WHERE
Redeemer Luthern Church
If it's nice outside, a tent will be setup, otherwise registration will be inside the East wing of the church.
Des Moines, IA
Description
Charity Ride
Distance - 15 miles or 25 miles
This is a fun 15 mile bike ride throughout Des Moines' trails and a few roads. The ride is safe for families but challenging enough for the savvy rider.
The ride is 15 miles but there will be an option for a shorter route and a longer route, if desired. Maps and details available on the ride day.
This event is solely based on raising funds for Missions work, to help the poor, the broken, the impoverished, the sick, and the needy.
A story of how these funds help is from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, which from the front looks like a lavish tourist destination but just a short distance behind the tourist area is a huge dump and in the dump, people live, outside the dump, people live, and in small Pueblos just footsteps away, people live, very poor. This story comes from a Pueblo not far away from the dump, a few miles away from civilization. The roads are terrible, broken and full of holes and the nearest hospitals are way too far to walk. On top of it, in Mexico, if children don't have papers (social security number, birth certificate), they cannot be cared for, medically, in education, etc.
We stopped by a family's home where a mother and her two daughters, one daughter was about 10 and the other was about 8 years old. The mother was very distraught as her 8 year old daughter was very sick. She asked that we pray for her, so we went into the room where the girl was lying, basically lifeless, very sick. The Spanish speaker in the group asked her what she needed and she wanted to take her daughter to the doctor. Her daughter had no papers, and we were miles away from any hospital. We had a van, but finding a place to care for her little girl was difficult. After several phone calls and a lot of hoops, we were connected to the Cruz Rojo (Red Cross) where we took the family. After a long wait on concrete benches in a concrete building where there were no signs for anything, a nurse came out and brought the mom and sick daughter into the room for an exam. The end result? An ear infection and bronchitis, which in our world is easy to fix, but these two simple ailments would have killed this little girl. The money from fundraisers like these bought the doctor's visit and medication for this little girl. A couple days later, we went back out to visit the family and the little girl who laid lifeless on her bed just a couple of days before, now was running around like a child should... all because of the missions work in that area and fundraisers like these... this is what this event is all about.
Route
The main route will be from the church S on 37th to Kingman Blvd, E on Kingman to Polk, S on Polk to Grand, down to Greenwood Park to the Bill Riley trail, to Waterworks, to Gray's Lake and around the downtown trail back to the church through Greenwood Park. As mentioned, there will be a longer route and shorter route available.
Registration
Registration is $25 by 3/1/09 and $30 after that, including at the door. Registration opens at 8:30 am on the ride day.
Register at active.com:
http://www.active.com/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1692094