by Kevin, 7th year rider of Biking for Babies and Training Specialist
Currently, I stand as one of the longest acting members in Biking for Babies. I have biked 7 years, equaling close to 7,000 miles ridden on behalf of Christ and pregnancy resource centers across the nation. My PR distance is 206 miles in one day–thanks 2015 Dallas Team. I have biked in 13 states for Biking for Babies and am currently appointed the training specialist to guide our riders in the physical and spiritual preparation of a 600-mile journey.
But there is something you must know about me: I am not a cyclist. I am – wait.
I’m going to halt here and focus on you. Yes, you, the person reading this post. Maybe you’ve been following Biking for Babies since before I joined, maybe you are new to it, or maybe you are interested in joining the cause in some way but are unsure how. Regardless, I’m guessing, at some level, you have had the urge to get involved. A large urge or a small urge, it doesn’t matter because I know what comes next…
The excuses. “I can’t be involved because…” fill in the blank: time, money, some physical attribute, job, etc. By no means exhaustive, but I know this is your thought process because I was there. My list was 1000 pages long, so if you have an excuse, I’m guessing I used it. Before you violently slam the door shut on the idea of joining Biking for Babies in some way, shape, or form, allow me to stick my size 14 shoe in the doorway and keep it open just a crack for the next minute or two it takes you to read this.
“God does not call the equipped, he equips the called.”
Words I have heard many, many times in my life and it was no different on the 5th phone call that I got from Jimmy Becker (Co-founder of Biking for Babies and now my amazing friend). I’m a volleyball player, not a biker, I don’t have a road bike, I’ve never biked for more than 30 miles, I have a summer job, I won’t have time to train, where would I train, I’m NOT an endurance athlete…It was like he was deaf to my list of reasons why the summer of 2011 may not be the best year for me to join Biking for Babies.
By the 7th call, it was confirmed: no riders were from Wisconsin this year, which meant Biking for Babies may not be able to support the brand-new Women’s Care Center of Madison which had not even broken ground yet. “It would mean so much to keep Wisconsin involved in Biking for Babies. And if you do it this year, we may be able to find someone else next year from Wisconsin to take your place,” are essentially a few of the phrases that stuck out in that conversation. Semi reluctantly, I agreed.
For my first Biking for Babies trip, the only thing that I owned was my helmet. The bike, the clips and shoes, the biking gloves, and even the mini van I drove down to New Orleans to complete the ~890-mile ride were all borrowed. I could (and maybe should) write a novel about my first year with Biking for Babies. I knew no one on the trip, I was the only one from Wisconsin, and I was quite a bit younger than all the other riders. Oh, my parents also had no idea what the route was, where I was staying, and had no other riders’ numbers. Yeah…to say I was “going in blind” would be a bit of an understatement.
I celebrated on the first day when we passed the 61-mile mark because that was the farthest I had ever biked (we still had 35 more miles to go)! I was not equipped, but God knew that. Nevertheless, HE called me. Through Jimmy, yes, but it was Him doing the talking. God wanted me to trust Him, not my own plans. That 8 days of biking was the most transformative week of my life.
The Kevin Biese typing this blog post is a completely different person than he was before his butt felt that outrageously uncomfortable seat for the first time in 2011. Because I answered the call, He equipped me, and no one else. He made me better at training for the ride year after year, He pedaled the bike for me when I would rather have fallen off and quit, and it was He that filled my soul the past 7 years when I crossed the finish line of Biking for Babies.
So, to go back to my original statement: no, I am not a cyclist. I am a servant, His servant. I have learned to love and train on a bike because He taught me, therefore I am doing nothing more than what I was called to do.
Back to you. Maybe you want to be a rider, maybe a support crew member, or maybe a long-term donor. Regardless, whatever the reason for you saying, “I can’t,” you need to know that you are correct. You can’t,
but God can.
This may be your calling, your calling to do more, your calling to give completely of yourself, your calling to do greatness…will you answer?
Feeling inspired? Join this year’s team; ride for dear Life; be His hands and feet, spreading the mercy and Love of our Lord across the nation. Just do it. Sign up today! (Applications are due March 1.)
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Read and share the other posts in this series:
