Welcome to Kansas

While researching and reading blogs about bike touring, I read a lot about the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Walnut, Kansas. It’s on a country road with nothing around it for miles. And bikers stop in for a rest or a roof over their head.

As we turned our bikes down the first paved road after mile-post 42, we saw a sign telling us we were five miles away. There was a gradual incline up those five miles, and we couldn’t see the church. But as we topped the rise, the steeple of the church seemed to raise out of the earth in front of us. And there it stood -- a picturesque white two-story church, smack dab in the middle of hay fields and corn fields.

There was a note on the Fellowship Hall door, welcoming all cyclist and inviting us to anything we could find in the kitchen. Melissa and I did just that. We cooked a great meal and settled in for the night. Around 8 p.m., Pastor John came in and welcomed us to his church. As he left he said, “This is your home for tonight.”

Brooke