The Ripple Effect / Guest Post by George Smith

"Once our resources are given to God, He multiplies them in ways we never knew possible.” - Jonny Ardavanis

I was still in college in the Los Angeles area in 1973 when someone I was yet to meet bought a new 1973 Honda 250 Enduro motorcycle. That man was Jay Basham, a fireman in San Diego. We later became good friends as we attended the same church. How could Jay have known at that time that his obedience to God’s call would affect so many lives… with a motorcycle? This is the story of that old motorcycle.

Ruth and I were married in 1973, the same year Jay bought that bike. After college, I was a high school teacher in the small town of Holtville, California, for three years. During that time, God put it on our hearts to be full-time missionaries.

So, I left my position, and we moved to San Diego with little money and no job so I could go back to school for training to be a missionary pilot.

Mission Valley Chapel is the little church where we met Jay and his family and many other great Christian giants of the faith. One was Ed Landry, who recently went home to be with the Lord. He was also a San Diego firefighter and left his career to go to Bible school and on to missionary work in the Philippines and literally all over the world. (If you can, read one of his books, Laughing Into the Wind! You’ll love it.)

But back to the motorcycle. In 1985, after serving with New Tribes Mission, we were once again “civilians,” and I was teaching at a different high school when, out of the blue, Jay called. He offered to give me that 1973 Honda 250! He said he just felt led by God to do that, that we might need it someday if we went back into missionary work.

So, I used it to go to work for a year. Then it got parked for a while, and we eventually joined South America Mission (SAM) in 1986. We moved to San Diego again and then to Tijuana, Mexico, preparing to go to Peru.

Back to Ed Landry in the Philippines. Ed’s son, Dan, was a great volleyball player. So good that he was recruited to play for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he led them to a national championship! He needed a car but didn’t have money for one, so we gave him the Honda to use at UCLA. He drove it all over the country, I think, and then gave it back to us!

While we were waiting to leave for Peru with SAM, I was asked to be the principal of a small Christian school for that year, back in Holtville, where I first started teaching! We ran into one of the young men who was on the wrestling team I coached back in 1977, and… he needed a car but didn’t have any money for one. So we gave him the motorcycle, which he used all that year to go to work. Then he gave it back to us!

We were just getting ready to leave when another former wrestler saw my “For Sale” sign on the bike. I was all set to sell it to him when his mother stopped me! She said her son was a drug addict and urged me not to sell it to him. He was furious when I told him that the deal was off. Many years later, at a small Baptist church, I met him again. He was cleaned up, born again in Christ! And he told me, “Thanks for not selling me the motorcycle!”

So now what? What did we do with it? We just decided to take it with us to Peru. When it finally arrived months later, it became our only means of transportation, other than the rickety public taxis in our town. We used that bike for so many ministry trips! Once, another missionary and I were asked to donate blood because our blood type was rare in that area: B positive. We both rode on that Honda in a very remote area to deliver our blood to a dying woman to save her life!

Later, our family returned to the U.S. on furlough. While we were gone, I left the moto with a good friend, Dan, a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators. We were not able to return to Peru, and he was transferred to Papua New Guinea… and took the bike with him!

Since he’s a great mechanic, he completely rebuilt it and used it in ministry there for several years. When Dan was leaving, he found a Christian brother who needed transportation but didn’t have money for it and gave that 1973 Honda 250 Enduro to him. After 50 years, it’s still being used today!

Jay Basham passed away ten years ago. I don’t think he ever knew what an impact was made on so many lives by him just being obedient to what God wanted him to do.

One motorcycle, one act of obedience, one generous gift that God kept multiplying.