Prayer Request

Today, we are heading to Poplar, MT which has the highest crime rate per capita in the country. The church that is hosting us has been vandalized 3 times in the past month! So please pray for our safety as well as the security of our bikes and gear. But, we are excited, Poplar is in the middle of Native American reservation and we are going to have the opportunity to experience a Pow Wow. So, knowing that I'll be there until decently late, I'm sure, I probably won't be posting an update in the evening.

3 July 08

Well, today was a shorter day in miles, but it was really tough. I was expecting to be a bit sore from pedaling so hard in the afternoon yesterday, but I was alright. The thing that made it a hard day was the wind. It was blowing in our face again (yesterday, too). It made it a really long day. We didn't get in to the church until almost 5:00, though we did stop at Dairy Queen for a few minutes on the way. There was also a rest stop on US 2, 14 miles from Glasgow, where we're staying. It was the only thing on the map between the last town and here (20 miles). We took advantage of the rest stop. They had some nice covered areas with picnic tables. The breeze through there was so nice, since we weren't on our bikes. We ended up sitting there and talking for close to 45 minutes… it was such a great place to relax for a while, though it was hard to get back on the bike for those last 14 miles.

Speaking of US 2… Our route for the last three days has had one turn off of US 2, and that was only for 6 miles yesterday. It gets to the point where we get excited about curves in the road… Oh well. Judging from a quick glance at the maps on North Dakota, it'll be even more so there. Several of the maps are just a straight line across the page! I'll have to take a picture of the maps so you all know what we're looking at.

Dinner this evening was wonderful. When I walked into Dairy Queen earlier, I thought to myself a hamburger would be absolutely wonderful right about now. And wouldn't you know… hamburgers for dinner. And they were a lot better than any fast food.

Tonight, Bryan and I are again staying together, and we are both pretty exhausted; Bryan especially. The owners of the house they put us in have two homes. My understanding is that this is their town house and then they have a farm house. Makes sense for the winter time I suppose, plus they can use this house for people like us. So, we have a quiet evening and an early bed time!

2 July 08

Today was another long day. After 104 miles yesterday, I honestly was just tired and not very excited about biking another 90 today. Plus my seat has been getting really uncomfortable the last two days. I suppose that is to be expected, though. So, about an hour before lunch, I just started getting tired of sitting on that seat, so I pushed pretty much all out to lunch so I could have a real seat to sit on and then continued to push it for a couple hours after lunch until I got to the church in Malta. For the first time this entire trip, I was the first person to arrive. That was odd. All in all it was a good day, though.

This evening after two solid plates of spaghetti, meat sauce, bread, coleslaw (possibly homemade?), and some desert, the team got to join the church's youth group and just shared why we're on the ride, answered questions about a lot of different things, to include the differences between American and foreign cultures. We also got to share testimonies. Which, I think was really great for our team considering we hadn't sat down to talk about that at any point previously. I also had the opportunity to talk to a guy who is in Army ROTC and wanting to enter the Chaplaincy. It was really great to be able to talk about Christianity and the military with someone. It's such an interesting and honestly sometimes confusing area.

I'm staying with Bryan and Dave and Darlene (our new 'advanced team') at the Pastors house. It has been great. They are a lot of fun, ate some ice cream and cookies on top of the all the food I already ate…

Tomorrow will be a shorter 71 mile day. Looking forward to a 'short day' after the last two.

a long day

Today was an incredibly long day. It's 9:35, but i feel like it is 3 in the morning! I am so tired. So this is going to be brief. We biked about 107 miles today from Shelby, MT to the church we're staying at in Havre, MT. We were told that it was going to be flat and easy going.

The first 25 miles or so were. I was cruising along, very comfortably at about 21 miles per hour, with the wind at our backs across a nice smooth road, wide shoulder, flat with small rolling hills scattered throughout. After that first part of the day, though, the wind changed directions and was coming more across and towards us. The shoulders weren't quite as wide in most places and the hills got bigger. But never seemed to have a big downhill on the other side. I think that might have been my imagination, though.

But, we finally made it after 6:35 of biking plus 1:30 or so worth of resting. The host family that we're staying with has been kind enough to share their computer, so I need to get going, not only to go to bed, but so a couple other people in line behind me can get on before bed.

FYI, a couple of my links on the right were broken or pointed to the wrong webpage. I'm pretty sure those are now fixed. Please let me know if you find any other bugs on the page.

