“A Once in a Lifetime Experience”
by Peter McLean (麥永智)
“It’s a once in a lifetime experience” was a phrase I often heard in the summer of 1995. We were taking our last family vacation in Taiwan before moving back to Canada. My parents had decided that it would be a great experience to drive across the island to see a sunrise at the top of A-li-shan and drive up the east coast of Formosa, “the beautiful island.” It seems appropriate now that I look back on it. I had lived 11 years in one of the most beautiful islands in the world and still hadn’t seen all of its beauty.
When you are young you don’t always appreciate the amazing experiences you have. My brothers and I found driving for long periods of time in our station wagon a little confining. All three of us sat in the back seat, and inevitably one brother would move too far over and end up in someone else’s space. Some sort of objection would be uttered by the offended party, and pillows would be placed as barriers between us. It was sweet relief when we stopped at the gates to Toroko Gorge and looked down onto the river flowing quickly below. We were able to stretch our legs and get the personal space we needed before being packed back into the car.
A few other places we visited on that trip still stand out: the caves Christians hid in to avoid persecution, the marker for the Tropic of Cancer, 2/28 memorials, running along the beaches and swimming in the Pacific Ocean, sleeping in a train and waking up at 3:00 AM to finish the hike up the mountain to see the unobstructed sunrise.
Exactly 15 years later, I was riding my bike through British Columbia, starting my own “Once in a lifetime experience.” As difficult as it is to sit next to a 7 year old in the back seat of a car when you are 11, I can say this trip challenged me a lot more. Instead of worrying about how close my brother was to my side of the back seat, I was now concerned with how close some cars and trucks were to my side of the road. Instead of walking up part of a mountain at 3 o’clock in the morning, I was bicycling for 3 hours straight to get to the top of a mountain. Instead of being on the most beautiful island in the world, I was in the beautiful province of British Columbia which has the slogan “The Best Place on Earth.”
I started this journey hoping to learn more about myself in what would be a rite of passage; a time to gain both knowledge and wisdom. I also hoped I could see and learn more about the country I wasn’t born in, but of which I am a citizen. Thankfully this one trip took care of both of my hopes, and taught me even more.
Knowledge and wisdom are two qualities which I have tried to increase in my life. However, I have found it difficult to grow in these areas if you live a comfortable, predictable life. I was working as a Pedorthist, making custom foot orthoses and fitting and modifying orthopaedic shoes. I was involved at my church, sharing leadership of a small group, and had also started serving on the Board of Managers. But my life was very ordered, predictable, and stagnant. I wasn’t challenged to grow because all of these things were far within my comfort zone.
Job 28:28 says that “The fear of the Lord--that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.” With this in mind, I went out in faith, hoping my journey would provide opportunities for me to better understand what it means to fear God and shun evil; opportunities to grow in wisdom and understanding. Thankfully, I was not prepared for how much stretching (both literally and figuratively) I would have to do along the way, or else I might never have started the journey.
I had injured my right ankle earlier in the year, and it still hadn’t recovered its full strength. I also hadn’t done much training for my bike trip. Cycling for a couple of hours each day for two weeks, and taking one long trip from Toronto to Waterloo isn’t really enough to get ready for a journey across Canada by bicycle. Southern Ontario is quite flat when compared with the long, steep mountains of British Columbia. However, I was travelling at my own pace; if I needed to take a break, I could stop whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted.
For the first few weeks, I stopped frequently. Taking breaks gave me specific times to look around at the beauty of God’s creation instead of thinking of the road ahead or the vehicles coming up behind me. These breaks let me clear my head of distractions and refocus on what I needed to do to complete my ride for the day. I also took time to stretch, and most importantly eat. Early on, I had learned that if I didn’t eat enough food, I would become frustrated and irritable because my blood sugar was too low. Breaks to eat and rest helped me to refocus and be reminded of the blessings I had received, leaving me feeling refreshed and in a better mood.
I was often amazed at how abruptly changes in geography occurred. Each mountain range in British Columbia became higher, steeper and more barren as I went further east. The lush, green mountains on Vancouver Island and the west coast turned into desert ranch land, which turned into the high steep slopes of the Rocky Mountains. From there the mountains turned into rolling hills the further away from Calgary I journeyed, until I reached the flat prairies of eastern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. In the eastern part of Manitoba, the exposed rock of the Canadian Shield began appearing more frequently and continued through to western Quebec. I experienced the Laurentian and Appalachian Mountains in central Quebec and through New Brunswick. In Prince Edward Island the red-coloured earth was striking against the background of green plants. The scenery of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland was full of water—ocean and lakes—and both short and long steep hills.
