Rich Dixon is back on the road.

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Perhaps you remember last spring’s fast-forward from Greenville to Rolling Fork due to devastating storms.

After an unconventional night in Rolling Fork Hospital, we met the next morning with a great group of kids at a high school assembly. We all laughed as football and volleyball players tried to demonstrate how to ride the handcycle around the gym.

Pedaling out of Rolling Fork later that morning, I realized only about six days remained of Rich’s Ride. After nearly two months, it was hard to even imagine life without a daily routine focused on five or six hours on my bike.

When the ride began nearly seven weeks earlier, I resolved to focus on the present moment. I wanted to savor the process and enjoy each day rather than always looking to the destination. As the end of this incredible experience approached, I felt an occasional bit of sadness. But on the road out of Rolling Fork I discovered a new perspective.

Dreams don’t end.

One goal would soon be achieved. We’d enter New Orleans and conclude this project. But the journey of hope would continue. The final mile of this ride would represent the end of a single chapter in a much larger story, but the end of one chapter signals the beginning of the next. The dream of sharing hope wasn’t finished.

Just as the water’s path doesn’t truly begin in Lake Itasca, it doesn’t end in New Orleans. The water falls in northern Minnesota and collects into a stream that becomes the Mississippi River. The river flows into the Gulf of Mexico and begins another chapter in its journey.

Dreams are like that. Real dreams don’t end. They grow and change; new chapters open as we reach important goals. But Jesus’ call to seek justice continues.

It’s left for us to decide whether we’ll summon the courage to keep following.