Update on Sherri the Evangelizing Cyclist

I received this e-mail today. What an amazing ‘coincidence’, eh? Since July 14th Sherri has traveled from Frederick, Maryland to Seneca, South Carolina, over 547 miles.  Gott ist Gutt!  (For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Sherri you may read the original story here;  http://sharpiron.wordpress.com/2007/07/14/the-apostle-sherri/ )

                                                                                

I wanted to share an experience Ceph and I had over the weekend. We left on Sunday morning to see Ceph’s mom for her Birthday. It was a day trip and we always go the back way up 123 through Gainesville to Seneca and then Easley. On the way up outside Seneca, Ceph had to swerve the car to miss hitting an older lady that obviously homeless. She had long grey/blonde hair, baggy clothes and pushing a bicycle. She had everything she owned attached to the bicycle handlebars. We both commented on her appearance and the fact she was pushing the bicycle. We spent about 5 hours at his mom’s and left about 2:00pm to return home. We are heading towards Tacocca and were amazed to see the same lady pushing her bicycle again down the road. She had travelled about 25 miles in 5 hours. Both us said at the same time we should pick her up. There weren’t any turnarounds so Ceph parked in a driveway and waited on her to get close to the car.

I personally have never picked up a hitchhiker but something said pick her up. We had the minivan with the seats down and knew her bicycle would fit perfectly.  (the parallel here is amazing – CB) If you know the area, there’s nothing for miles until you get to Gainesville. She didn’t give us her name but explained she got the calling from the Lord about 11 years ago and she traveled from place to place preaching the gospel. She didn’t have a destination and we explained we lived in Roswell and that was ok for her. She wanted to go to a 24 hour Walmart. Ceph said that the Roswell police weren’t too keen on varagrants and Cumming might be a better location. We talked the remainder of the trip about her children, her faith and travels. After we let her out in Cumming, I haven’t been able to get her off my mind. Ceph and I both said, God wants us to be thankful for the little things we have. I guess she was our angel that day. This morning I wokeup thinking about her again and did a google search on “homeless lady on bicycle”. I immediately got a response from another couple that had exactly the same experience. This article is from theooze.com.

Thanks

Ceph and Elaine

Remembering an Unknown American Hero

I had never heard of this lady before.

From the Associated Press :

GLOUCESTER, Va. – Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, a black woman whose refusal to give up her bus seat to white passengers led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision more than a decade before Rosa Parks gained recognition for doing the same, has died at 90….

The Supreme Court held in June 1946 that Virginia law requiring the races to be separated on interstate buses — even making passengers change seats during their journey to maintain separation if the number of passengers changed — was an invalid interference in interstate commerce.

At the time, the case received little attention, and not all bus companies complied with the ruling at first, but it paved the way for civil rights victories to come, including Parks’ famous stand on a local bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955.

Kirkaldy also inspired the first Freedom Ride in 1947, when 16 civil rights activists rode buses and trains through the South to test the Supreme Court decision.

In 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal — the second highest civilian honor in the United States.

Asked where her courage came from that day, Kirkaldy said simply: “I can’t understand how anyone would have done otherwise.”

She was not part of any organized movement, unlike Parks, who was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People when she challenged segregation.

Kirkaldy, then a young mother, boarded the Greyhound bus in Hayes Store, Va., and took a seat toward the back for her ride home. She was recovering from surgery and had taken her two children to stay temporarily with her mother in Gloucester.

A few miles down the road, the driver told her to move because a white couple wanted to occupy her row.

“I said ‘Well, no,’” she recalled. “That was a seat I had paid for.”

Kirkaldy said she willingly paid a $100 fine for resisting arrest because she did kick the officer who tried to remove her from the bus.

“Sometimes, you are so enraged, you don’t have time to be afraid,” she remarked in 2000.

She lived out of the spotlight for decades after the case, earning a college degree in 1985 at age 68, and lived most of her life in New York state.

Read the entire article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070813/ap_on_re_us/obit_kirkaldy;_ylt=Ai884z6y_kaRRn2fegQowsdI2ocA

There is another interesting account on the Seventh Day Adventist e-magazine, the Adventist Review: http://www.adventistreview.org/2001-1505/story1.html