Have Faith Will Travel ...

 

“My home is in Heaven. I’m just traveling through this world.”

         ~ Billy Graham

          ~ 1918-2018

   ~ American evangelist, prominent evangelical Christian figure, and ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well-known internationally in the late 1940s. One of his biographers has placed him “among the most influential Christian leaders” of the 20^th century.

I spotted this “Jesus 2020” sign – the first I’ve ever seen – in front of Friedens United Church of Christ, Slatington, Pennsylvania and had to stop to photograph this uplifting sight as a motorcycle sped by on Route 873 on an early October evening. In these tumultuous times especially, it is a reminder that when all else is failing, Jesus is still there for us!

He’s not a third-party presidential candidate up for election in November, but thousands across the country are putting up “Jesus 2020” yard signs. More than 5,000 signs have shipped out to California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and other states from a campaign that began at Sampey Memorial Baptist Church, Ramer, Alabama.

“People need Jesus with everything that’s going on,” Joyce Hubbard, one of the Jesus 2020 co-organizers, told Fox News. He’s the only one that we can count on. He’s the one that keeps his promises. He’s already the winner.”

 

FDNY Dream Bike ...

“No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”

   ~ Virgil

    ~ 70 B.C. – 19 B.C.

I shot this image of the FDNY Dream Bike at the National September 11 Memorial Museum on an April day in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

In the summer of 2001, Firefighter Gerard Baptiste, FDNY Ladder Company 9, purchased a battered 1979 Honda motorcycle, model CB750. Baptiste believed that he could restore it to good working order. His fellow firefighters joked that it would take time and money just to start the engine. Following Baptiste’s death in the North Tower on 9/11, the broken-down motorcycle remained at the firehouse until a memorial tribute in “Backroads” magazine inspired Baptiste’s colleagues to restore the bike in his memory. Surviving members of Ladder Company 9, with support from Honda and motorcycle enthusiasts nationwide, transformed the motorcycle into a “bike of healing” known as the Dream Bike. Ten roses painted on the cover its gas tank symbolize the members of Ladder Company 9 and Engine Company 33 who were killed on 9/11.

The documentary film “FDNY Dream Bike,” directed and written by John Allison, was released in 2005.

The Virgil quote has been fashioned out of salvaged remnants of damaged World Trade Center steel and is located in Memorial Hall inside the museum, where it will stand in perpetuity at the site of the attacks as a promise that we will never forget those taken from us on that terrible day.