high stress levels. I tried to keep up with my spiritual life but I wasn’t willing to push through the hard times. During the 180 mile bike ride, I pushed myself in a way I am pretty use too, physically, and it reminded me of a lot of things. I am extremely blessed. God blessed me with legs that can bike 180 miles, great friends and an awesome family. The first 170 miles felt fine but all of a sudden everything ached, my back, butt, feet, quads… even my hands. But hitting that wall was the blessing. I experienced something I never experienced before and that new truth was beautiful and encouraging. In life, we hit walls and its hard to see past it, but every struggle we have is an experience and a chance to find God’s love and mercy within it. We gotta push through the pain and keep moving forward. God will sustain us, His Love is really all we need. It’s funny, physical struggles I can take pretty well and the reason why is because I know it is going to end. I have hope in the end and just stay focused on the goodness while pushing though the pain. I realize that I don’t have that same hope in my spiritual life, I loose faith because I loose sight of the finish line. I forget that baby steps are still steps forward. I forget that we can’t rely on our own strength but the strength of God. I realized that in XC this year. I used each race as a way to pray and meditate and let go of myself and let God run. In short, my experience was pretty amazing.

Anyways, we are biking to help give hope to those who do not see it, hope for women who have been hidden the fact that life is good and sacred and the ability to give life is an amazing gift, despite any difficulties that may come along. We must all Hope in the future or we will only get discouraged when the race of life gets a little challenging. We find that Hope in the Goodness and Love God surrounds all with daily. God is Good. Count your blessings everyday.

Much Love,

Stacy

This week I wanted to bike my biggest training ride before the real deal. The plan was to get in 200 miles in one day, which makes for a very long day! In regards to how the ride went, I have some good news, followed by some bad news, followed by some good news.

The first bit of good news is that I got in my longest ride ever biking 153 miles (I know it’s an odd distance, but you will see why) and I did not feel too tired doing it. I was also able to bike along at a good speed which is also encouraging to see that my current fitness level is up to the level I want it at. The bad news is I stopped at 153 because the inside of my right knee started hurting. I was pretty scared because I have had a lot of injuries running wise and so I decided to cut the ride short instead of gritting through the pain. Better safe than sorry durring the training stage.

But lets forget the bad news, the next bit of good news is yesterday I decided to run in the morning to see how my knee felt, and it felt great. I ran 10 miles at a good clip with a buddy of mine from U of I. Then I went for a short 25 mile bike ride at a low gear with little ressistance and my knee did not bother me at all so I was very happy! Now I have only a couple more training rides left before the big ride (probably a lot of precautionary icing and stretching too).

So now the main thing is taking the momentum going into the ride and using it to spread the word leading up to the ride, during the ride, and after the ride. Along with spreading the message, we can take part in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to remove the “culture of death” from our society and install a “culture of life”. Let’s keep up the good work everybody!

This week I did a 140 mile bike ride. I never thought that I would ever desire to bike even close to that many miles in one day. The bike ride wasn’t bad though and the time went by faster than I thought it would. The plan is to get in a ride close to 200 miles next week and be ready for the big trip coming up.

Aside from training though, recently I found out that my friend’s mom considered having an abortion when she was pregnant with him. I can’t imagine how different things would be for me and for many more of my friends if he had never been born. It’s crazy too, because I have known this friend for several years and the topic never came up until I was talking to him about Biking for Babies.

I think most people know someone whose mother considered having an abortion whether they realize it or not. Imagine how different your life would have been without one of your close friends, a relative, a classmate, a neighbor, a teacher, etc. Imagine how different the world would be without all of these wonderful people.

Every person is made in God’s image and every person has the capability to make this world a better place. Why would anyone want to stop someone from making a positive impact on everyone?

I challenge everyone to take some time to pray about abortion and take some time to research about the topic. You will probably find some of the true facts more disturbing than you thought they would be. I know I did.

And after you have done these two steps above, go spread the word. Talk to your family and talk to your friends about it. These are hard topics to discuss and the entire world does not share our view, but if we can make a difference in a few lives and save a few lives, then it is worth it. After all you might just save a future friend’s life.

Me and some of my friends