RAGBRAI Complete!

Friends - I finished RAGBRAI yesterday.  What a great ride across my home state of Iowa.  Awesome!  Here's a picture of me at the edge of the Mississippi River.

Our Citizenship is in Heaven

In an earlier post, I recommended this book: Same Kind of Different as Me.  Here are the final sentences of this great read: "The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain't no final restin place.  So in a way, we is all homeless - just workin our way toward home."


Hearing those concluding words, reminded me of one of Pastor Art's favorite Bible verses.  "But our citizenship is in Heaven.  And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." (Philippians 3:20)


Amen.

RAGBRAI challenge

RAGBRAI 2011 is not far away.  We're excited about the upcoming ride.  Total miles - 454 miles from Glenwood all the way to the Quad Cities.  Pray for the riders to have endurance and strength on the journey east.  Pray for us to hydrate well on hot days.  Pray for us to wisely apply lots of suntan lotion so we don't emerge as Red Lobsters after a week in the sun.  Pray that God will keep us safe.  Pray that God will provide for us, protect us, and make his presence known.


Pastor Rick
New Life
(Mere days before RAGBRAI)

Strong Enough - Great Song!

End of Trail

I took this photo a few days ago at the place where the Volksweg trail dead-ends in the water.  Lake Red Rock is a great place to ride but this section of the trail is often flooded.


Despite watery obstacles like this and the incredibly high temperatures, I've logged the necessary miles to prepare for RAGBRAI.  On Saturday, I topped 2,000 miles for my pre-RAGBRAI miles.  Feels good.  All this week, I've been dialing it down so that my legs are rested and ready for the big event.


The guys at the prison are praying for my safety during the ride.  They're also thankful for all the support we've received so they can benefit in a big way.  I praise God for all the financial support we've received so far.  With your help, New Life can not just survive but thrive in the prison where God has planted us!

New Life in Prayer

Yesterday we started a new video series in our Tuesday prayer group at the prison.  It's called Forgotten God: Reversing our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit.  So far so good.  


I find Francis Chan to be very engaging - he tells funny stories about children's books, brats, and Las Vegas.  In addition, he challenges us to live committed lives for Jesus Christ.  Here's what Chan writes in chapter one of his book on the Spirit: "We would expect our new life with the Holy Spirit to look radically different from our old life without Him."  


God is challenging us in our prayer group to become a united community.  God is challenging us to live a life of forgiveness.  God is challenging us to love our enemies.  Pray that the Holy Spirit would make change happen in the life together of the inmate fellowship called NEW LIFE!


Pastor Rick
New Life

New Life in the Word

This past Thursday at our New Life in the Word Bible study, we started something new.  We're doing a DVD series on the life of Christ called "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Philip Yancey. So far so good.  The first video started out with Yancey at a Hollywood movie set of depicting the NYC Public Library.  His point was to challenge us to move from a 2-D caricature of Jesus to a fuller 3-D understanding of the real Jesus.  We had a great group meeting including praise songs, prayer, and small group discussions.  


God is good - He's growing a community of faith behind prison walls!


Pastor Rick
New Life