When Zac Foerster had the idea for Ridden Word last February, he didn’t have a building, money saved up or any expertise. He, like most, had heard the adage “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” and he simply put that truth to use.

People grow out of their bikes. Bikes get old and rusty. Some get lost. So they are thrown away.

Foerster wants to change that — he and other volunteers collect old bicycles, take them apart, clean them up and put them back together. Volunteers scrape off the bike’s stickers, spray paint the frame bright orange and write easy-to-understand Bible verses all over the orange paint. New chains and grips are added, and then Foerster gives them away.

Fulfilling a need

So far, Ridden Word has given out 138 bikes, and 50 more are expected to go into the community at Christmas.

“We want to reach the need of the community around us,” Foerster said. “The need that we fill is either transportation for adults that don’t have a vehicle or for kids for their birthday or Christmas or whatever.”

Although Ridden Word is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and not affiliated with any particular church, Foerster said he hopes to share God’s love in a non-aggressive way with the people who receive the bikes.

“Something that turns off everybody is someone who goes door-to-door with a Bible — I don’t even like those people coming to my house,” he said. “It’s just weird. But it’s really cool when you’re helping someone out, they see that you actually care about them because you spent so much time on something. Somebody who would maybe never even open a Bible, and they see those verses on there, and they’re like ‘Oh, what’s this?’ and you get to tell them.”

Foerster said he believes that meeting people’s needs and then sharing the Gospel with them is the example Jesus set for Christians.

“You read a lot about when Jesus was on Earth, he always had compassion on people, and that compassion was always followed by an action,” he said. “He never just said, ‘Man I feel bad for that crippled person, I hope they get better.’ No, he would immediately heal them. He didn’t care what other people thought, and he would break barriers of awkwardness to help somebody.”

The idea

Foerster believes God gave him the idea. He says he was not passionate about bikes and hadn’t even ridden a bike in years when the idea popped into his head.

“I think of some weird stuff a lot of times, so I didn’t know if my brain or if God was really speaking a vision to me, so I spoke to a few people about it and got their input,” Foerster said.

Others were supportive of the idea, and Foerster didn’t hesitate to start collecting bikes. The ministry took off. Soon, there wasn’t enough time in the week to get everything done, and Ridden Word needed more work space.

Foerster was assistant manager at Lowe’s in Foley at the time, and he said his hours were unpredictable, which didn’t work well with the growing ministry.

“Once this really started growing last summer, we knew for it to really get to the next step, a job change would have to happen, which was kind of weird, because I knew without a doubt that’s where God wanted me,” he said.

Then, on a vacation last October, Foerster had a dream that the man who ran the receiving department at Lowe’s turned in his resignation. The open position, which was a lower position than assistant manager, had hours that would work perfectly with Ridden Word — 4 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Friday.

“In the dream, he (the man over the receiving department) turned in his resignation, and then I heard God say, ‘If this happens, are you going to step down and take this position, or are you going to continue on in upper management?’” Foerster said.

He told his wife about the dream, and the couple agreed that if that position ever came open, he would take it.

When Foerster got to work the Monday after his vacation, his coworkers informed him the man who ran the receiving department had quit. Foerster couldn’t believe it — his dream had come true.

Get involved

Since then, the ministry has grown tremendously. Ridden Word now has its own building in Robertsdale, and volunteers come from all over the county to help prepare the bikes.

“The cool thing about the volunteering is that anybody can do it. We have seventh graders all the way up to people that are 80 years old,” Foerster said. “They can take stickers off or they can help sand. Anybody can paint. We actually teach people how to assemble them. You don’t have to have any qualifications. I never even took a bike apart before this.”

Foerster said Ridden Word’s greatest need is more volunteers. It takes about five hours to prepare one bike, and the process goes faster when more people get involved.

“It would be awesome if we were so connected with churches in the county that we would have work groups coming from all the churches, no matter what their denomination,” he said.

Although donations are always welcome, Foerster said the financial aspect of the ministry is not as much of a challenge as finding volunteers. Each bike needs about $25 in parts and supplies, and the rent at the building in Robertsdale is affordable.

Spending so much time on each bike may not seem practical, but Foerster said teaching teenagers to work on the bikes is another ministry in itself.

“Sometimes people say, ‘You could almost buy a new bike for the same price,’ but we really enjoy getting stuff that people are throwing away and getting to put money into it and making it into something that’s valuable,” he said. “And it gives you a good time to teach kids these days that once you get tired of something you don’t just throw it away.”

Ridden Word is located on Highway 59 N in Robertsdale, two blocks north of Suds Salon and Spa. There is an open volunteer night Tuesdays starting at 4:30 p.m., and dinner is served.

Foerster said volunteer times are flexible, and any group is welcome. Call 251-202-WORD or visit Ridden Word’s Facebook page for more information.