God Bless,
Mike

Determination

**I wrote this Sunday morning, and am finally able to post it up here. I've sent it out to a few people via email already, in a slightly longer form. I'll be sending it out to everyone else on my email list in the next few minutes. If you don't get it and would like to be on my email list, just let me know. mike.c.scott@gmail.com**

Determination. I've spent the past couple days reflecting on that word a bit. I haven't had internet access since I was in Eureka, so this email has been a couple days coming… Plenty of time to think while I'm biking. But, before I go on, I'd like to suggest that you take a min or two to just sit back and think about what determination means to you.

Determination. When I think of determination, and being determined, I think of being decided, having an ultimate goal, something that you're trying to attain or accomplish; maybe a task that you want to complete or you want to lose weight or something. I have determination to complete this bike ride and bring in support for the work of Military Community Youth Ministries. My mom and a couple of her friends are determined to walk a marathon in November.

Because of our determination, we take time to prepare and focus on accomplishing and meeting that goal. I spent many hours biking before I flew out to Washington, and many more writing emails and talking to people to raise support for YFC and MCYM. My mom and friends are walking miles upon miles every week in preparation. I am sure that you all can relate in some way; something that you are determined to accomplish, where you are taking steps to meet your goal.

In the NET translation of Psalm 108 verse 1, David says, "I am determined, O God! / I will sing and praise you with my whole heart." I think so often, at least for me, I set my eyes on trying to accomplish the goals that I can see directly in front of me and loose the long distance focus on Christ and eternity.

It's like trying to focus a camera on a flower that is right in front of you and the mountains that are miles in the distance at the same time. One of them is going to come out blurry. You have to decide which is better to focus on.

Even this morning, I was reminded during our team's worship service (there weren't any churches nearby in East Glacier) that the Christian life is not a sprint but an endurance race. You have to set your focus on the end or you get caught up and distracted by the things nearby and close at hand. You have to be determined to sing and praise the Lord with every breath.

All that to say, God has been working in my life during this trip so far, though I still have no idea where the $91,000 is going to come from that I have yet to raise to meet my $100,000 goal. As I mentioned to a guy I was talking to last night, if you have an extra $90,000 lying around, I would really appreciate your donation. I know that every one of those dollars will make a huge impact in the lives of military teens in Europe who are desperate for relationship, especially the life altering relationship with Christ. But even if you only have 1, 2, 5, or 10 dollars available for this ministry, every dollar will make an impact.

Today we biked along the Koocanusa (Koo-Can-Usa) lake, a 60 mile long resivore created by the Kootenai Dam. It was incredibly beautiful. The lake is named for the Kootenai County (Koo), Canada (Can) and USA.

That brought us, of course to Eureka, MT, where we are staying with the First Baptist Church. It was great to be here and talk with them. Though, the fellowship group here this evening was pretty small; all of their kids are at camp and i think i heard that a lot of the adults are on a chior tour/mission trip of sorts. But it was still great to fellowship with the ones that were here!
Last night, in Libby, on of the guys at the church made balloon animals. I asked him to make me a giraffe, which I then attached to my bike bag today. Henry enjoyed the ride. :)
This was the view as we were coming into Eureka. I've really enjoyed the mountains, and I'm sad that in just a couple of days we'll be moving into the plains of eastern Montana and the mid-west. But, I'm sure it will have it's own beauty.

I also had the chance to talk to the VBS group in CA again today. They are a great bunch. As I told them, the team has biked (almost) the distance from LA to San Francisco and back again, now. And we're only 1/6th of the way done.

Now, it is again time for bed. It's amazing how the time slips away from me.


PS On the right, you will find a list of links to all the blogs that the team has. I'd encourage you to check those out as well and get a different perspective on the trip.

Friends,
Today we moved into our third state, Montana. Like I said yesterday, I'm pretty excited about that. I'm actually writing this on the night of the 25th, but I don't have internet at the moment, so I'll post it when I do.

We are staying in Libby tonight. My host is a very nice lady, about my grandma's age. It has been great to talk to her. She has two grandsons in the Air Force. Both of which have lived in Germany, one is still there. I think I'm going to keep my post today short. I am pretty tired right now.

Oh, a quick update on my Achilles tendons: it's odd, they seem to be going back and forth between which one is causing pain which day. But, as long as I'm keeping the Ibuprofen up, the pain hasn't been bad. Today I was able to push quite a bit harder on my bike, and it felt really good, though, I think I'm going to slow back down, because you miss so much when you're flying along at 20+ mph. 15 is a much better pace, I think; able to stop and take pictures more easily. So, tomorrow I'll probably slow back down.

It'll be nice though, we've got a pretty short ride tomorrow, 'only' 60 miles.


By the way, Jonny and Fiona say hi and they are doing well. Just in case anyone is interested. :-)