Christmas

Here it is December 8th with just a few more weeks till Christmas. But I am sitting here writing to say I am no where near being in the “Christmas spirit”. Me friend Joel posted about a documentary he watched called What would Jesus buy so I though I would check it out. Even though the preacher in the documentary was a little scary , the thing that concerned me the most was the interviews of people who go into major debt  just to buy more stuff. Then to see video clips of Black Friday were people act like animals trampling each other just to get a bargain on stuff.

The thing that concerns me the most is those of us who call ourselves Christians are just as guilty as everyone else. The only difference is we know better. Christmas is suppose to be a time of reflection on how much God loved us by sending his son Jesus to give us the ultimate gift of salvation. Is there any gift we can give that would be able to top that.

weekend

Still trying to get back into the habit of writing a blog so please bear with me. The truth is nothing is coming to me to write about. This last weekend was a major house cleaning here at the Martin household. On Thanksgiving night we had come home from my in-laws to find our golden retriever dead on our kitchen floor. We have no idea why he passed away he was only 9 years old. Heart attack I guess. So we as a family started a full house clean up I believe we will be finding golden retriever hair for a long time. I was able to get a ride in with my friend Joe Schockley that afternoon. Although I had a flat tire half way through the ride and found out I do not like fixing a flat when its below 40 degrees with a 20 mph wind.

 

Then Saturday night my oldest daughter Rachel had a high fever so I stayed home from church Sunday morning with her. I think I have been to church on Sunday morning once in the last 5 weeks. To be honest I don’t know what my future at GBC will be. I don’t feel connected there anymore and it seems like the only time I hear from anyone is when they need me to do something. Please don’t get me wrong I love my church it is where I have done most of my spiritual growing but wondering if it is time to move on.

Catching up

As I’m here watching Hope play and eating my Cheerios I though I should give a little update about what’s been happening in my life the last 2 years since I last posted regular posts.

I noticed the last post I wrote before yesterday was about my good friend Joel moving to Baltimore to plant a church. Joel was the youth pastor at Greensboro Baptist Church and with him leaving we had a void in the leadership of the youth “program” since I was already the middle school director under Joel I was asked to be the interim youth director. Thinking it wouldn’t be to long before the church found a new youth pastor I agreed. Things were going very well with the middle school ministry which is were my heart is but since Joel didn’t have a strong leader core with the high school group a few people came on that did not work out and looking back should not have been put in that leadership role. But after a few very rough months the leadership of the high school group fell apart but to the students credit they started meeting on there own with our pastors wife and myself moderating. Then the year after that a couple great ladies from the church started having these studies in there homes and we saw great growth in the high school group. Now we have a new Pastor of family ministries and both or high school and middle schools are growing and learning  God’s word.

 

My family has grown in the last few years as well I now have a two year old daughter  Hope Elizabeth Martin. I love all my children equally but Hope is the that has me wrapped around her finger. I guess it is because she looks and acts so much like Tyler my son that went home with Jesus. My son Jimmy has been on 4 summer mission trips so far his last one was to northwestern Canada and looks like he will be going on many more.

At this time I am not sure what God would have me do as far as my career after a few successful years my bike repair business folded thankfully I didn’t have a lot invested as far as financially. I know this sounds prideful but I believe I am a good mechanic but I do not have a good sense for business. Right now fixing bikes is a ministry and not a business. I have even tried working in other areas an old friend of mine has a welding business in Salisbury that I worked at for a month or so but because it was so far from home it didn’t workout. I have even helped my Dad logging for awhile but that was short lived as well do to the housing market and the mill closing down. Every year at tax time I help my friend Mike Davis at Davis Smith accounting scanning documents but that is only for a few months.

 

Hopefully I didn’t bore anyone who might be reading this but it’s what I felt like writing.

I’m back

Yesterday I had the privilege of having breakfast with my friend Joel. We have not been able to sit and talk for a very long time. Since he was called to Baltimore it is hard to find time to get together. While we were talking we shared some of the struggles we both have had over the last year. Then Joel encouraged me to start my blog back up as a form of theropy so I can write down my thoughts.

The main theme of this blog will still be cycling and my spiritual journey to become more like Christ which are closely tied together. The times I feel the most close to Jesus is when I’m on the bike. Even though these posts will probably never be  read I am writing them as a form of theropy and maybe they will be helpful to someone sometime.

Saying goodbye

In the last 4 years or so I have been involved with the youth ministry at my church and in that time I have had the opportunityto get to become good friends with the youth pastor. I’m not really sure how it happened but just something about his integrity and openness drew me to him and i was able to let my guard down and talk to him about a lot of things I was dealing wit in life. On the opposite side he shared with me a lot of the challenges he was facing with life and ministry. In the last 2 years Joel really pushed me spiritually and I believe because of his influence I am a better christian for it.

