Ton writes:
All is well that ends well. I’d heard a lot about NZ before I decided to join the group to cycle this country from South to North, all of about 2200k. Little did I know about the road conditions, at times very little or no shoulder, the traffic and the long steep hills. Looking back it was a thrill to be part of this wonderful group and face the challenge.
Bill alluded already in his blog about the last rainy and windy day. 5k from destination, I had a flat, the back wheel, after having cycled about 125k. Because of the heavy overcast skies it was getting dark early and I was annoyed that this would happen to me under these circumstances. Since I had no desire to fix the thing, I started to walk since I was 5k from the city. After a few hundred meters a motorist stopped, himself a mountain biker, had a roof rack, and offered a ride to our motel and I gratefully accepted this God sent offer. The next day while drinking a white flat in an outside café, the Samaritan crossed the street in front of us and Trish and I ran to him to thank him again. He explained that he was a Christian and we naturally were delighted to share our faith in our loving God. He had been talking to his youth group about being open about their faith and he wished he’d told me why he had stopped in the pouring rain to help. I said that his stopping was an answer to prayer since I had not been in the best of spirits walking in the rain. We serve a God who has not only created all the beauty we saw, who not only gave us the strength to go on when we were tired, but also revived and protected us all along the way. A big thank you to Bill and Rita for organizing this trip, to the support team and especially to God, who met our every need and blessed us beyond expectation. .