The Dangers of Biking

I had to start thinking about my future and what I was going to do after I graduated high school. YWAM had a video production team called Procla-Media, located in Switzerland. We decided that that would be a good place for me to start in getting some production experience. It was also going to count towards my High School credits as an internship. 

I would finish up my classes, graduate in December, then join Procla-Media for a year. They decided that I would stay on the ship while I finished up, where I got to stay in a cabin by myself. I had never done that before since Samuel had always been my roommate. 

Home computers were fairly new at the time and very basic but the ship had a few. One of guys on the ship was going to teach me how to start programming as part of my schooling. For Physical Education I did biking. I didn’t have my own bike so I borrowed one from a friend.

This is the time when I got to know the guys on the Outreach Team. The people on the team had been looking forward to having my dad as their leader but he had gone on to the little ship, leaving the team in Ron Musch’s capable hands. At my graduation, Steven Wallett said that little did he know when he joined the team, instead of getting to know my dad better, he would end up becoming such great friends with his son.

Steven was a very zealous Christian. He would leave Gospel tracts everywhere. His zeal was inspiring and convicting. One day, he took me to dinner to a famous Honolulu rooftop, revolving restaurant where he left tracts in the bathroom. 

One time he joined me on a bike ride through Honolulu. We were riding down a one-way street on the left side and came to a cross street. A woman turned left right in front of me and my bike hit the back of her car. It flipped up and threw me forward. Fortunately, I landed on my feet and my only concern was for the bike. It wasn’t mine and I had no money to fix it. The front wheel was a little bent but it sustained no major damage. 

The lady driving the car stopped and said, 

“I told you I was turning”. 

That didn’t matter. I had the right of way. Steven was incensed. He said later that he was surprised at how calm I was. He said that he didn’t know if he should have cursed her or given her a tract.

I had another scary bike incident. There was a spot out on a point not too far from the ship where there were some waves. One day I decided to go boogie boarding out there. The bike ride was about 30 minutes. 

I was not supposed to go out boogie boarding by myself. If I was by myself and something happened, like landing on the reef or drowning, no one would be able to help me or know what happened. But I really wanted to go and didn’t know anyone who could go with me. There were some surfers scattered here and there at the surf spot but they were locals, so they probably weren’t happy that a haole was even there. I boogie boarded without incident then began riding back to the ship.

It’s always best to wear tennis shoes when you’re riding a bike but it’s a pain to wear tennis shoes when you’re going swimming. You get sand on your feet and you have to try to get it off before you put your socks back on so it’s not annoying. So that day I was wearing flip-flops. There’s a reason you should not wear flip-flops when riding a bike. About half way back to the ship, my left-flip flop got caught in the spokes of the front wheel and my foot followed.

It sliced into the flesh on the ball of my foot and left a big flap of skin hanging off. It also broke my flip-flop. So now I couldn’t ride the bike and I could barely walk. I was also in an industrial area with no people around.

After a time pondering what to do, I just decided I had to try hoof it. So there I was, pushing a bike, carrying a boogie-board and fins with a broken flip-flop, walking on the side of my left foot to avoid stepping on my wound, limping along the side of the road. Fortunately I didn’t have anywhere to be so I could take my time.

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