Where bicycles are a luxury

With missionary work in his veins, a biker forms a Mozambique goal.

By DAN DEWITT, Times Staff Writer
Published November 21, 2007

Josh Bonner, 27, a fitness instructor at the Hernando County YMCA, has established a charity called Bikes for "Bique" to buy bicycles for missionaries and students in Mozambique.
	[Ron Thompson | Times]

BROOKSVILLE - Josh Bonner's new charity was born from an offhand comment.

His cousin is a Wesleyan missionary who visited Bonner's family in Brooksville this year. He told about his travels to Mozambique in southeastern Africa and how students there struggle to get around.

"He said, 'If we could just get bicycles,'" said Jim Keller, the pastor at Fellowship Community Church in Spring Hill, which the family attends.

The comment couldn't have found a better listener.

Bonner is an avid cyclist who once considered a career as a bike racer and still rides about 100 miles per week.

His grandparents, Norman and Gertrude Bonner, established a Wesleyan mission in South Africa, where Bonner's father, Stan, grew up. They frequently went on missions to Mozambique. Bonner had always wanted to see the country, but because of his family legacy could never allow himself to just visit.

"I'd feel guilty if I went over there and saw all these destitute people and I'm riding by them in a tourist bus," said Bonner, 27.

One night in July, lying awake in bed and turning over his cousin's words in his head, Bonner said, "the whole idea of the trip and the name of the charity and everything came together."

He formed the organization, Bikes for 'Bique, as a ministry of his church, which gives it tax-exempt status. He will try to raise between $30,000 and $40,000, enough to buy as many as 200 bicycles, which he plans to distribute in a three-week missionary trip in June.

Bonner's first fundraiser will be on Saturday, a bicycle ride followed by a pancake dinner. The event starts at 9 a.m. at the Suncoast Parkway trailhead on State Road 50. The cost is $15.

A member of his church who works for Northwest Airlines has already arranged for free tickets for Bonner, his girlfriend, Megan Bray, and several other members of his church.

Bonner will hold seminars on maintenance and repair for the bikes' recipients - students at a Wesleyan college in the coastal town of Xai-Xai and other residents who missionaries have determined have a real need for transportation. The group will also paint houses and volunteer at an orphanage.

Bonner acknowledged that missionary work might seem a strange match with cycling, which is mostly just a sport in the United States.

But in Mozambique, "a bike can change the life of a person who has nothing," Jason Helm, a Wesleyan missionary in Mozambique, wrote in an e-mail to the Hernando Times. "Suddenly, they can use it for transporting water for their family, going to school for further education and much more. ... Josh had a vision to help people with a real need."

The students who receive the bikes will not only spread the word of God, but help fill basic social needs, Helm said, such as reaching out to the estimated 16 percent of the country's 20-million citizens who are infected with the HIV virus.

The disease has driven the country's life expectancy to below 40 years, according to UNICEF. Though the country has progressed economically since the end of a civil war in 1992, many residents are still desperately poor. Its per capita gross domestic product is $1,500, according to the U.S. State Department.

Bonner, in his research, found one other unsettling statistic: Nearly half of the government's income comes from foreign aid, much of which is spent on food or medical aid.

"That doesn't do anything to help the infrastructure. I guess bikes don't either, but at least it can make people more independent," he said. "I wanted to do something more lasting."

So, yes, Bonner was looking for a cause, he said. A graduate of Central High and of Indiana Wesleyan University, he considered and discarded careers as a police officer, a navigator in the Air Force and a bike racer.

While he searches for a permanent job as a physical education teacher, he is working as a fitness instructor at the Hernando County YMCA and as a car salesman in Citrus County.

But he is also pursing the aims of the church, like his grandparents and his father, a retired Wesleyan minister. The church has a long history of social service. Its founders split from the Methodists in 1843 because the older church refused to take a stand against slavery, Bonner said.

"The purpose of the church is to make Earth more like heaven."

Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6116.

If you go

How to pitch in

Bikes for 'Bique's first fundraiser, a bicycle ride followed by a pancake dinner, is set for 9 a.m. Saturday at the Suncoast Parkway trailhead on State Road 50. Participants must pay at least $15. To preregister or to contribute to the organization, visit www.bikesforbique.org.

[Last modified November 20, 2007, 21:13:40]