Say hello to Promise.  She is a 1^st grader in the Kyalulangira area of Uganda, and our family has been blessed to sponsor Promise since last Spring when her picture got the attention of the boys at the end of a “Step Into Africa” program at a local church.  Thanks to World Vision, Promise’s family has received health education about HIV and AIDS and malaria, which is the deadliest childhood disease in her area, and Promise now has her own treated mosquito net that she sleeps under at night.  World Vision has also built four classrooms and provided furnishings to several other schools in the area so Promise and the other kids in her community can go to school.  Promise is really just like millions of other little girls in the world.  She loves singing and jumping rope and the color pink.  But she also happens to live in a very poor part of the world where access to basic healthcare and education are not easily come by.  Thankfully, World Vision is working tirelessly in Promise’s community and hundreds of others throughout Africa to improve the chances that Promise will have a healthy and happy life, and our small $35 per month contribution plays a role in that. 

Tumelo, the boy in Lesotho we have been sponsoring for several years, and Promise, are two of the people who have inspired me to raise money and child sponsorships for other children in Africa as part of my training activity for the 2011 Boston Marathon.  Would you please consider helping?  A small sacrifice of a little more than a dollar a day for sponsorship can make a huge difference for one of these kids.  A cash donation to World Vision can do the same thing.  World Vision is one of the most financially responsible charities in the world.  Their overhead for management and fundraising is only 11% and the remainder goes directly to the programs that support impoverished communities (http://www.worldvision.org/content.nsf/about/why-donate). 

If you would like to make a cash donation, you can easily do so by going to my fundraising page, click on “Make a Donation”, and follow the instructions.  I would like to raise at least $100 for every mile of the marathon for a total of $2,620.  

If you are interested in child sponsorship, even better!  Follow these simple steps to check it out:

1. Visit www.teamworldvision.org.
2. Click on “Make a Donation” in the left menu bar.  [direct link]
3. Click on SPONSOR a child on behalf of an athlete for $35 each month.

At this point you will see a picture of a child and some information about him or her.  You can also use the menu on the left to look for a child you would like to sponsor.  I personally have a really soft spot in my heart for kids in Ethiopia so I’d love it if you pick an Ethiopian child, but you may feel called to sponsor a child from a different country.  Follow your heart!  When you’ve found that kid that grabs your heart:

4. Select “Sponsor Now”
5. Fill out the on-line form and put “Joe Heikes” in the Athlete Name field.

In the end, I don’t really care if I get “credit” for your sponsorship of a child.  The important thing is that you get the joy of sponsoring the child and the child gets the help!  But it would be nice to track my effectiveness in raising support for these kids if you would put my name in that field before you submit the form.  It’s even okay if you misspell it – World Vision said they can sort that stuff out.  The most important thing is to help the kids!

Love and God bless you all.

Joe

A New Course

Wyatt and my dad in St. Paul

I thought it might be good to write down how I came to decide to run the 2011 Boston Marathon for World Vision. My dad, my son and I were wandering about the Twin Cities Marathon Expo on October 2, about to leave, when we happened upon the World Vision booth in a far corner by the restrooms. Up to that point I had heard of people running marathons for all kinds of good charities, but I didn’t know there was such a thing as “Team World Vision.” We didn’t stop at the booth very long, but I provided my contact information on a sheet to request more information and then didn’t think about it too much more. At that point my mind was more focused on the next day racing my first marathon since knee surgery 20 months earlier. Maybe that was a good thing since the next was a very special day. I ran my best marathon ever (at age 44!) and was triply blessed having Dad and Wyatt with me. Wyatt ran along parallel to the finish chute yelling, “Dad! Dad! 2:50!?” Exhausted, I looked across at him with a raised “thumbs up” and said, yes, I thought so.

In my post-race euphoria I had almost (but not quite) forgotten about Team World Vision, but at the end of October I received an email from World Vision letting me know they were responding to my sign up. I guess I’d got myself into something and it wasn’t going to go away! Since we visited Ethiopia in 2009 it had been bothering me that Kay and I needed to do something more. The needs are so great in Africa, and it is hard to know where to start or where one can make a difference. The magnitude of the problem and the uncertainty of where best to start has been paralyzing for me. But the idea had been nagging me that I had to do something, had to start somewhere. So, when Orphan Sunday rolled around at our church my heart became even more deeply convicted. There was this something right in front of me that I could try to do. I’m in the race, God willing I will run it, and now I’ll try my hand at fundraising for what I think is about the best cause there is, bringing hope and practical help to some of the poorest kids in the world. And that’s pretty cool.

