My Brother - Author

My brother, Mark Manning, has his first book published.  YEAH!!!  Here is the website where you can order it.  http://www.tripillarpublishing.com/books/shakingscripture.html

My brother is a Pastor in Southern California.  He started a church about 10 years ago called Searchlight Ministries (http://www.searchlightministires.com/).  Now he pastors St Pauls in Orange, CA.  He loves to teach on the books of the bible.  I beleive when he went through Ezekiel, it took a year and a half, but the detail and extra information was exciting to learn.  On his website, he has all his sermons on the books he has taught.  They are MP3 files and are free.  Be prepared to listen to a 45 -60 minute sermon.  They are informative and bring you closer to God. 

End of a Season (Work)

Yesterday was my last day working for Louisville Metro Government.  There was a bittersweet quality to the day.  I made several friends working there that I will miss.  It was also the last day for four others, but they were retiring.  I will also miss the friends I made on the bus ride to and from work.  It is amazing the depth of friendship you can develop over 1/2 hour visits daily. 

Coming home felt like any other day, yet there was an underlying sense of urgency.  I worked on the computer, cleaning up files and then backing them up.  I still need to clean up the duplicate photos and then back them up. 

This morning, I am slow to get started.  It feels like any other Saturday, but I have some things to do.  Right now, there is a thick cloud cover blocking the full force of a sunrise.  The temperatures are in the mid-50s and there is a cooling breeze.  It rained last night.  I'm sitting, looking out of the sliding glass door with a hot cup of coffee.  I know I need to start planning my day, but I loathe to move.  Maybe this is the time I will  mentally switch over from the holding pattern of working and attempting to pack to focused packing and planning. 

I'm looking forward to tomorrow because then I can get really excited about Hawaii.  Today my focus will be packing up the apartment as best I can and to finish packing items for my bike trip. 

Well, back to my cup of coffee and enjoying the peaceful view. 

Inspiration for My Adventure

My inspiration for this bike trip has been over ten years in the making. 

My first “bike trip” was with my friend Nat in Portland, OR.  We packed up the bikes for a weekend trip.  I didn’t last long as I didn’t properly fuel my body and ended up bonking after a couple of hours.  We hitchhiked back to Portland.   Another long distance trip that was not thought out was a ride up to Mt. Hood.  I didn’t carry anything but some snacks and a can of tuna.  When I had exhausted myself, I went to finish off the snacks; I realized that I didn’t have a can opener.  I had to ride back.  I don’t remember the much after the trip. 

Fast forward – 2009: I am under a very large debt made by bad decisions and investments. I moved to Louisville, KY to get a higher paying job and live cheaply.   After two years of working, I’m frustrated with my job and the work I am doing. 

I finally find a church that teaches the bible and I start attending regularly, Kenwood Heights Christian Church in Louisville, KY.  There, after being invited in and invited to a class, I join in the study of the book by Francis Chan “Crazy Love”.  So many things resonate with me.  Then Pastor Randy Beard mentioned reading a book “Radical” by David Platt, so I read it.  Then more things started connecting with me.  My dissatisfaction increased with more than the work I was doing.  Now I was dissatisfied with my thoughts, habits, and going with the world’s flow. 

In May 2011, I finished paying of the large debt.  It is time to think about the future.  I relaxed my spending habits with no goal and was able to really think about what I wanted to do next.  The thoughts about taking a one year bike trip around the perimeter of the US surfaced.  It has been on my list of life goals for some time, but the inevitable no money, no time, no something always popped up.  Now I seriously reviewed the bike trip.  Could I do it?  Would I have enough money?  How much money would I actually need?? 

I sat down to calculate the feasibility of this trip.  I put together a rough budget of potential costs, food and shelter, hotel rooms, monthly bills, equipment needs, additional electronic wants, and re-entry funds.  I calculated out my first pass at a budget and I realized that this trip could possibly be done, but in a six month time frame.  I start evaluating all my monthly budget items to see if I could do something different.  After a couple of months, I was getting the sense additional adjustments in my lifestyle and end points could be made to reduce bills. 

I started saving money and reading the above mentioned books.  Goals for this bike trip started to reveal themselves.  The main goal was to learn to love God more.  This eventually morphed into “to depend on God more than I have ever done”.  I wanted to be changed from the inside out.  I wanted more of God and less of me.  Thoughts of letting go of many of my current belongings started to inspire me. 

In February/March, I picked up the movie “The Way” by Emilio Estevez, a wonderful and inspiring movie.  Finding and watching this movie was purely a God-thing.  Now, I had a new goal.  I was going to walk The Way of St. James in Spain.  I don’t know how or when this will be completed, but I know it will happen.  Watching the movie several times (ok, a lot), I was struck with the thought of being a pilgrim.  We are after all aliens and strangers in this world.  My bike trip started taking on new meaning.  This will now be a type of monastic trip; a trip to depend on God and to change me into a new person.  This change would be of my current habits, values, thoughts, ideas, and ideals that clash or compete with God. 

This will be a trip for a total transformation.  It will not be an easy trip physically or mentally/spiritual.  The physical will ease after a month or two (not counting mountains or nasty headwinds) as my body is transformed.  The mental/spiritual will be harder.   I am voluntarily allowing God to transform me.  I will be asking God to bring up all that needs to be evaluated.  I will need God’s eyes to see what He wants changed and to confess, heal, let go, or forgive as necessary.  Imagine that God has six months to totally transform you.  I don’t think this will be easy or really all that fun.  But the end product – wow, what a change that will be. 

This blog and everyone reading it will be my accountability partner in the change.  Who hasn’t said they would change but didn’t, especially if they didn’t tell anyone?  Me.

So I will need prayers for desire to change and to allow God to do His work.  He after all is the best craftsman.  I will need patience, courage, strength, and endurance.   I know I will need more, but God hasn’t said anything else … yet. 

So off to work and packing I go.  My dad will be visiting tonight.  He is bringing his car and trailer for me and I will send him off with my car.  This will make our lives less stressful after the family vacation in Hawaii starting Monday, April 2^nd.  YEAH!

Goals

I have some very specific goals for this six month bicycle trip. 

1.  Increase my dependence on God. 
2.  Lose weight.
3.  Observe the communities of small towns.

I have a longing to be more dependent on God and to be able to listen to his still small voice and hear it.  Right now, I can listen to God in the early mornings, but after that, I don't hear anything but the outside world and my own voice talking loudly.  A lot of times I feel guilty about it and try to do better only to have the same thing happen over and over again.  I'm pretty sure there are others who have a similar problem.

Losing weight.  The bane of many women's existence.  I don't know how many times I've told myself before a move that the next place I will get outside and exercise and lose weight only to realize at the next move, I didn't even do anything about it.  It sucks.  With this trip, I will have 6 months of exercise almost everyday.  Now eating well will be a challenge on this trip.  I don't like cooking and I will eat anything convenient. 

I long to be part of a community that talks to each other.  No texting, emailing, or Facebooking.  Face to face communication.  America is losing this quickly.  I've observed in other countries that community is still strong even with the electronic invasions.  Maybe I can find community within the smaller towns on back roads that few visit.

Well, back to packing, cleaning, sorting, pondering, and freaking out about my compact schedule of tasks!!!

The Beginning

WOW.  The beginning of a journey.  My new adventure of traveling will begin April 2nd and continue thru ....??  A wonderful friend, Cheryl, pointed me to this blogging spot and now I really need to start posting and learning all I can. 

Additional posts on goals, travel plans, inspirations, etc. will come with subsequent posts. 

Let the adventure begin!