Having anticipated for weeks taking yesterday as a recovery day, I ended up spending the day at Agfest with The Salvos. Just prior to the Ride last week, I found out Stuart had been rostered on for Agfest for the Thursday straight after the ride, so I volunteered to go with him and keep him company on the road up and back.
As it happens, it was a good opportunity to get back to Salvation Army Officer basics. I spent a few hours simply making people a cup of tea or coffee - and even a few Milo's - and listening to their stories. I ended up bumping into a number of people we'd encountered over the last week on the Ride; some of them were eager to hear of how we'd got on since seeing them, some didn't appear to remember me at all. This second group gave me pause to think.
Up front, it's only right that I acknowledge a little disappointment at not being recognised or remembered - just a little, quickly gotten over! I'm not upset that these people didn't recognise me, after all when we met I had been wearing my Red Shield Ride cycling gear - yesterday I was wearing jeans, coat, cap and gumboots (it was really wet and muddy!) But it did make me think of our (The Salvation Army's) clients who we serve.
While we journey along life's road with many of our clients; getting to know them well along the way, we also encounter others in a much more sporadic and infrequent way. For these people, we endeavour to give them our full attention, love and care. Yesterday's experience had me wondering though, how many Salvos have walked right passed people they may have helped only a day before without recognising them in a different time and place? And what impact might this have on those people?
For sure, some may not want to be recognised - it can sometimes take a lot of courage to come to Salvos asking for help. But for others, I'm sure there could be disappointment in similar circumstances. Now again, I'm not saying we Salvos aren't trying hard enough - but we must always seek to constantly do things better - what I'm getting at is that in a different place and time, i.e. not in the office or at the Salvos Centre, when our minds have moved on to different things, we may not always notice a person as we would in another situation - it's not intentional, it's just the way it is.
Two things occurred to me yesterday as I thought about it:
First - life goes on! It goes on for all of us, with the exception of maybe a handful of people (if we're lucky) most of the time, what we're living with at any particular time, we live with by ourselves. Of course, others may help, and help well. But they go back to their lives and we remain in ours. Life goes on.
Second - As a man of faith I am incredibly encouraged that Father God never fails to recognise me. He never forgets who I am and what my circumstances are, and He's always willing to engage with me, no matter where I am, or what I'm doing. That is a source of strength for me that blesses me more often then I can count.
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| Take care of your bike and your bike will take care of you! |
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| In need of new tyres and a chain |
Today I've spent the morning at a Radio interview at Ultra106Five with Scott and Jo; I've cleaned my bike and the bus; returned the bus; bought and source replacement parts for the bike and now I'm typing away! Life goes on....
We're still really happy to accept sponsors if anyone if feeling generous or was perhaps waiting to see how we went!
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| Starting to look nice and clean again |
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