A Dream of Bikes for Mozambique

The Daily Interlake, NW Montana

It started with a dream, and now that dream is turning into reality with dozens of refurbished bicycles ready to go to an impoverished African nation.

Last February, Ron and his wife, Jan, traveled with fellow members of Riverside Vineyard Church to a conference in Redding, Calif.

Among the speakers were Rolland and Heidi Baker, directors of Iris Ministries, a nondenominational Christian mission to orphaned and abandoned children in Mozambique, Africa.

Brunk and his wife had been to other Christian conferences. Two previous ones had been followed by very significant dreams for Brunk.

It happened again.

As the Brunks began their shared prayer time one night, Ron was pulled up short.

"She started praying, and my eyes were closed," he said. He was fully awake, but suddenly, "I had [an impression] that was very detailed, and got the full message in just a couple seconds."

He needed to get this on paper:

They were to begin collecting old, secondhand bikes during the spring, summer and fall.

"In the fall, [Glacier Cyclery] would fix them up, tune them up and box them up. We were to get 100-150 of them and pack them in a container. We're supposed to ship them to Africa," he wrote.

And they were to do all this in what traditionally is the shop's slow season, when revenues drop and employees are laid off.

Finally, he and Jan were to follow the bikes, carting along tools and parts to work with someone in Africa to reassemble them. They would supply enough to establish what he called a Third World bike shop -- essentially a box of tools -- and train someone to maintain and repair the bikes.

That was the vision. But he knew it was going to require a lot of faith:

Faith for shop income to keep staff employed so they could fix the bikes. So far, Brunk said, they have the income to keep more employees working than ever before in mid-September.

Faith for the money to ship the bikes to Africa. Brunk figures it will cost about $5,000 for the 20-foot shipping container needed for 150 bikes. Mozambique's import duty could be half the value of each bike shipped, adding another $5,000.

His practical business mind knew it made no sense to spend so much on bikes valued so little in the United States.

But Brunk said God isn't asking him to make sense of it.

Now, what seemed impossible to reconcile is coming to pass.

"Jan has the faith," Brunk said.

So far 47 bikes have been committed from various sources. More are coming in.

A friend in the Flathead has traveled to Mozambique. When Brunk asked if bikes are feasible there, he said the rugged roads are best suited to bikes. Pastors traveling between far-flung villages would appreciate the relief from walking, the friend added.

Bike-shop customers who had been to Mozambique through Youth With A Mission told Brunk that the government already had supported an effort to bring in computers. Support for bike-shop business planting would not be a stretch.

And outside help is needed. The southeast African republic is home to 17.5 million people devastated in 2000-02 by three consecutive cyclones that demolished infrastructure, washed away crops and soil, and robbed an already-poor country ravaged by 25 years of political unrest.

Brunk contacted the Bakers. They were grateful for the offer -- sturdy bikes would be well-used in their pastor-training program at Maputo, capital of Mozambique, and in nearby orphanages.

Conversations with people connected in one way or another to Mozambique have continued.

"I've told more in the past five weeks than in the previous five months," Brunk said of his experience.

Add to that the 2,200 mailed copies of Glacier Cyclery's most recent newsletter containing the story, which spurred about 20 donations immediately.

His own regular bike-supply companies indicate they may be able to donate or supply products.

Word is getting out.

"I sense it could grow into something pretty big," Brunk said, speculating this could be only the first of a series of travels. He might even set up a nonprofit entity to handle the venture.

He plans on shipping the bikes out by mid-November. They should arrive in Maputo sometime in December, then he and Jan will go to Mozambique in January to assemble them and offer bike-repair training to people there.

"We like to travel, but I've never had any desire to go to Africa," Brunk said. "I'm real excited about it now, because it's travel with a purpose."

Anyone who can donate a child's bike or a non-suspension mountain bike

-- those built in the 1980s should have the perfect durability for Mozambique's rugged roads -- can drop it off at Glacier Cyclery, 326 E. Second St. in Whitefish.

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Google Transl. by: Online Business Journal