Guiness Record Won–Passionate Compassion Update

Arvid smashed the Guiness record for crossing mainland Canada by bicycle by almost 3 hours. HE DID IT!!

It wasn’t easy for Uncle Arvid…a brutal schedule averaging only 2 hours of sleep per night, and pumping those legs non stop for hours at a time is hard on a body. On Day 9, he took a calculated but necessary risk: he would use up the 12 hours of time he was ahead of world record time, and use it to rest–to incline his legs as they were badly swollen.

He said it was like riding a bike underwater with casts on them..a daunting task to ride bike like that, never mind after all the mileshis body had already put on the bike thus far.

It worked.

The swelling reduced and became under control. And he finished…but it still wasn’t easy.He was tired, and there were crosswinds to challenge him, roads full of potholes, and the brutal hills of Quebec and Nova Scotia. He did a 40 hour push at the end to git’er done. It was a tough and long ride.

I followed his website obsessively, tracking his progress across the country, waiting for news of how he was doing. (At the airport, when we talked about this, he told me, with a wink, that those of us pushing “refresh” should “get a life”).

Arvid Loewen says he won’t quit because too many already have…

My overall goal is to finish this regardless…and these kids have experienced nothing but disappointments from adults in their life…through various circumstances, and not nearly all of it is the fault of the adults either.I don’t think we are in the position where a little inconvenience, a little pain, a little bit of fluid, hills, and challenges, allows us to take that option out…I have no intentions of that. And so for me, I have to struggle on…whatever it takes to get to Halifax.

Arvid Loewen

This blog is about the value of connection…the vitalness of it in all of our lives as human beings.

Connection isn’t easy…connection demands commitment.

Demonstrated commitment…hanging in there through thick and thin…that means something.

When the going gets tough, and connection remains…that’s memorable.

And the memory of commitments held during difficult times…well…that changes people.It gives a person a lasting perception of their inherent value as a human being. It implies worth. When a person knows that someone has hung in there for them…it has them walk a little straighter and taller, and look others in the eye a little straighter.

…[support crew on phone]keep sending notes on the website and any way you can.We read those to Arvid and it is an unbelievable encouragement to him.

Connection and commitment to that connection goes inmultiple directions. As Arvid committed himself to making it to the East Coast, his support crew asked us—his friends and family—to commit to sending him notes of encouragement..I remember a wise mentor telling me that “encouragement is fuel for the soul”. 

In Arvid’s case, maybe fuel for his legs too. Arvid needed us. Our commitment to “be there” for him, helped him to “be there” for the children. He needed to be connected to people even as he was alone on his bike going up one hill after another.

He made it to the East Coast…in record time. And the children of Mully Children’s Family—these children who have had adults quit on them (many through death, poverty, and disease)—know that they have two grandpas who don’t quit on them…Charles Mully and Arvid Loewen.