Marking Milestones & The Downside of Teeth

Before the day dawned today it was already hot and windy. I woke up 1 minute before my alarm was set to go off at 4:25 to rouse me for my planned 21 miler, but I could tell as soon as my feet hit the floor that I was tired and that this run might not go so well. In the dark, chasing a really bright full moon forcing its light through the clouds as often as not, I started an easy pace into the hair dryer wind.

I had a lot on my mind this morning. Today was our 18th wedding anniversary, our middle son’s 12th birthday and was to be baptism day for our youngest son. The night before Kay and I went out on a date to celebrate our anniversary, a night out made possible by the kindness of a friend who agreed to babysit Lulit. We had a good time going to dinner and seeing “Winter’s Bone” at the artsy movie theater, but we also didn’t get home until nearly 10:30 and by the time Linda left and Kay got home from taking care of the neighbor’s dog it was getting kind of late to be going to bed the night before a very early rise for a long run.

So I was aware of my general fatigue and it worried me as I was heading out on my long out and back path. I was also aware that it was going to be my job to baptize Cade this morning and that no matter what, bonk or not, I could not be late getting back from my run, which was part of why I left so early, but I also knew I only had margin for maybe a couple miles of bonking and walking at most and it would start to crowd the other critical events of the morning, and that simply could not happen on this morning. So as I plodded through miles 7 and 8 and realized that I was only managing about an 8-minute pace into the hot sixteen mile an hour wind (with gusts around 24 according to the National Weather Service!) I made the decision to turn around at 8.5 miles out and figured that would buy me an extra half an hour of time for the bonk that I could feel was coming. When struggling already at 8 miles out, I can tell it’s not going to be pretty.

I did "quit" and start taking walk breaks with about 6 or so miles to go to get back home and shuffled unceremoniously into the driveway at a little after 7:00 having covered only a little more than 16 miles in total. But I had plenty of time now for the rest of the day. Today that was more important.

Cade’s baptism was actually quite wonderful. Cole, the children’s pastor, spent a lot of time with us last week going through the meaning of baptism with Cade, and this morning he was very helpful and walked us through everything that was going to happen, this time from a logistical rather than spiritual point of view. He also announced to the congregation Cade’s intention to be baptized and asked him about his belief in Jesus Christ. Cade eagerly affirmed his faith again – something he has been ready and willing to do ever since the day a few months ago when he made his decision to follow Christ – and then we were on our way to the baptismal.

Before baptizing Cade I told the folks there that he had been eagerly asking about baptism for quite a while. He was very much like the Ethiopian fellow whom Philip led to Christ in Acts who saw a lake and insisted on being baptized right then and there. Unfortunately with Cade it took a little longer than that, but it was not due to his lack of desire or persistence!

After we got home from Church we went into final cleaning high gear for Josiah’s birthday party, since he has three buddies that he has invited over to eat too much pizza and sugar and spend the night here. Everybody pitched in and cleaned here and there and before long we had things in pretty good shape. Quick enough, it turned out, that I was able to, very gratefully, take a Sunday afternoon long-run recovery nap. How restorative that can be!

Josiah’s friends started showing up around 5:00, starting with Justo, for whose family the boys and Kay had taken care of their dog(s) while they were on vacation last week in Florida. I say dog(s) because at the beginning of the week there were two dogs, but at the end, well, you can’t make this stuff up, yes, the old dog who could barely walk or stand up on its own died and the boys discovered the corpse two or three mornings ago when they went over to feed them.

I wish I had more opportunities to listen in to the conversations of 11 and 12 year old boys. I know I was one at one time, but somehow the memories now escape me of discussing the female principle’s moustache and the hated lunch lady and how you can turn a tube of “Go-gurt” into a bomb when you whack somebody with it. Kay and I were nearly rolling on the floor laughing when Justo regaled us about one particular naughty boy in their class who was apparently frequently sentenced to taking “walks” with Dr. Cook, the principle with the moustache. By the way, for the record, I think Dr. Cook is a nice looking woman and doesn’t have a moustache. But you know I think in the mind of a 12-year-old boy lots of things get stretched and legends even get fabricated entirely out of whole cloth in spite of contrary facts. I guess it all makes for better story telling in their little pre-teen clan. There was also something about a girl with a unibrow. I kinda doubt that one, too.

