Are We Ready to Ride Bicycles 600 Miles in Kenya?

The Great Rift Valley, where we'll pedal for a large portion of our journey.

Well, we’ve done just about everything we can do to get ready to pedal 600 miles in Kenya.  We board international flights on May 6 (next Sunday), arrive in Nairobi on the evening of May 7, and take an initial tour around the Kenyan capital on Tuesday, May 8.  That begins twelve straight days of covering between 40 and 70 hilly miles per day in a loop that takes us west and north of Nairobi.

We hope you will follow our journey via our blog. Here’s the address: http://bikekenya2012.blogspot.com  I intend to post photos, videos and updates each day.  I also plan to share tweets from Kenya.  If you use Twitter, follow @BikeKenya2012, or you can view all my comments and photos at www.twitter.com/bikekenya2012.  These are our sincere attempts to bring friends along for the ride, to share the experience, to thank you for your prayers and support and, somehow, to plant seeds for understanding, vision and growth among us all.

There are a thousand details to sweat for planning and leading an excursion like this.  As for training, our team members are making a real attempt at getting ready for riding at mile-high+ altitudes and anticipating major ascents and generally hilly terrain.  But there is a preparation of mind and heart that matters as much to me as logistics and physicality.  Here’s what I’m thinking about that.

I am contemplating the Christian faith precept that in grace God goes before us and meets us where we go.  With that, I am free to bracket my detail orientation and penchant for on-timeness and plan follow-through in order to be open and empty enough to experience and receive what no one can anticipate.  I can set aside presuppositions regarding cultures and faiths in order to observe, take in and appreciate the diverse dynamics of people, relationships, communities and faith we may be privileged to experience.  I am conditioning myself even now to slow down, focus on being there (a FISH principle) and, as much as possible within my role as team leader to practice what in Swahili is known as “hakuna matata” – no worries.  I am extending my practice of contemplative prayer – making/taking more time than usual to consider and pray reflectively through the daily experiences of life.

So, this is more than just a fundraising cycling event (it IS that; have you yet sponsored us with a per-mile donation to build the new ICCM school?).  It is something of a spiritual journey.  We invite you along for the ride.  We welcome your prayers.  We welcome your support.  We welcome your responses.  And we hope not to return unchanged. 

-- John Franklin Hay

Official News Release for Bike Kenya 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bike Kenya 2012 to Benefit Education in Kenya

Indianapolis, Indiana, April 25, 2012  --  Nine amateur cyclists will pedal 600 miles as a team through Kenya, May 8-21, 2012, to raise awareness and funds to build a needed high school near Eldoret.

Eight cycling participants from North America are paying their own expenses and attempting to raise $40,000 US to purchase property and construction materials for the secondary school.  Funds are being raised as contributors match the cyclists’ “sweat equity” with small per-mile donations (5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, $1, etc.).

Bike Kenya 2012 participants from North America will be joined by Bishop Nixon Dingili of Nairobi, Kenya for the excursion.  Bishop Nixon Dingili is head overseer of the Free Methodist Church in Kenya.

Cycling participants will pedal approximately 600 miles (966 kilometers) over 12 days through hilly terrain along the Great Rift Valley west of Nairobi. For one stage, the team will ride among large game through Hell’s Gate National Park. In Kenya, the cycling tour will begin and end in Nairobi.

Bike Kenya 2012 has three active Internet-based sites by which the public can track photos and updates of the team’s journey as it progresses, learn about the project, and contribute to the cause:

Bike Kenya 2012 blog: http://bikekenya2012.blogspot.com

Bike Kenya 2012 on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bikekenya2012 

BK 2012 via ICCM: www.childcareministries.org/participate/bikekenya2012.php

Team members range in age from 20 into retirement.  North American participants in the Bike Kenya 2012 team include:

Bob Burtch of Batavia, Illinois

Kevin Williams of Sorento, Illinois

Jack Hughey of Alton, Illinois

Mark and Megan Booth of Mogador, Ohio

Alex Drummond of Indianapolis, Indiana

Rebecca Lamp of Bucyrus, Ohio

John Franklin Hay of Indianapolis, Indiana (team leader)

Bike Kenya 2012 is being facilitated through VISA (Volunteers In Service Abroad) Ministries and International Child Care Ministries (ICCM), both based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and affiliated with the Free Methodist Church USA.

The high school that is the focus of Bike Kenya 2012 is planned to be built near Eldoret.  It will be operated by International Child Care Ministries (ICCM) of Kenya. The secondary school will provide formal and progressive educational opportunity for students who are at risk of not continuing to graduation.

ICCM currently sponsors more than 1,100 Kenyan children for their education.  ICCM also operates a small number of schools in some of Kenya’s hardest-to-serve areas. ICCM sponsors or scholarships 20,000 children in 30 countries and engages in creative initiatives in expression of its vision to “activate change locally to impact children globally.”

John Franklin Hay, organizer and team leader of Bike Kenya 2012, points to the combination of a love of cycling and a care for education in international settings that created the impetus for the project.  “We are responding to the invitation of our hosts in Kenya to use bicycling to raise awareness of the good work ICCM is doing in Kenya and raise funds for a new school.”

Hay says: “We look forward to encountering the beauty of Kenya’s people and grand land over these weeks.  We hope we will be something more than tourists. We want to make an ongoing investment in education and international understanding.”

Contact:

John Franklin Hay

johnfranklinhay@yahoo.com

ICCM

770 N High School Rd

Indianapolis, IN 46214

www.childcareministries.org

xxx

Learning About Kenya

Even as team members get ourselves into physical shape for bicycling Kenya, we are also trying to make ourselves aware of the awesome people, land and culture in which we will be immersed for a few weeks.

