Somewhere in between Jackson and Coldwater, Michigan is a little Amish community. I'm not entirely sure where we were but we were very close to our final destination when we rode through it. Thomas wanted to ride the last few miles to get his exercise for the day, which I gladly let him do because there were a lot of dirt roads today and I've realized that they really sap my energy and motivation. So at one point I said to him over the radio, "Did you see the little Amish boy with the basketball court?" thinking it was funny that there was a random Amish family. Apparently I spoke too soon. We did not realize that the animal crap we had been encountering in the middle of the road was from horses drawing carriages; we did not realize that the tiny little wheel marks that we had been seeing were from the carriages. But there we were, in the middle of Amish country.
I thought about two things as we passed through. Firstly, a lot of things went wrong today. A lot of things have gone wrong on this trip--lost money, radios not working, wrong turns, closed bridges, etc.--so we are used to it, but it's still no fun. Today we lost one of my credit cards during one of the many bike switches. We had to switch bikes often because the roads continually changed from dirt to road, and the dirt roads were not dirt-y enough (haha...) to stay on my Cato, the road bike. I tried for awhile to stay with Cato (and you'll see when we put up new pictures on our next break day that there is some serious dirt all over the gears) but the spinning out and bumping up and down like crazy was no fun at all. So during one of those switches out falls the credit card. Oh well, another thing bites the dust (literally).
We also came across a barn on fire. I saw smoke off in the distance about half-way through the ride and hoped it was leaf fire or something of which we've seen many so far, all harmless. Unfortunately as we zig-zagged our way through who-knows-where Amish country, the smoke became more and more menacing. When we got about a football field away we could see that one of the family's barns was on fire, fire trucks were just arriving, and friends from all over must have come to help the family contain the fire and the animals because there were a lot of people and vehicles around, including a horse and its carriage but I didn't want to take advantage of someone's plight to get a nice picture. Horses were running everywhere just as the people were. In the communal spirit that the Amish showed during the fire, I hope you will take an opportunity to pray for that family and their animals.
Because of these things, the first thing I realized today was that there are going to be a lot of mishaps as we fight for justice. Moses led the enslaved Hebrews out of Egypt to the Promised Land, but in between a whole bunch of things went terribly wrong and the people complained. As the saying goes, "S*** Happens." Thankfully we have a loving and merciful God who is on the side of justice and righteousness who will help us along even and especially when we think we are facing an insurmountable setback. Now, I wouldn't go up to the Amish family whose barn was burning and say, "It's ok, God is helping you through," because it's hard for people to hear that everything will be ok when nothing seems to be ok. In fact, I'm not going to say that everything will work out. But I do know that we will face serious setbacks, and I do know that the God of love will be there.
Speaking of s*** happening, there was quite a bit of it all over the roads today as I said earlier. But we can't waste time worrying about the little things. I lost a credit card... so what? There was crap on the ground... so what? These are little issues that we literally can ride around without losing speed. Sure, it might be a little disconcerting that there's crap on the ground but I just ride around it. What's the worst that could happen anyway? I get some crap on my tire? Fine, we clean it off later, no big deal. Getting your tires, or hands, dirty is part of the deal. If I want to ride my bike and feel the wind that I've created with my own strength on my face I have to be willing to bump around a little bit, get dirty and even crap on me, and sweat and feel pain in my legs. I'm not a believer in "no pain, no gain," but I wouldn't be much of an abolitionist if I wimped out because of a little crap on the road.
The second thing that I realized is that some people are still stuck in the past. I don't mean that Amish people are behind the times or not civilized or something. I greatly respect the Amish and honestly wish I had the fortitude to live like they do. Seeing an Amish community (for the first time in my life, now that I think about it), though, reminded me of some comments I heard when I first started calling myself an abolitionist. Generally people would say something along the lines of, "We're not in the 1800's anymore." Clearly. In a very real sense, though, some people are still in the 1800's, or the 1000's, or the B.C. years. If there are 27 million slaves in the world, by my estimation that means there are more than 27 million people who think that slavery is somehow justifiable and they take advantage of it. Slavery is real. It's happening in your state. It might be happening in your town. It could be happening down the street from you, or in the house next to you. S*** happens, and this s*** is real.
Starting tomorrow I'm going to start headlining Massachusetts, partly so that we can more grounding in how real slavery is, partly because it's my home state, partly because they just passed a new law, and partly because Massachusetts is actually one of the last states to pass a law on human trafficking and one of the worst states in regulating or enforcing laws on trafficking. So stay tuned, amigos.
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