A Sneak Preview

A Day of Remembrance

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

The count down had begun. In four days I was heading out on a 10-day 1,000-mile bicycle trip from Illinois to ...Delaware....Many of the lasting memories, milestones, and mile markers throughout my first 30 years of life had occurred from a bicycle seat.

“The world is your playground, Alice,” my high school youth pastor often told me. When I was fifteen I bicycled across the United States from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. At...16...from San Diego, California to Virginia Beach, Virginia. ...17 ...through England and Scotland....I looked forward, with great anticipation, to a lifetime of exploring the vastness of the world as my playground.

With only four days to go,...July 19, 1992....I was struck by a volatile three-hour flu-like...episode. It left me completely drained. ...I was bummed. How could I get sick this close to my vacation? ...I tried to look for something positive in this horrific day. I thought, I’m so glad this “ 24 hour flu bug” decided to hit now instead of four or five days later, as soon as I got on the road. ...

When I could steal my mind away from the excruciating pain, I wandered down several bicycle memory lanes. In January, I had gone on a weeklong bicycle trip in Florida. While there I tried out a used, customized Schwinn Paramount...I... bought my new $1,200 bicycle. The bike had 21 gears, which was 11 more than I had on my last bike. So I was looking forward to the larger gear ratio, feeling I would be riding the deluxe model complete with my first set of clip less pedals. I felt like I had almost caught up with the jet-paced advances that had occurred in bicycle equipment.

Here is a sneak preview from the first chapter of my book.

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His Wheels Happenings: September & October 2010

Here is an update of the happenings at His Wheels International over the last two months.

October 19th Join me tomorrow from 3PM-4PM C.S.T. at www.wmbi.fm for a live interview on Chris Fabry Live. If you live in the Chicagoland area the interview can be heard at 90.1FM.

September 2, 2010: I met John Coumbe-Lilley, a professor in Kinesiology and Nutrition at University of Illinois Chicago’s (UIC), my alma mater. John offered to consult with HWI sharing his resources and expertise. Thus on September 22, 2010 five of us met to discuss HWI. Afterwards John compiled an extensive action plan, which includes increasing our social media presence, a speaking tour of all the Colleges and Universities in the USA, and having two trike racing teams in the 2011 Chicago Marathon. John brings a vast array of knowledge from his background as a successful businessman, his consulting work as sports psychologist with the 2010 USA Olympic Curling Team,, his work with athletes of all ages and his connections through his UIC faculty position. As a result of this meeting you can follow us on Facebook:His Wheels International, Twitter:HisWheels and at our blog: hiswheelsinternational.blogspot.com.

On September 21st we met with Jared, a sophomore business student at Wheaton College. Jared is part of an international business club called SIFE. Teams of Wheaton College SIFE students plan to help HWI as one of their SIFE competition projects.

On September 22nd Nancy Turner interviewed me on This Is The Day, a national radio program. You can hear the past program at www.wmbi.fm,.

On September 24th Wayne Shepherd did a pre-recorded interview with HWI for his new show First Person. The broadcast date has not been assigned yet.

September 27th At our board meeting we voted to narrow our bicycle focus to national bicycles thus eliminating being a grantor of money to continue buying bicycles internationally. Over the past five years we have distributed 139 bicycles in nine African countries. Nationally we have distributed over 1,200 bicycles to people affiliated with 83 countries. Narrowing our focus, will allow us to build upon our current program.

September 30th two trikes went to Sierra Leone with Women of Hope International.

October 8th Grant received approval from the Christian Formation and Ministry Department at Wheaton College’s Graduate School to complete his Master’s Internship with HWI. Grant will help us clarify the focus of the bicycle side of our ministry.

October 12th My nephew Ben and I spoke about HWI at Wheaton College in Evvy Campbell’s Principal’s of Development Graduate class.

Thanks for your part in help HWI to continue moving forward,
Alice Teisan

Principals of Development Talk

Alice (C0-Director A) & Ben Teisan (Co-Director B)

Since 2007 I have had the opportunity to speak in Dr. Evvy Campbell's, Principal's of Development graduate class at Wheaton College. This year I audited the class. As I was reading the text by Bryant L. Myers, he said many things that caused me to stop and think about. One of the things he said was,

“There are critical voices that sometimes are not heard. Ignoring the voice of women is now known to work against positive social change as well as sustainability. I go on to suggest that children are not only not heard but are also invisible and that this is a mistake,” (Pg. 17 Walking with the Poor).

