LYNCHBURG, Va. — When 85-year old Bruce Heilman spoke to the motorcyclists who gathered at Eagle Eyrie Baptist Conference Center Sept. 30-Oct. 1, they listened with interest. When they discovered that he had ridden his own Harley to the event, they were all ears.
On Friday evening Heilman, chancellor of the University of Richmond, addressed those who attended the second annual Thunder in the Hills motorcycle rally, an event sponsored by Randy Ashcraft, the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s pastor to pastors.
More than 60 motorcycle enthusiasts attended, doubling last year’s total. In addition to Heilman, Sergeant Brian Thompson, a motorcycle officer and instructor with the Alexandria, Va., police department, gave riding tips and amazed the cyclists with a demonstration of controlled slow-riding skills. Riding his police-modified Harley-Davidson at a snail’s pace, coming almost to a complete stop, he did figure eights and turns in the parking lot of Eagle Eyrie’s Voight Center.
Kevin James, pastor of Salem Baptist Church in Sparta, Va., who renewed his motorcycle license and borrowed a bike to attend, put the event into perspective.
“You don’t usually think about motorcycles when you think about Virginia Baptists. But it is exciting to be a part of a group that stretches the envelope. As this event develops, I can foresee Virginia Baptist cyclists inviting their unsaved friends to come, ride and have a good time. Things like this can help change the perceptions unchurched people have of Christians.”
On Saturday, the group split into groups, each taking different routes to destinations of their choice in the Blue Ridge Mountains before returning for a touching account of a father-son adventure. Speaker and special guest Jonathan Dickinson produced a documentary of an epic four-month ride through the Himalayas with his father, who was then in the late stages of Huntington’s Disease. With his father behind him on the cycle, they made their way through the mountains of India. His film, called Father Spirit, depicts the tender relationship of father and son during this last great adventure together.
The next event will be scheduled on a weekend in September 2012.
Jim White ([email protected]) is editor of the Religious Herald.