Well, Kay and our sons and the birthday party boys are off to a movie tonight. Shortly after they left I loaded up Lulit in the stroller and leashed the dog for a stroll around the neighborhood culminating in a stop at the neighborhood park. Here Lulit played for quite a while – she loves the park – and just about when I was thinking it was time to go she fell kind of awkwardly down a stair on the playground equipment. She started crying a lot of course and I grabbed her and held her close to me to comfort her. What I had not noticed, however, until she lifted her head up off my shoulder was that she had busted her little lip pretty good and had bled all over her face and my shirt (not that I care about the shirt). A nice lady ran to her van and brought us some wipes for her face (Lulit looked like she had been in a fist fight) and more importantly, some Smarties. Ah, yes, the comforting power of candy. That was the ticket.

After we got home and I got her to bed I reflected a little bit about that moment of pain for Lulit. Of course, I did not want it to happen, and I would not want it to happen again, but there was good that came of it. At that moment when she first fell and I picked her up and held her, she buried her face in my shoulder and really cried and really let me comfort her. We had a few very close moments there that were really wonderful, even though they were in the middle of pain. I am very thankful for those moments when our hearts really connected and she hugged me as tight as she could.

Of course, this event was also a parable, for those who have ears to hear.

Blind Hog Finds Acorn

On the way to church on Sunday we drove south on Mur-Len past the old Dillon’s (now Price Chopper) and the beautiful row of pin oaks that lines the street there next to the store. I relayed the story to my family how four years ago in October I was running along there one morning when plop, out of the sky fell an acorn that bounced off the sidewalk in front of me. I caught it in natural running motion without even a hitch in my stride. That run was after the 2005 Twin Cities Marathon which was something of a debacle for me.

By the time I got to TCM my hamstring had been acting up for a month or more and race day was windy! As we came around a few little lakes during the middle part of the course bearing straight into the predominately east wind I knew I was used up by mile 16. When you’re feeling bad at mile 16 of a marathon it is going to be a long morning. By the end I had taken several walk breaks and came in with one of my slowest times. Aside from the wind it was a cool and beautiful fall morning throughout, and the finish in St. Paul was wonderful even though the race itself had been a brutal slog.

So two or three weeks later when the acorn bounced perfectly into my hand I wondered if in some way there might be in it a reassuring message from the Lord. My dad always says that every blind hog finds and acorn now and then. Could every injured runner now and again find the grace for healing and another good race? April 2006 finally came around and the Lord granted me the strength to finally, on my third attempt, run a good race in Boston – and not only a good race but a personal best at that. In Boston. Nice acorn. Thank you, Jesus.

Which brings us back around to the present. I have been struggling in life and running for a good couple of years now. A nasty hamstring injury kept me out of Boston in ’08. Worse than that I missed Boston in ’09 because of a torn ACL and the subsequent reconstructive surgery. Also lost a couple of jobs roughly in that stretch of time. A lot of stuff just has not seemed to go right. Nevertheless, God has provided employment and a new baby girl from Ethiopia. She alone is the most amazing gift and her coming to us is like a breath of fresh life into our family. Still, on the running front, I am sad. My knee recovery is going very slowly and I am sad that fall is here and I am not gearing up for a marathon as I have done every fall for the last 6 years. But as God’s grace would have it, I have a wife who really listens to me and hears my heart.

She spent Sunday afternoon out praying and reading her Bible. She said she really needed a spiritual re-charge and some time alone, and with a new baby in the house I really understand that. But besides just re-charging herself, she came home with a present for me! She brought me a running book. And she passed on to me another running book. She said she listened to my story about the acorn and she knew how much I was missing running. (I mean running hard runs and long runs, not the little 4 milers that I am now constrained to doing no more than 4 times per week). She understood.

I am going to read these books for sure. One is about a runner who survived the genocide in Burundi that spilled over from Rwanda back in 1994. The other is about a guy who loves running and writing but never had the guts for a long time to really strike out as a writer. The books, even if they turn out to be terrible (which I doubt), represent an acorn that bounced right up into my hand. Who gets to have a wife like this? I am thinking, almost nobody. I am blessed indeed.

Over 43 now, with the clock ticking, and due to my knee my body unable to train at the high level I would like to, I am now stuck with wondering if my fastest marathon is now behind me forever, and that’s a bit hard to swallow. But maybe, just maybe, might I again find the grace for healing for one more great race? God knows. The rest of us will have to stay tuned.