How Can We Brighten Someone's Day?
In our church, there are a few shut-ins. They are elderly and cannot leave the house. These people are especially hard-hit by the outbreak of COVID-19, as no one can visit them. We decided to send our love to one specific shut-in in our church.
We rolled out the poster paper on our kitchen table, outlined the words "You are loved," mixed up the black paint, painted the words in, and realized that we should add something. We got out every color of washable paint we could find, painted our hands, and covered it all with our handprints.
We all got on our bikes and packed up posts, a staple gun, a mallet, and our sign. We pulled out into the street, and started to ride over to her house. On the way over, we had to ride up a hill. Mom, who was on the xtracycle, struggled up the hill. When she got to the top, we all cheered. After that, the ride was went smoothly.
We got to the house and each took a turn stapling the sign to the posts Dad had pounded into the ground. We had to put it in the small backyard, following the signs that had been placed on the front yard, telling postal workers to put everything by the back door. We left the sign in the yard, hoping that it would brighten her day.
As we started to head home, Dad decided that we were going to take the long way home. As we were pedaling up a bridge, I heard my tire pop. I yelled up to Dad that my tire popped, but he didn't hear me and kept going. I kept yelling, and Hazyl joined in, telling Dad that we needed to stop. We pulled over into a cemetery. Fortunately, Dad had everything we needed to inflate the tire.
While Dad worked on it, the rest of us walked through the cemetery, trying to find the oldest headstone we could. Williamsville is a really old town, with a lot of history. We were actually heading to a war of 1812 memorial when my tire popped! Because of the history in the town, we found headstones dating back to the early 1800's. It is really interesting to learn about all the history in our small town.
Anyway, back to Dad. He had brought all the things we needed, except for a pump. He had first tried to blow the tire up by mouth, but it was wasn't working very well, so we figured out that we were close a member of our church's father's house. Dad attached my bike to the back of the xtracycle, put both Maia and Elias on the back, and me on the back of the tandem bike. We rode down the street to the neighbor's house. When we got there, we found out that he didn't have a bike pump, just an air hose. This didn't connect to the bike's tire, so Dad had to fashion a makeshift connector out of tape.
We finally got back on the way home, and got home safely. We were very glad that we had been able brighten someone's day, and that we had been able to Adventure Boldly.
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