Mountville’s Jonathan Spicher, in orange above, and Lars Akerson, of Harrisonburg, Va. left Tuesday on a 8,500-mile ride to Asuncion, Paraguay.
The six month trip will take them to the Global Youth Summit and Mennonite World Conference Assembly in July.
According to an Eastern Mennonite University news article, Spicher, 20, a junior pre-med student at the school, and Akerson, a spring 2008 EMU graduate, departed from the Virginia Mennonite Conference headquarters adjacent to the school.
Their journey will take them through Virginia, North Carolina. Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. They will cross into Mexico, ride through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and finally, Paraguay.
Along the way, they will stop at Mennonite churches and meet with Mennonite Central Committee workers serving in those areas.
Asked in the article about the weather uncertainties and risk and safety factors of this major trek across two continents, Akerson and Spicher gave knowing looks and remained silent awhile before responding.
“Our main concern is the last leg of the trip,” Akerson said. “We’ll spend much of the last two months biking in elevations up to 14,000 feet above sea level.”
“We will be vulnerable, but we’re relying on persons’ hospitality and intentionally depending on God and others for safety and protection,” Spicher stated. “We’ve done some planning for contingencies but can’t anticipate everything that could happen along the way.”
Spicher plans to keep an online journal of his trek on americas.bikemovement.org, although that site was not available this morning.
Photos are by Lindsey Roeschley of the EMU Public Information Department.
