Mercy Ride for Persecuted Christians

Pro-Life Profile

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MERCY MISSION. Skip Rodgers and his family in Washington at the start of his ‘Ride for Hope and Mercy.’ Steve Seguin / One Billion Stories

 

On June 13, Skip Rodgers dipped the back tire of his steel-frame touring bike into the Pacific Ocean in Anacortes, Wash., 93 miles south of Vancouver, Canada, settled onto the seat, and began a trek of more than 3,400 miles across the northern tier of the United States.

His goal is to dip his tire in the Atlantic Ocean in Bar Harbor, Maine, around Aug. 9.

Why did 59-year-old Rodgers take on this challenge, which he calls the “Ride for Hope and Mercy”?

The seed of the idea took root after Rodgers went to St. Rafka’s Mission of Hope and Mercy Conference at Denver’s Regis University in September 2015. There, Father Andre Mahanna, who was brought up in Lebanon and is pastor of St. Rafka Maronite Church in Lakewood, Colo., was part of a panel on religious persecution in the Middle East.

“I left there feeling we should do something besides wearing the Nazarene pin,” Rodgers said. “I started thinking about doing something more. At the same time, Father John Hilton at age 60, last year, was riding across America to raise money to build a retreat center at his church.” Father Hilton is pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Aspen, Colo.

Then, one day, driving to Mass and “realizing the freedom we have in the United States to attend Mass without being persecuted and facing death,” he believed that we should “take every opportunity to involve ourselves in the Church, and the Mass and the sacraments, because of the opportunity we have here.”

So he is riding across America to tell people about the plight of the Christians in the Middle East and to raise as much money as he can for St. Rafka’s Mission of Hope and Mercy, which supports many missions in Lebanon for Christians who fled there.

Rodgers’ route, which he named after St. Rafka’s mission, will take him through Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan and Ontario — then it will touch the northern tip of New York, head back into Canada, and finally across Maine to the Atlantic.

Rodgers is using a bundle of vacation time — built up over a 27-year career at Children’s Hospital in Denver — all with the blessings of the hospital staff.

“My wife has been very supportive and would be on the bike too, if she could,” Rodgers said. “She shares this mission. And the kids and all my family are behind me.” Skip and Lee Ann have two daughters, Lucy, 21, and Carly, 18.

“He’s a man of action, and he takes his faith very seriously,” Lee Ann said. “He was inspired by the Holy Spirit to do something.”

Father Mahanna founded the Mission of Hope and Mercy for Christians in the Middle East in May 2015 to focus on raising awareness of how severe the situation is in the Middle East. The mission provides hope and mercy to families with food, medicine, clothing and hygienic supplies, as well as medical care and psychological aid.

Father Mahanna, an American citizen, himself lived through such a situation growing up in war-torn Lebanon. At 10, to escape Christian massacres, his family lived in caves at Mount Lebanon. Now a priest and recognized leader on Middle East complexities, having served on the Vatican’s 2010 Synod on the Middle East, he speaks on ISIS and its mission to destroy and eliminate Christianity in the Middle East and beyond as a systematic Christian genocide in the very places Christianity began.

Father Mahanna said from Rome in a recent statement, “Our care is first for the Christians and then others who are persecuted. Not because they are a minority, but because they are on the front lines of a modern-day genocide. They are suffering barbaric situations now, so they are, in fact, the true harbingers of what Americans should be aware.”

Matt and Peggy Tynan of Denver are aiding Rodgers’ effort. The Tynans have known the Rodgerses for 20 years and “have always admired and looked up to them and appreciated their faithfulness,” Matt said, adding that Lee Ann is active in the pro-life movement in Colorado.

He praised the Rodgers family for “raising awareness to help Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East.”

The mission also caught the attention of Seth DeMoor and Steve Seguin of One Billion Stories. Rodgers’ story will be one of the Catholic stories from around the world that DeMoor and Seguin will tell through video.

Rodgers asks for prayers for himself and his family, as well as for the safety and success of this mission.

“My goal is to help bring more awareness to people here in the United States. We would like to try to make their lives better by supporting Father Andre Mahanna and his efforts in the Middle East.”

Joseph Pronechen is a

Register staff writer.