Here's the bicycle post:
The Diocese of Missouri has been holding the funds raised by "Biking for Bikes" at Trinity St. Charles, along with other contributions from bikes, including some from Trinity Central West End and one from St. Peter's Ladue for the dean, for some time. (Sorry if there are other donors that I don't know -- please feel free to add in comments!)
We've gotten mixed messages about the need for additional bikes in Lui: The diocesan staff, eager to pursue other transportation projects such as a much-needed new Land Cruiser for the diocese and a dump truck to enable them to do building and marketing projects, told us we had bought enough bicycles, and we were considering the possibility of turning the money to other transportation needs with the permission of the donors. However, we've been asking pastors and youth from around Lui Diocese in our conferences for several visits now, and it has become clear that not all of them share the vision of the central administrative staff because so many are still traveling many miles and many hours on foot. One pastor this month walked 11 hours to get to our pastors' conference.
So earlier this fall, we transferred all our bicycle money to the Diocese of Lui to buy 30 new bicycles and one motorbike. The bikes were to be divided evenly among the seven archdeaconries for use by anyone who needed one to make a long trip. The motorbike was for the diocesan youth coordinator, who has to be able to get to all seven archdeaconries. And so we were thinking surely four bikes per archdeaconry would be enough to share, and we could turn some of that fundraising energy to other projects.
Enter the second misapprehension in this story: While we intended the bikes to be held in common, Lui Diocese has something of a pecking order for bicycle distribution. Over the years, various organizations, including our friends in the Diocese of Lund in the Church of Sweden, have donated many bicycles to the Diocese of Lui, and they have been given to individuals in order of rank and seniority, or something like that. Our most recent gift of bikes was incorporated into that scheme of distribution. So while we were expecting all the pastors at our conference in Lui this month to have ridden bikes if they came far, we found out that most of them had walked while the archdeacon at home kept the bike. And they were kind of unhappy that we'd been giving bikes out and they didn't get one. So Stephen and I went into their conference to explain what each of us had intended, and I think it was actually a really useful moment because it gave us Westerners a clearer understanding of Moru culture, and it gave the bikeless pastors hope that they'd be next in line. Meanwhile Stephen and I both urged the holders of bikes to share. (I should add that one of the bikes when to the diocesan Mothers' Union leader.)
I hope that's not more than you want to know about the reality of our visits to Lui and the facts about raising money for bikes! The bottom line is that more bicycles ARE needed in Lui Diocese if congregations still want to raise money for them.
This is where I should be uploading photos of bicycles. Rick and I both saw them on Stephen's camera, a great, joyous ceremony and celebration of bicycle distribution to 30 people at Fraser Cathedral. But something is wrong with Stephen's camera and we couldn't upload anything he's taken for the past year, hard as we tried. So sorry -- I'm sure you'd rather have one great picture than my thousand words here!
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