Training Log

Date: Sunday, November 19, 9:30 am
Distance: 5 miles
Route: Culver, Portola, Peter's Canyon Bike Trail
Time: Over an hour
Conditions: Bright, sunny warm
Felt: a little fatigued, legs strong, the arm positioning pushing the stroller does not feel good, a little foot pain this evening.

Notes:
- I asked Megumi to pray over us before we start.
- Hana rode her bike for the first 1.5 miles with Megumi running right behind Sei and me.
- Hana got tired so she and Megumi went back
- While on Portola, someone asked me for directions to get to Santa Margarita Pkway via toll roads. I gave them directions and as they drove off, I realized I gave them the wrong directions. I felt so bad......
- Throughout the first 2-3 miles, Sei is say "Mommy, Mommy" and actually starts to cry...I tell him that Mommy is waiting for us and we will see her soon....I start wondering how he is going to survive 13 miles without Megumi....I then start saying "Papa is here...We're almost home" and say this repeatedly while seemingly out of breath....This seems to calm him, and it calmed me. I just love it how God sometimes reveals Himself...and with a quiet still voice, He reminded me that we can endure this life because "Papa is here, and we're almost home."
- I am beginning to get excited for Sei because we are almost back home, where his sister and mommy were going to be waiting..as I am cooling down, I stopped, and looked over to see his face, I discovered that he had calmly fallen asleep...resting...I was both happy yet sad...don't know exactly why...
- I tell Megumi that we will keep Sei up all night before the Half Marathon.
- Next training run for Team Bermejo - Thursday, Turkey Trot 10K (6 miles) at Dana Point

They Will Know Us

Psalms 40 begins with the following:

"I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God...."

And the psalms ends with..

"Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
Oh, my God, do not delay."

I wonder how the poor and needy read the Scriptures, how they experience it and receive it. This psalms reminds me that the Scriptures are not mere abstractions to those who are poor. They are cries out for help, and when God meets their needs, oftentimes through the Church, their cries become "a new song" in their mouths.

Gandhi, when asked by people if he was a Christian, he would often reply "Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are."

This is so true. Ask the poor all over the world, even the poor here in America. You ask the victims of Katrina in the Gulf coast today, they'll tell you who the Christians are. In face of government failures to respond to their need, it was the church who responded quickly and is still there in Lousiana. I heard of churches down there feeding literally thousands of people everyday. Imagine what has and can be done when we do small things with great love - in His name.....

...They will know us by our love....this is the greatest apologetic...

Here's another FWCM video .

Freedom & Joy

Please check out the latest FWCM video. As Megumi and I watched this, our hearts were stirred to see the footage of the numerous people crawling out and into the hope of getting one of the wheelchairs. These images reminded us what it must have been like for the poor, lame, crippled, and sick as they poured out amongst the crowds just to get a glimpse of Jesus and see His kind face, receive His healing touch, and hear the Good News that the Kingdom of Heaven was available to them. What freedom! What joy!

Please remember if you donate online, you will be asked "what inspired you to make this gift." If you can, please choose "Other" and then type in Team Bermejo or Orange Coast Church.

Thanks for your support.

In The Name of Jesus - Rise Up!

Our family is excited to have another opportunity to support this awesome charity. Not only is FWCM our family charity for 2006, our home church, Orange Coast Church, has also set a goal of raising over 500 wheelchairs as a church family by the end of the year! We find supporting this charity a no-brainer for a few reasons: it is a local charity, based here in Irvine making a difference all over the world; the assembly and distribution is clearly explained so you know how your gift is making a difference; and it serves to help the poorest of the poor, and most importantly, FWM is driven by the example of Jesus Christ and how he lived in this world and had a special love for the sick and crippled. When Christ healed the crippled and lame, He simply commanded them to “rise up!” Imagine how their view of the world and their lives were forever changed. This is the gift of one of these chairs.

How Deep The Father's Love For Us

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that helf Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

*****

Here's another Team Hoyt video tribute

Team Hoyt

The idea and inspiration for all this comes from Team Hoyt. You can read more about them in the article below written by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated. Their powerful story provided me immeasurable inspiration when training and completing my three marathons. Running reminds me that I have so much to be thankful for: today, breath, health, life, my wife, my children, my family, friends, and the deep love of Our Heavenly Father shown through His own son, Jesus.

****
"I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging.

Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. ``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told.
``There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. ``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-o! ld stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.'' And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race.
Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. ``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

Here's the video....

I Am No Longer My Own, But Yours

Everytime I run a race, I inscribe Philippians 4:13 on my wrist to remind me that Jesus is going to give me all I need to finish. I recently ran across the Covenant Prayer by John Wesley (founder of Methodism), which is recited to re-dedicate oneself to God. Most Methodist churches include in their books of liturgy an order for what is called a "Covenant service". Such a service includes a traditional bidding, followed by the prayer itself. The bidding traditionally includes phrasing such as:

...Christ has many services to be done. Some are easy, others are difficult. Some bring honour, others bring reproach. Some are suitable to our natural inclinations and temporal interests, others are contrary to both... Yet the power to do all these things is given to us in Christ, who strengthens us.

The Prayer

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

Welcome!

On December 2, 2006, Team Bermejo will be running The Southern California Half-Marathon here in Irvine, California to raise money for Free Wheelchair Mission. Russ will be pushing his two-year old son, Sei, in a jogger stroller for the entire 13.1 mile course, with two main goals in mind: Glorify God. And to raise support for Free Wheel Chair Mission, which is an incredible local charity which gives away specially-designed wheelchairs to the poor and disabled all over the world. $44.40. That's all it cost for one wheelchair to change one life. Thanks for your support!

God bless!

Russ, Megumi, Hana Grace, Sei Honor