Afterwards I called Ben my eleven year old nephew to interview him about his contributions to HWI. Back in 2005 when I began HWI, Ben was five. At our first event Ben said, Aunt Alice you aren't in charge of HWI. I said, okay. Who is? Ben said, God is in charge and you and I are co-directors. As Ben says, “well it’s not that way on paper, but you and I we know how it really is.” So, not to confuse things I’m (Co-Director Alice) CDA and Ben is CDB. This also plays off the fact that Ben's dad, Dan and I are twins. I am twin A and Dan is twin B.

I learned so much from the questions I asked Ben that my brother's family and I arranged for Ben to be at Wheaton College with me yesterday so I could interview him in front of the graduate class. Here are a couple questions I asked Ben.

Interview CDB:

1. In your 5-year-old mind, how did you realize we were to be Co-directors and I wasn’t to be the Executive Director of HWI, in charge alone?

Ben said, “See, when I was a little tike I realized if it was going to be His Wheels it couldn’t be just your wheels Aunt Alice (AA). I think at the time I was a little closer to God in prayer and thinking about God and so I realized if you were going to name something to be His, you had to be true to the name, or not use it.

Ben went on to say, AA I really haven’t had a big role in HWI.” Through this conversation I was able to point out to him that if I’d said, no, you can’t be CDB, I would have been saying, God doesn’t need your tender faith filled heart.

2. Do you think Myers is right that children are an important part of ministry? Ben said, yes because God said let the little children come to me.

3. What makes you encourage me to write my book

There are not many people in the world that have encountered this thing with God. Where you discover a relationship with God because of something bad happening to you. I’d be surprised if there were 5 people in the world who had the same problem as you. I doubt they would do the same thing as you have done.

What do you think they would do? They would make sure they stopped doing anything with their lives. They would say I have nothing left in the world to do. They would sit on the couch and become a couch potato, or they’d do something worse, if you know what I mean.

People all over the world have adversity. Your life basically tells them to do something about it. Don’t moan about it saying Why God, Why God, Why God. Just say yes God, yes God, yes God. Because he’s showing you something. It isn’t like he punishes that free hand if you know what I mean. (Ben told me this as he was sitting in an orthopedics office, for the final check to see if his broken right arm was healed).

Up until I asked Ben this question on Sept. 20, 2010, I had wrongly assumed that my 5 y.o. nephew wanted a part of the fame. Do you see what type of brain I was looking at the situation through, my convoluted adult brain. That wasn’t Ben’s thought at all. He wanted to make sure we stayed true to God.

Grant, Our First Intern

Grant, who is overseeing our bicycle division, has just been approved by Wheaton College to complete his Master’s Degree in Christian Formation and Ministries (CFM) internship with us. We are excited to welcome him. In 2008 Grant contacted HWI about potentially doing a group, class assignment with us. Grant has been with us ever since he met us while fulfilling that short class project.

"The Shop is my playground" Grant told Dan, Alice's brother.

Grants stand-in case he gets lost

Many HWI firsts have come from Wheaton College. Back in 1956 my father received his Master’s in what was then Christian Education and is now CFM. The vision for HWI came from a Billy Graham Scholar from Tanzania. Our first trike went overseas with Jeremy, a Wheaton Alum. Jeremy also oversaw the production of the first 20 trikes in North Africa with nationals. Now we are glad to add Grant to our rooster of Wheaton College firsts, as our first intern.

One week while Grant’s class was at HWI, Gordon, Grant’s dad, joined him. At the time Gordon was the owner of two high-end bicycle stores in California. Our mechanics team challenged Gordon to find a tool he needed for repairing bikes that we didn’t have. We passed the test and had all the necessary tools. We can’t wait for Gordon to return and see our new headquarters with his son’s signature on our shop. Gordon you will understand why I say to Grant, “Like father, like son.”

Grant is going to help us put some infrastructure into the bike side of our ministry. This will include branding, bicycle flow, online application, and some other exciting things.

Workstations Complete

Grant who is overseeing our bicycle shop wanted to create three separate and complete bicycle workstations. The only thing missing was individual air hoses at each station. I remembered Jerry, a prayer warrior from church, saying if we ever needed help to let him know. I mentioned needing an air hose running from our compressor. What I didn’t know was Jerry spent his professional years working as an auto mechanic in his own shop. Today Jerry made our workstations complete running a system for each station to have their own airline. Thanks Jerry.

Jerry putting up the air hoses

Three air hoses up

Coiled hose

One Complete Workstation