We hope we'll be able to be something more than typical tourists.  We want our day-by-day pedaling through the open country to impact us--perhaps in some life-changing ways.  And we hope your share in helping us raise funds to buy property and build a high school will make a continuing life-changing impact in the lives of youth and their community.  Thanks for supporting the school with a donation! $40,000 for a new school is our goal!

So, we are gathering facts and factoids that begin to help us enter Kenya with some limited perspective.  These facts and figures are important to us at this point. They will likely later be eclipsed by more personal awarenesses.

• 41 million people live in Kenya
• Kenya has 42 distinct people groups
• Kenya covers 580,000 square kilometers
• Kenya is the largest economy in Africa
• Kenya's middle and long-distance runners dominate world competition
• Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, has over 3 million inhabitants
• Nairobi's elevation is about the same as Denver--a mile high
• Kenya's Great Rift Valley and Maasi Mara are home to a great diversity of wildlife
• The equator crosses Kenya near Nakuru
• Lake Victoria is on Kenya's western border
• Mt. Kenya is the 2nd highest mountain in Africa and is permanently covered in snow
• Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is not in Kenya but is prominently visible across the Tanzanian border
• 80% of Kenya's population claim Christianity as their religion (mostly Protestant)
• Kibera, a slum adjacent to Nairobi, has nearly 200,000 residents without running water or sewer
• Average lifespan in sub-saharan Africa is under 50 years

Know a fact or two about Kenya that might help us?  Please do share!

Don't forget: we count on your per-mile donations to the new school. Please use the right sidebar to make a contribution.  Also, share this blog link with others.

Stay tuned. We're getting close!

-- John Franklin Hay

Making Lists, Checking Them Twice

This is one partially-filled supply suitcase that we'll take with us to Nairobi in a few weeks. A few of the supplies: Gatorade powder, Clif nutrition bars, team shirts, team reflective vests, power adapters, Kenyan culture guidebooks, Camelback water backpack, travel tags, etc.

We're making lists and checking them twice. We're under the three-week threshold as our Bike Kenya 2012 team counts down to May 6.  That's the day our eight North American team members depart Chicago and Cleveland for Nairobi to begin a 600-mile bike ride through Kenya. We will be joined by team member Bishop Nixon Dingili in Kenya.

We are sweating details now so we will be free to sweat on the open roads as we pedal across the Rift Valley and into the highlands to raise funds to build a new International Child Care Ministries (ICCM) school in northwest Kenya.

We hope you and more friends will support the school-building effort with a per-mile contribution to match our bicycling. $30.  $60.  $150.  $600.  More.  Less. Whatever you can give goes 100% toward the school project.

Remember, every cyclist is covering all of his/her own expenses.  There is no cost to ICCM or VISA or the Kenyan school for our effort.  The full amount of every donation goes to the school.

I have been only half-jokingly asking friends, "So, is my pedaling across Kenya worth at least 5 cents a mile to you?" I hope so. More, hopefully! If so, please join others to make a difference for the futures of children in Kenya who are seeking education through ICCM.

Follow us on Twitter @BikeKenya2012

Less than a Month to Go

Our Bike Kenya 2012 team preparations intensify as we now count less than four weeks until we fly to Nairobi to begin our 600-mile ride through Kenya to raise funds to build a new school. Our anticipation and momentum is building!

Ride facts in review:
- Eight cyclists from North America
- One cyclist (a Bishop, no less!) from Kenya
- Two Kenyan support staff traveling with us
- Team members range from 20 to retirement age.
- A 600-mile route northwest of Nairobi
- 12 straight days of pedaling
- Each cyclist pays 100% of his/her expenses
- Goal: raise $40,000 for a new ICCM school
- Asking all who care/can to make a per-mile donation to build the school
- ICCM is International Child Care Ministries (www.childcareministries.org)
- VISA Mobilization Ministries facilitates our volunteer effort

RAIN, RAIN.  We are now more fully aware than previously that our team will likely experience rain--and perhaps significant amounts of it--during the course of our ride.  Kenya receives, on average, over 8 inches of rain in May! Wow! The only comforting reality beyond that is that the average temperature in May in Kenya is 84 degrees F (29 C).  So, we're packing rain gear and plastic fenders!

TRAINING DAILY.  Most of our team members are now training several hours a day in preparation for the effort in Kenya. Hours in the saddle now make it less of a strain once we start pedaling at least 5 hours a day for 12 straight days.

CLIMBS AND ELEVATION.  Our team is training on whatever hills we can find. Most of us live in the American Midwest, so there are not many opportunities for hard hills.  Another factor we are considering is the elevation of Nairobi and Nakuru.  Nairobi is just over 1 mile high (like Denver, Colorado). Nakuru, near the equator, is over 1.6 miles above sea level.  To what extent will the thinner air at these elevations impact our progress through hilly terrain?  We'll see.  We plan to take it very carefully.

SUPPORT FOR A SCHOOL.  We hope you will appreciate our volunteer "sweat equity" and make a donation to help build a new ICCM school in Kenya.  Can you give...
- 5 cents per mile ($30)?
- 10c per mile ($60)?
- 25c per mile ($150)?
- $1 per mile ($600)?
- More? Less?

THANK YOU! Thanks for whatever you can do. That's why we're riding.  Our goals is to raise--one donation at a time--$40,000 to make a solid Christian education possible where it has not been available.  Use the links on the right sidebar to make an online donation right now. Or send a check by post mail.  Whatever you can do is appreciated!

TUNE IN.  Keep coming back to our blog. Also, follow us on Twitter @BikeKenya2012 (www.twitter.com/bikekenya2012). We hope to have lots of photos and stories to share with you as we continue our preparation and then ride through this beautiful country!