That’s a Wrap! 2022
2022 – the year the masks came off and borders opened.
If you are like me, you always start each year with the best of intentions, but the older I get the more I have come to understand the proverb,
“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” NLT Proverbs 16:9.
As we launch into 2023, Marlene and I would like to thank you for being on the journey with us over this past year as prayer and financial partners. Our big 2022 ride was turned upside down and became something right-side up for the Kingdom and fulfillment of this proverb.
What we learned as we planned, and the Lord determined:
Our great plan took a turn and ended up being very different right from the beginning. We originally planned a ride as something we wanted to do for ourselves to mark Ray’s 5th & John’s 10th anniversary in Heaven. Sort of wondering how it is for them there, and hey, look we made it this far moment – something that seemed impossible at each of their departures.
The Holy Spirit started niggling “Well if that’s what you want to do then remember anything worth doing is worth doing well. And really, do you just want to ride to remember or what if you did it for a different reason?” So, we turned our ride into a fundraiser with a focus on others; this hope that we had realized all these years, that had sustained us as widows, might become a hope that others could embrace. Hence, the name “Ride for Hope” and what a great way to honour our guys and pay their legacy forward. We both knew they would be embarrassed to be front and centre but would be thrilled that we could leverage their homegoing into something beautiful for others.
We chose two charities that were meaningful to each of them: The Investing Hope Foundation (IHF), Ray was in Colombia with the founders, Jim and Diana Frantz, and a small group of friends when the dream was birthed, and then he served as a founding board member. Little did we know that when we chose IHF, Colombia would be experiencing some intense political unrest and over six million more people were tipped into poverty because of the pandemic and more. Inner Hope Ministries, (IH) John mentored and counselled founder Jenny Shantz in her early days of start-up. He was there in those moments when the idea was becoming a reality. The realities that IH has encountered this past year was made every more intense for for the Indigenous peoples in Canada. The discovery of the largest mass killing ever on a First Nation, the identification of more unmarked children’s graves at former Indian residential schools, the ongoing genocide of Indigenous women and Jenny Shantz’s mom’s homegoing. e
We set a fundraising goal of $80,000 – $40,000 for each charity (I personally thought why not shoot for $100,000.) We knew that $40,000 would be matched, but if you know me, I am a ‘what if’ person…We are thrilled to report that as of January 1, 2023, we can say that we finished strong with $85,000 being gifted. Our final donation was made by an old friend from Parkland Fellowship, a church plant that Ray and I were involved in years ago, who sent me a FB message on New Year’s Eve saying, “Please call me, today.” The Lord has pressed Ray’s cancer journey on her heart and she wanted to make one of the things she did before the year ended, to remember Ray with a gift to Joyful Living.
As for the Ride, we planned every logistic imaginable and we trained faithfully for months. The one thing we didn’t consider was an accident and not being able to finish the way we had started. But God knew our 700km ride was going to turn into something much different and way bigger. He had planned a dinner engagement for us with strangers who would become like family. It was truly a Nehemiah 2:8 moment for us. Jenny, from Inner Hope, had written ahead and arranged with Dave & Wendy DuBois, her cousins, a kickoff dinner complete with T-shirt souvenir gifts the night before our big ride. Little did any of us humans know, they would become our lifeline for the entire trip. Jenny’s letter of introduction and endorsement ended up being our lifeline and the encouragement to continue. And then the accident. Day one, just on the outskirts of Borden-Carleton, 65km away from Charlottetown, the ride as we planned it had ended abruptly. The DuBois’ came and picked us and our bikes up. They opened their home, their hearts and yes, their treasures to us. They insisted we continue, and they provided the wheels to make that happen. Their brand-new car was ours for 10 days and their home was to be our base camp while we were on the Island.
We prayed and with the doctor’s blessing plus a cast on my arm, we turned the ride into a walk. We would drive to all the destinations we had planned, and we purposed to walk as many kilometres a day as we could manage. We ended up driving, with our “Ride for Hope” posters plastered on the windows of our new wheels. We drove 1000km’s visiting all the places we had planned and because we now had a car, we were able to go to even more places. And oh, the people that we met from all over the world. PEI is a small island, and we soon became recognizable to others – the woman with the black cast kind of stood out. So, that meant we were able to share our story with countless others.
We decided to invite others to join us as we renamed our “Ride” into the “Journey for Hope”; 37 friends from Colombia, the US and Canada and one entire group of children in a Umoja Soccer Camp in Calgary said, we are in! We want to be part of this journey. Collectively, WE walked and/or rode 1309.3 km. Marlene and I personally logged 308.7 but the larger group bumped that up by 1000.6 km. So, what started out to be a 700km ride by the two of us on the little island of PEI became a movement in several countries. We experienced an Ephesians 3:20 moment, “To him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”.
Finally, even the surgeon back in Langley who ended up doing my surgery knew how important some things were – so as he stitched my arm back up, he took special care to reconnect the word, “UnPoverty”, which is tattooed on my wrist. I will cherish this word and this scar for the rest of my life.
Some encouragements from Marlene and me as you reflect and give thanks for 2022 and launch into 2023:
Dedicate this coming year to the Lord
Expect to meet amazing and beautiful people along the way
Practice encouragement and hospitality as you are able
Take in the scenery that is yours each day…don’t miss all the vistas that are gifted to you
Persevere even when the going gets tough
Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone
Embrace new experiences
And if you can, eat oysters
