by Grace Berger, 2020 missionary rider When I think of my experience with Biking for Babies all I can think is “wow.” I am left
I didn’t know it when I first signed up to be a missionary for Biking for Babies, but the pregnant women, their babies, and the centers that support them are why I am a missionary. It’s these people that pushed me and motivated me to stop standing still and to give everything.
[On the ride,] I was able to see each of the other missionaries love these women and babies so much that they would make sacrifices, and offer up their time and sufferings to battle the culture of death and work to renew the culture of life. If you want to be able to experience the love of Christ in a deeper way and learn how to put your own needs and desires aside to love others more like Him, then being a Biking for Babies missionary is for you!
“I don’t remember how many water bottle drops we did or what all the scenery was like on the many miles between Tylertown, MS and St. Louis, MO, but when I think about Biking for Babies, I remember the community and the laughs we shared.” Connor invites you to reflect on the joys and trials in your everyday life.
“Looking around I was reminded that the Pro-Life movement will be victorious because nothing can destroy that joy. If the ride was impossible, if asking people for money made me so uncomfortable, and if the daily training and formation was sometimes too much, then why am I now so excited to ride again? Even after the ride, my “why” continues to grow, and after all of the struggles with training and fundraising, the only thing left is joy.”
“The National Ride was the single hardest thing I’ve done in my life. And as a first year missionary, I will say I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I just knew I had to do it.”
While the Celebration of Life is about welcoming and congratulating the missionaries, it is about so much more than that. It is about growing a community. You know how they say it takes a village to raise children? Well, it takes a village to truly “renew the culture of life!”
Learning to climb hills is important training for any biker. But how can you handle the peaks and valleys in your life? We need to learn how to handle each situation in our life no matter where we are at.
The most important thing our support crew members do is they are present. When our riders are suffering, they are right there physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Being a support crew member is exhausting on so many levels because they take on the suffering of our riders without being able to take their suffering away. That is their mission, to be present and to cultivate communion on the ride. Tell me a more dire mission than that right now in the pro-life movement. Imagine a world where during every hardship a woman ever had to go through, they had their own “angel” to cry with.
It’s been said wherever there is the greatest opportunity to do Good in the name of Jesus Christ, there is where the Enemy focuses his greatest opposition.These missionaries are the world changers, the ones who will energize the pro-life spirit in the world. How do we prepare them to withstand the challenges and trials that they will inevitably encounter? How do prepare our team for the ups and downs of the battle for souls?
In this first period of formation, the young adults:
With eyes now opened to the need and Christ-centered solutions of problems, these young adults are sent forth as “missionaries” into the rest of the formation program and into the rest of their lives, committing to live with the truth of the Gospel of life as the lens through which they see every relationship, every decision, and the world at large.
In this second period of formation, the missionaries
In this last period of formation, after the National Ride, missionaries