Thinking back on all of these changes, I realize how harsh and difficult it must have been centuries ago for new settlers to any of these areas. Canada is full of beautiful but harsh landscapes. Winds pick up and blow constantly across the prairies, making you fight to hear yourself think. Thunderstorms followed me through Manitoba and caught me every afternoon without fail. Exposed rock and mountains are beautiful to look at, but make farming difficult. It even snowed in the middle of July when I was in Jasper! Nature made my ride very frustrating some days. But looking back, I am in awe at the amazing diversity of God’s creation. If people would really open their eyes and see where they live, it would cause them to realize how great, powerful, and creative the Lord of Creation is!
When people would chat with me during my breaks, they often asked if I was lonely cycling by myself. I usually responded by saying, “I’m good company” or “I find ways to entertain myself.” Really, I was never alone. God was always with me. For each day, each province, in good weather and bad, I knew God was always there beside me. God has been with me every day of my life.
This trip was not easy. Some days I felt like breaking my bicycle so I would be forced to stop and not be able to continue. Those days were usually full of bad weather, bad drivers and/or bad roads. The most difficult day of my journey was when I was biking across the northern part of Lake Superior. I awoke in the morning to a thick fog. As I set out on the highway, I could see about 20 meters in front of me and behind me. Drivers of cars could also see only 20 meters in front or behind them. The problem was the cars weren’t slowing down. The shoulder of the road was 2 feet wide at its widest and so narrow in other places that I was forced to ride on the road. In order to make myself visible to traffic, I turned my bicycle lights on and covered all of my bags with bright yellow rain coverings. If I knew cars were coming in both directions, I pulled off the road to make sure I wouldn’t get hit. Some cars slowed down, but most did not. The roads were going up and down steep hills. Many of the roads curved part way up the hill, making it even more difficult to see if there was anything ahead.
By the early afternoon, most of the fog had lifted, though some fog lingered in the valleys. I reached a point where the sky was clear and the roads were better and stopped at a general store to get some food. As I walked in, one of the first things I was asked is if I had passed the accident? I didn’t know what they were talking about. I hadn’t seen any accidents. I found out that there had been an accident less than 5 km behind a place where I had taken a break to eat some food. Sadly, at least one person was killed and a few others were injured.
It was this point of my trip that made me “fear God.” My mother had given me a book called “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. In it, he challenges us to live our lives in a way that shows how much we love God, because the fact that God has created us and loves us despite us being sinful is amazing. Chan even challenges us to be ready to die to glorify God, if He calls us to do so. Even though I know I have much to look forward to in eternity, it was still a terrifying thought that I too could have been involved in an accident. I was quite shaken up by this incident, even though I wasn’t directly involved in the accident.
Thankfully, when you are riding a bicycle by yourself, there is a lot of time to think. I began to realize what having a proper fear of God really means. It doesn’t mean God will punish us for every wrong thing we do. In fact, it should reassure us that when we ask for forgiveness, God forgives us wholly! God, who even though He has a right to keep us separated from himself, loves us unconditionally and wants us to love Him. God, who created the universe, has also created each of us as unique individuals. And even though we could die at any time, it is God who determines when. We will never fully understand God. But if we begin to look at what He has created, we can see God’s creativity. As we study Scripture, we learn how God has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit. And finally, as we live our lives in a way that glorifies God and allows Him to work in and through us, we can experience God’s continuing presence in our lives.
I have been very fortunate to have a few “Once in a lifetime experiences.” One was the joy of seeing parts of Taiwan I had never seen. The other was seeing parts of Canada I may never see again. Both times I had to do things I may not have wanted to do at the time; things that weren’t comfortable or easy. Thankfully, I did them. If you don’t do things that stretch you out of your comfort zone, or challenge your limits, you may miss out on the “once in a lifetime” opportunities that come your way.
The completion of the Hakka Bible is another “Once in a lifetime experience”. I cycled across Canada, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. I thank God for being with me and giving me the health, strength, safety, and perseverance to complete my goal. Translating the Bible into Hakka is a challenge of a different kind. It is the goal of my father and his co-workers on the translation team to complete this project from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. They have persevered for the past 25 years, and look forward to the printing of the Bible in the next two years. I know that in the ways God blessed me, He has and will continue to bless their remaining work even more.
What an amazing opportunity it has been for me to be a small part of God’s plan for Hakka people to know Him better and experience Him in their lives more fully. I thank all the people who have made donations on my behalf to the Bible Society in Taiwan for the publication of the Hakka Bible. Once it is published, Hakka people in Taiwan will have the complete Bible in their mother tongue for the first time. May they be as blessed as I have been by reading scripture during both the comfortable and difficult times in my life. God is good.