He has been called to start a church in the city of Baltimore and moved over there this week. Even though I’m sad to see him go I know beyond any doubt that God is going to use him and his family in a great way to reach the lost and hurting in Baltimore. At one time I thought about moving to Baltimore to help with the church plant but that is not what God has planned for me. I don’t want to sound prideful or arrogant but I also believe there are great plans for Greensboro Baptist Church and I’m looking forward to what God has in store for us.

I know that we will cross paths again but I still have a sense of loss for the close friendship we had. Please keep the Kurz’s and the rest of the Garden Community Church plant team in your prayers.

9 Days with Rachel

This last week and a half I had a great time with just my 4 year old daughter Rachel and myself. My wife Lori and my son Jimmy have been down in Florida at Teen Missions. I will always remember this special time we had together. I am sorry to say that that much timer away from Mommy is starting to take it’s toll on Rachel and truth be told me too. We are both looking forward to pick Lori and Jimmy up tomorrow from BWI at 2 oclock after our churchs VBS.

What a dirty mountain bike

After the 24 Hours of Big Bear I went to wash my Fisher mountain bike up from the somewhat muddy course this year and decided to take a couple of pics to show how hard the course was. When I was washing the bike I noticed somehow I broke a tooth off of my middle chainring I guess from all the mud on the crankset I noticed it wasn’t shifting right.

I also noticed that disc brakes might not be a bad idea after all. After so much mud v-Brakes don’t queit work as well.

Most of the time I pride myself on keeping my bikes clean but this time the mud is a badge of honor. Took about an hour and a half to get the Fisher clean. That West Virginia clay can really stick to stuff.

100 degree recovery ride

As if the very tough, muddy course at Big Bear wasn’t enough of a challenge I though I would get in a 35 mile recovery ride yesterday in 100 degree heat and about 90% humidity. I lost about 5 pounds on that ride but I am sorry to say that it was water loss instead of the fat that I need to lose.

After the effort I put in at Big Bear my legs needed a nice easy ride to work out the lactic acid and loosen up a little bit.

 

24 Hours of Big Bear

I got back from the 17th annual 24 Hours of Big Bear last night around 7:00. I was there for two reasons the first and most inportant in my opinion was to help my friend and very talented bike wrench Jim Ressler do free mechanical support for any racer who needed it. We started working on bikes around 8:00 on Saturday morning. I had to leave for my first lap around 2 that afternoon. Jim was working on bikes until around 9 that night. At that time one of the IC3 teams needed a rider so he did 1 lap for IC3 Five Alive.

The second reason I was there was to race for the Loco Polaco team. It rained very hard Last Tuesday and Wendesday in West Virgina so the course was very wet and muddy. Everyones lap times were slower then years past but my 2 team mates Chris and Bill that went out before me put in great lap times. Around 3:30 it was my time to go hit the course. I was doing great for the first 6 miles of the 12.2 mile course. At that time there is a very long technical downhill. About 3/4 of the way down I slip in so mud and go down thankfully on my left side so I don’t hurt my right arm. No prob I get back up covered in mud and continue. At the bottom of that downhill there is a pretty good climb which I attach hard. But after that climb my right triceps start to cramp. The only reasons I can think of is my right arm hasn’t got all the strength back since I broke it back in November. Once it started cramping my right elbow pretty much locked up which really slowed me down. Once I got to the finish line for my lap my arm was useless. My teammates wouldn’t let me race for the rest of the day. Thankfully around 3:00 in the morning I felt like I could do another Lap. So they let me go out around 4:30 in the morning. That way if my arm really messed up I would not have to worry about my light battery dying on me since the sun came up around 5:30.  That lap went pretty good but my arm hurt like crazy but it did not lock up on me and My team told me that I shaved 10 minutes off my lap time. So it was a pretty good weekend. My team came in 14thout of 30 teams in sport class so I am happy with that result.

Ride of Silence

bike advoiLast night May 21 at 7 pm was the International Ride Of Silence in which I had the privilege of being able to ride with out of Rehoboth Delaware. The Ride of Silence is a ride but on every year to remember those who were killed or injured last year by motorists. The website is rideofsilence.org.

Last night out of Rehoboth we had 45 cyclists comeout for the ride. We rode in a double paceline at 12mph down route 1 with 2 state troopers as escorts. It was strange riding in such a large group without anyone talking. We also wore armbands most wore black in remembrance of those who have been killed. While others wore red to show that they have been in accidents and injured by motorists. The people from the Milford cycling group had me wear a red arm band because of a road bike accident I was involved in with a pickup a bout a month ago.[hope to write about that later.

I was very pleased by the turnout of cyclists in our area as well as the large turnouts from around the world. I know locally we had a large amount of media coverage. The local tv station even had a live feed of our roll out.

It is my hope that some motorists learn that we have a legal right to be on the road and to look out for cyclists and pedestrians