CV NEWS FEED // Two college students once decided to bike across Illinois to raise funds for mothers and crisis pregnancy centers—fifteen years later, their journey across one state has developed into a national pro-life ministry and fundraised over $1 million for mothers in need.
Biking for Babies (B4B) Executive Director Nikki Biese told CatholicVote at the FOCUS SEEK24 conference this week that their ministry is a “community of young adults seeking adventure with Christ.”
“Biking for Babies proclaims the dignity of human life by uniting cycling with the formation of young adults into missionary disciples of Jesus Christ,” she said. “And we find [adventure] by putting forth our God-given gifts and talents at the service of others. For us, our vantage point is the bicycle.”
Biese said that B4B began in 2009 when co-founders Mike Schaefer and Jimmy Becker wanted to raise money for crisis pregnancy centers in a different way. On the first ride, Schaefer and Becker rode 600 miles and raised $14,000.
Since then, B4B has done a 600-mile-long bike ride every year, starting in different locations through the U.S. and culminating in either St. Louis, Missouri, or Washington, D.C. Over 15 years, B4B has raised over $1.4 million for 127 pregnancy centers and attracted around 200 missionaries.
Biese added that the funds are largely the fruit of individual conversations between the missionaries and their families and friends.
“Our goal is to allow God to work in moments of conversion one at a time,” she said. “And what we’re trying to do is really build out ourselves to be true missionary disciples, but then we go to our family and our friends and they have different understandings of what it means to be pro life.”
She continued:
So in order to actually change the culture, we have to be having conversations and support the tangible needs of these women in crisis with those funds. But we’re also able to renew the culture one conversation at a time.
Chris Sims, a B4B missionary from Kansas City, Missouri, said that he’s experienced God’s providence several times throughout his years of biking and ministering. In 2020, for example, he felt an urge to talk to and help a young woman on the side of the road—and after listening to her and buying food for her, he suddenly noticed that she was pregnant underneath her baggy t-shirt.
“I’d never, ever in that moment had such a desire to be able to love somebody, but feel like I was very incapable of doing it,” he said. “I prayed with her and asked her for her name … And I’m always going to remember that name in the back of my head, because I don’t know how she ended up.”
Sims added that B4B has given him tools both for his mind and heart to help those around him and “get them where they need to go.” In the instance of the woman on the side of the road, he had the available resources to pray with her, direct her to a pregnancy resource center and a nearby church, and intentionally interact with her.
“It’s not just a random encounter with some girl that you’re never going to meet again, at least on this side of eternity. Who knows, maybe we’ll see them in heaven someday,” he said.
