The Cookie Lady

My guess is that few if any of you read about the passing of June Curry on July 16^th. She lived in Afton, Virginia, and on a summer day in 1976 she noticed a group of bicycles outside her home. When she went out to offer them some water and a few of her homemade cookies she was just being herself. She had no idea that her house was on Bike Route (BR)1, just a few miles from mile marker #1 on  the new TransAmerica Trail. Nor did she know that these cyclists were among the very first to use this route to cycle from the Atlantic ocean all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

In the last 46 years of her life she became known by all coast-to-coast cyclists as The Cookie Lady. She purchased a building adjacent to her home and converted it into the “Bike House.” She stocked it with free water and an endless supply of her homemade cookies.

The Bike House became the destination for cyclists coming from the west coast and the jumping off place for cyclists beginning on the east coast. During her 46 years at the Bike House she became one of the most well-known advocates for cycling even though she never cycled a mile of the trail herself. She hosted tens of thousands of cyclists, baked more than a hundred-thousand cookies, and turned the Bike House into the National Trail Museum.

Water, cookies, and kindness. So simple. Jesus asked us to provide a cup of water given in his name (Mark 9:41). June Curry simply added cookies. An act of kindness became a vision of purpose that touched an untold number of lives.

Some missionaries are called to travel to the ends of the earth. Others are called to carry a glass of water to the sidewalk right outside their own front door. Each one is a valuable part of the ministry of the kingdom of God. Each one meets the need of an individual. Each one touches the heart, even as they help the body.

While I am a huge advocate of mission trips, First Presbyterian has been to Reynosa, MX, New Orleans, LA, and Joplin, MO in the last 10 years, we must never pass up the opportunity to minister right on our doorstep. There are times God calls us to go to the farthest parts of the globe. Then, there are those marvelous moments, if we will seize them, when God brings the farthest parts of the globe to knock on our own front door!

Pastor Craig