The bikes are rusty and some are beyond repair. If they can’t be fixed in 30 to 45 minutes, it is straight into the unsalvageable pile.
Mark Meyer is the international and men’s ministries director for the Lutheran Chapel on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, but he also doubles as bike repairer, giving free bikes to international students. This year, he gave 55 bikes away the Sunday before Big Red Welcome.
“I want them to see it not as a blessing from Mark but a blessing from God,” Meyer said.
Meyer wants students to think, “‘God is amazing,’ not, ‘This guy from the Lutheran Chapel is amazing,’” he said.
Three years ago, Meyer started giving the bikes to international students. The majority of the recipients, 30 this year, are strangers to the chapel and to Meyer. The students who had never visited the chapel got their bikes through a drawing at a gathering for new international students. The remaining students who received bikes are international students with connections to the Lutheran Chapel.
Ana Lucia Cordova, a second-year graduate student in the Survey Research and Methodology program at UNL from Ecuador, received her bike via the raffle. She heard about the project through word-of-mouth and visited the chapel.
“I think that is a nice way of sharing our Christian beliefs,” Cordova said. “I also hold that in my heart.”
The bikes come from police and campus auctions, but also from Lutheran churches across Nebraska. This year, an office supply store owner in York, Neb., collected 80 bikes. Some of those bikes were taken apart for the parts and discarded, but the majority are now in the hands of UNL international students.
[…] The ministry focuses on international students by giving away the bikes, but also offering their services for students who are moving, in need of free furniture and by giving English lessons on Tuesday nights.
Read the full story at the Daily Nebraskan.
Please join the conversation about our stories on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, MeWe, Rumble, Gab, Minds and Gettr.